Free Republic

When David Jolly beat Alex Sink in a recent special election for a Florida congressional seat, the knee jerk reaction from the GOPe’s pet pollsters was to immediately warn the Republican rank and file that Jolly didn’t win because of Obamacare. “Who are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes?” came to mind. Phonies like Karl Rove pontificated about how winning elections requires more than simply getting on the right side of issues voters care about and hammering that message home. Hey, who knew there was more to winning elections than supporting the things voters want and opposing...

Karl Rove was in Sacramento recently and was speaking to the community's business leaders. The event was a $1000 a plate "Leadership Trust" dinner held by the National Federation of Independent Businesses. Rove talked about the upcoming governor's race in California and gave his two cents on the Republican candidates. As to be expected, he suggested that Republican put their support behind the establishment candidate and not the Tea Party favorite. Rove said, "that if the Republicans have to pick someone to lose to Jerry Brown, they'd be stupid to not to pick" Neel Kashkari, who is the establishment choice...

VIDEO AT LINK On Fox News Channel's "America's Newsroom" on Tuesday, former adviser to President George W. Bush Karl Rove reacted to remarks from former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) that called certain types of illegal immigration an "act of love"...

The clip comes from Politico but the translation comes from Mark Krikorian: Karl Rove to Jeb Bush: Wait til _after_ the election to say what you really think http://t.co/Dk3JXnjhmj— Mark Krikorian (@MarkSKrikorian) April 8, 2014 The weirdest thing to me about Jeb’s “act of love” comment is that, as recently as last year, he was positioning himself as some sort of hardliner on the citizenship issue. Remember? No citizenship for illegals, he said; permanent residency is fine but to grant them full citizen privileges would offend the rule of law. Fast-forward a year and now lawbreaking is an act of...

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the Beltway GOP Establishment has been pushing a liberal, pro-abortion candidate in the U.S. Senate Primary here in Oregon. I talked about how the tired narrative that somehow we have to be more liberal to win elections remains alive and well in DC circles and how the “experts” – including Karl Rove, Saxby Chambliss, Susan Collins, and Richard Burr — do not believe that a conservative pro-life candidate can win in Oregon. They think they know better than those of us fighting here in the trenches. Well, a new Harper poll just...

The GOP establishment is piling on in its support of Thom Tillis. Two sources confirm to the National Journal that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will endorse the North Carolina House speaker, the Republican front-runner for his party's Senate nomination who is fighting off an array of opponents in a primary. The endorsement is expected before the state's May 6 primary. One source with knowledge of the situation said the chamber also plans to air TV ads on his behalf, a big boost for a candidate who already holds a sizable fundraising advantage over his intra-party foes. The business group's...

It's not hard to understand why. Even without a replay of the Bachmann-Cain-Gingrich-Perry-Paul GOP primary freak show of 2012, the party is heading into its confrontation with Hillary Clinton at a serious general election disadvantage. Some of the weakness has demographic roots that no single candidate can change in a single race. But the rest is a product of the party's rightward lurch over the past six years — and a restive base that demands absolute ideological purity on the part of candidates. The result, as in 2012, is likely to be a primary contest devoted to winning the Real...

With eyes increasingly on him, Jeb Bush signaled on Sunday the kind of campaign he would mount if he ran for president: one arguing against ideological purity tests while challenging party orthodoxy on issues like immigration and education. Even as he sharply criticized President Obama for his handling of foreign affairs and health care, Mr. Bush made clear that he would run against the style of politics that has characterized recent Republican nominating contests. He said he would decide by the end of the year, in part on whether he thought that with a “hopeful” message, he could avoid “the...

Jeb Bush and Bobby Jindal appear in a commercial that will air Sunday to promote NewRepublican.org, a project focused on outlining a positive GOP agenda for the future. The former Florida governor and the current Louisiana governor, both potential 2016 presidential candidates, support a super PAC that is the brainchild of Republican strategist Alex Castellanos. “If you believe that every parent ought to be able to choose their child’s school, and that the economy should be driven from the bottom up, not the top down from Washington, then you’re thinking like a New Republican,” Bush says to the camera at...

Republican U.S. Senate candidates need to define themselves quickly against their better known opponents, or else Democratic PACs will sully them, GOP strategist Karl Rove wrote in a commentary in The Wall Street Journal. In West Virginia, South Dakota, and Montana — red states where incumbent Democrats retired — Republican candidates have solid leads. By mid-April, Democratic donors may decide to back off rather than squander additional resources. This means West Virginia's Shelley Moore Capito, South Dakota's Mike Rounds, and Montana's Steve Daines "are positioned to win if they keep the pressure on," Rove wrote. Incumbent Democratic senators in four...

You know who wants Jeb Bush to run for president? The pundits. It's not that they pine for another Bush in the White House; it's that they need a GOP front-runner, preferably a household name. The Republican race is too amorphous for their taste. Every story has to mention Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio and on and on. What journalists love is a two-person showdown, especially if each candidate hails from a different wing of the party, paving the way for lots of civil war themes. Christie was their guy. A brash, blunt blue-stater with...

A new report from Politico’s Ken Vogel details how ten major GOP consultant firms who made a combined $1 billion off Mitt Romney’s failed 2012 White House bid are still large and in charge of GOP politics, raking in millions more for the 2014 cycle. According to Vogel’s analysis, the firms and the consultants who work for them have already made—through January 2014, nearly a full year before the midterm elections—more than $19.6 million. “They’ve also cemented relationships with some of the GOP’s rising stars, setting up the firms for even bigger paydays headed into the fall, when costly advertising...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Grover Norquist, the influential conservative who serves as president of Americans for Tax Reform, thinks there are only six Republicans who can win the 2016 Republican nomination for president. His list, which he told Business Insider in an approximately hour-long interview Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. "There are only six people who can credibly run start-to-finish, and any of them could conceivably win the presidency," Norquist said....

Dewhurst is fighting for his political legacy after presiding over the Texas Senate for 11 years. In that role, he has chosen committee leaders, controlled the legislative agenda and maintained the Texas Senate's clubby atmosphere that keeps the wheels of government turning. But after his loss to Ted Cruz in the 2012 GOP primary race for the U.S. Senate, Dewhurst has tacked hard to the right. He has talked more about banning almost all abortions and even appointed Patrick to chair one of the Senate's most power committees, public education. Patrick, meanwhile, focused on passing abortion restrictions and expanding the...

If 2016 brings another Bush-Clinton matchup, not all famous last names are equal at the start. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll makes clear why it’s better to be associated with the 42nd president than the 43rd and 41st, at least for now. The poll has plenty of good news for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Two-thirds of Americans say they’d consider voting for Clinton in 2016, and a full 25 percent say they will definitely support her. Again, among all Americans – not just Democrats, or Democrats and independents – one in four say they are fully on board for Hillary...

Sen. John Cornyn (R.-Tx.) loves to heap praise for his buddy, Karl Rove, a GOP Establishment political operative, who is calling for Republicans to play nice with Hillary Clinton. Cornyn has described Rove as "my friend for a long time." The Texas Tribune reports that, "Once the Texas GOP's go-to campaign strategist, Karl Rove has become something of a boogeyman for campaigns on both sides of the ballot in the 2014 election cycle." Rove explained that Sen. Cornyn is a true friend of the liberal elite in Washington D.C. Rove is quoted as saying that, “His colleagues like him a...

The man known as ‘Bush’s Brain’ and who Bob Woodward says will just ‘never go away’ is championing the perpetuation of a failed Republican strategy. During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Karl Rove actually asserted that if Hillary Clinton runs in 2016, Republicans should not attack her. ... Fighting the corruption of the Clintons and the Obama administration is what conservatives are for. Rove is clueless about this while simultaneously running interference for Hillary.

If the Republican Party is looking to make inroads with Hispanic voters -- it need only to look at Texas. A recent Gallup poll found that in the Lone Star state the Democratic Party’s traditional advantage with Hispanic voters is much narrower than the national average. Nationwide, 30 percent more Hispanics identify as a Democrat than a Republican, compared to just 19 percent in Texas. Part of the reason is that Latino culture has been ingrained in Texas since its founding. Many families can trace their family tree back to when Texas was part of Mexico. But Republican strategist Karl...

Let it be known! Just as Karl Rove did in 2010 and 2012, this festering wart is working behind the scenes to destroy any hopes of grassroots victory in 2014, even if it means destroying any hopes of GOP victory in 2014. It's a small price to pay for money-grubbing uber-RINO, Karl Marx Rove. There are three races in which the grassroots is energized to win the Republican primary with a fresh face. Kentucky, North Carolina, and Mississippi And aside from that, there are seven other states in which the campaigns have not been managed as well, have been divided,...

"JOHN CORNYN RALLY," read the LED billboard outside the Maude Cobb convention center. "NEAL MCCOY CONCERT." After 3 p.m., around a thousand local Republican activists started lining up for all of it. For $25, they could watch a local hero country singer perform a full show, collect all the GOP swag they wanted (in Cornyn tote bags), crack open free peanuts and sodas -- oh, yes, and to meet Texas's senior senator. If they parted with four figures, they could talk to Cornyn and Karl Rove at a private reception before the show. -snip- At the Longview rally, Karl Rove...