Free Republic

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) used the "nuclear option" yesterday to eliminate the free and open debate of judicial nominations. Harry Reid did this because he knows Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will let him get away with it. The only way to deter a nuclear attack is to make it clear that the response will be equally devastating. Unfortunately, weakness is the only message Mitch McConnell has sent the Democrats on this issue. He's been so ineffective that even his allies in the mainstream media are mocking him with political cartoons like the one shown here from Politico....

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on a conference call organized by Karl Rove’s Crossroads organization for large donors and their advisers on Oct. 30 that the Tea Party movement, in his view, is a “nothing but a bunch of bullies” that he plans to “punch … in the nose.” On the call, according to a donor who was on it, McConnell personally named Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) as Tea Party conservatives he views as problematic for him. “The bulk of it was an attack on the Tea Party in general, Cruz in particular,” the source,...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on a conference call organized by Karl Rove’s Crossroads organization for large donors and their advisers on Oct. 30 that the Tea Party movement, in his view, is a “nothing but a bunch of bullies” that he plans to “punch … in the nose.” On the call, according to a donor who was on it, McConnell personally named Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) as Tea Party conservatives he views as problematic for him. “The bulk of it was an attack on the Tea Party in general, Cruz in particular,” the source,...

Businessman Vance McAllister has won the special runoff election for a vacant northeast Louisiana congressional seat, notching an upset win over fellow Republican Neil Riser, according to the Associated Press. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, McAllister, a political newcomer, led Riser, a state senator who had won the support of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and much of the state’s GOP congressional delegation, 59.7 percent to 40.3 percent. McAllister will succeed former GOP Rep. Rodney Alexander, who resigned in August to take a job in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration after spending more than a decade in the House. Riser...

The Obama administration is offering a "thinly described illegal bribe" to entice insurance companies to reinstate plans they have canceled, GOP operative Karl Rove says. Appearing Thursday on Fox News Channel's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren," Rove held up a three-page letter sent out Thursday by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services explaining that the "risk corridor program" would be expanded to help companies "ameliorate unanticipated changes in premium revenue." The problem, Rove said, is that the risk corridor program applies only to "qualified plans" under the Affordable Care Act – not to grandfathered plans. "What they're saying...

In a Quinnipiac poll, just 30% of independents approve of ObamaCare. This problem will get worse and poses a dilemma for Mr. Obama and Democrats. A March analysis by Healthpocket.com estimated that less than 2% of individual plans comply with ObamaCare's mandates. A Nov. 7 study by McClatchy Newspapers suggests as many as 52 million people, including many covered by their employers, could lose their plan. Until now, many people who disagreed with Mr. Obama's agenda still liked him. But a late October Fox poll found his personal favorability at 45% and his unfavorability at 50%. Duplicity will do that....

Having lost a 17 point lead in a month, North Carolina’s Democrat Senator Kay Hagan is in big political trouble. Her blood is in the water and the sharks are closing in on her. North Carolina is swimming in the opposite direction of its neighbor Virginia. The Tar Heel State is run by Republicans and many of them are conservatives. One of them who is not a conservative is Thom Tillis and predictably he is Karl Rove’s candidate in the coming Republican primary to run against Hagan. Although he is the Speaker of North Carolina’s House, Tillis is not a...

Republican operatives want to help establishment candidates fend off tea party challenges with a new weapon: unlimited cash. Consultants and attorneys — including the co-founder of the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC — are laying the groundwork or have already filed paperwork for dozens of super PACs organized to support individual candidates running next year. -spies- Single-candidate super PACs also is a sign party leaders believe donors are unhappy with the results of big money groups in recent years — and are willing to take their checkbooks elsewhere. Rove’s Crossroads groups budgeted more than $300 million on a plan to defeat...

He’s calling it “America’s Most Pivotal Senate Race,” and Thom Tillis is bringing in the big guns. John Frank of Under the Dome reported Thursday morning that GOP strategist and longtime Republican king-maker Karl Rove will be traveling to North Carolina later this month to attend three fundraisers for US Senate candidate Thom Tillis. These three events will be in Cary, Fayetteville, and Charlotte. This really isn’t surprising considering Tillis attended an American Crossroads meeting last month, and the group launched a web campaign this week targeting Kay Hagan. American Crossroads is the political action committee ran by Rove which...

Democrats all over the country rejoice at the news that Terry McAuliffe defeated Republican Ken Cuccinelli in the race for Virginia governor on Tuesday. To them, this victory is a resounding triumph over the conservative right, and a clear message to all Americans that the radical ideas of the Tea Party have no place at the national or state level. To them, this is a loud and clear message that the Tea Party and their radical agenda are on their way out. What is the real message of the Virginia gubernatorial race? -snip- Do you think it is possible, that...

Senate Republicans are spoiling for a fight this primary season as they try to take back control of the party from conservative activists. -snip- “If super PACs are going to get involved in primaries, there has to be some other people involved in primaries who are interested in actually winning the election in November — and not just purifying the party in the primary,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who ran the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the past two cycles and faces reelection next year. With the blessing of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the hardball plan is already...

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is taking an unusually aggressive posture toward one of its conservative antagonists, putting out word that GOP groups shouldn't hire a consulting firm that works with the Senate Conservatives Fund. The New York Times's Jonathan Martin reports: Even more striking, a senior official at the committee called individual Republican Senate campaigns and other party organizations this week and urged them not to hire the firm, Jamestown Associates, in an effort to punish them for working for the Senate Conservatives Fund, a group founded by Jim DeMint, then a South Carolina senator, that is trying to...

The far right, feeling the sting of Ken Cuccinelli’s defeat in the Virginia gubernatorial race, have decided to blame the Republican National Committee. Understand it was the Virginia right wing that insisted on a closed convention and chased Bill Bolling out of the race. Understand that right-wing talk show hosts often implore their listeners not to give money to the RNC. And further understand that no poll before the final couple of days showed the race close. So why exactly is the RNC to blame?

Leaders of the Republican establishment, alarmed by the emergence of far-right and often unpredictable Tea Party candidates, are pushing their party to rethink how it chooses nominees and advocating changes they say would result in the selection of less extreme contenders. The push comes as the national Republican Party is grappling with vexing divisions over its identity and image, and mainstream leaders complain that more ideologically-driven conservatives are damaging the party with tactics like the government shutdown. The debate intensified on Wednesday after Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the deeply conservative Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, lost a close race...

Ken Cuccinelli lost the governor's race in Virginia, but here's the thing — he didn't lose by that much. Only 3 points. Because the race came so close, far right Republicans blame the GOP establishment for not doing more to give Cuccinelli a boost. The Republican National Committee put $9 million into Gov. Bob McDonnell's campaign in 2009. This year, Cuccinelli got $3 million. Cuccinelli "was betrayed by his own party," Rush Limbaugh told listeners on Wednesday afternoon, but the betrayal was not a surprise. Limbaugh said: "In Virginia the GOP simply didn't want a Tea Party candidate winning there....

Shortly after the polls closed at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, the AP and other media outlets easily called the New Jersey governor's race for Republican incumbent Chris Christie, based on exit polls. He defeated Sen. Barbara Buono, a Democrat, by taking a third of the Democratic votes in the state, and two-thirds of independents. The win for the GOP in New Jersey will likely be in contrast to the expected results of a handful of other big races this Tuesday, including the New York City Mayor's race, and the Virginia governor's race. That could be, in part, why the national...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who lost the 2012 election to President Barack Obama, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he believed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie could “easily” become the GOP presidential nominee in 2016 and “save our party.” Christie most recently made national news when he decided to drop a legal challenge to rulings in New Jersey state courts that declared same-sex marriage legal there. And not long before that, he changed his position on the question of whether illegal aliens should get in-state tuition rates at New Jersey state colleges. Now he backs legislation...

A prominent figure in the Republican party and one to watch as 2016 approaches, Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush Monday night offered a fiscal and social blueprint for the conservative movement, pushing for economic freedom and a repeal of Obamacare. Speaking before a crowd of who's-who in the Republican Party, Bush decried Washington's current fiscal path as bogged down with unnecessary bureaucratic regulations and laden with policies that benefit the rich while disenfranchising the working-class. "Our current policy awards portfolio Americans at the expense of pay check America while enabling the greatest sustained deficits in American history," -snip- "Much of...

Everything you ever thought about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is wrong. He really is a fighter after all. At a recent fundraiser with 300 K street donors, as reported by Politico, Mitch McConnell was in a combative mood. According to one attendee, he was “in fighting mode.” No, he was not in a fighting mode against Obama and the Democrats. As he spoke at a K street retreat, the relaxation of his comfort zone kicked in and he rallied the establishment faithful against conservatives: Mitch McConnell isn’t going to have another government shutdown on his watch. The Kentucky Republican...

Republican Rep. Jeff Denham will break with his party and back a broad immigration reform proposal supported by Democrats. The California congressman told Univision that he would become the first Republican co-sponsor of an immigration bill written by House Democrats that would bolster border security and provide a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11.7 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. “Yes, I will be the first Republican coming together on this full bill dealing with all aspects of immigration,” he told Univision anchor Jorge Ramos in Spanish during an interview that will air on “Al Punto” this...