Free Republic

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Wednesday refused to pick sides in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. "You know, I don’t want to get into it," he told hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski during a MSNBC town hall in Charleston, S.C.

Doubts about Mitt Romney’s fitness for the White House disappear when skittish Republicans, conservatives and even evangelicals consider the alternative: another four years of President Obama and his evolving administration.

The Daily Beast's Meghan McCain on why the far-right pundit, who says McCain needs to shut up, won’t be getting her wish—and why telling moderates to get out of the party is bad for the GOP. BY MEGHAN MCCAIN Michelle Malkin, the conservative pundit and author of the recent book Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, was asked during a live chat on Politico’s The Arena on Friday which conservative political figure or commentator needs to shut up. Guess who her answer was? Yeah, that’s right—yours truly. So Michelle Malkin successfully rounds out...

Gov. Crist wants to be Sen. Crist, and to get there he's running in two very different races at once. That explains Gov. Crist's fixation on dishwashers and guns. Last week, Gov. Crist announced with fanfare "his commitment to increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions." He really was endorsing $17.5''million in federal rebates for Floridians to buy energy-efficient refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers and such. It's like the popular "cash for clunkers," but aimed at appliances instead of cars. This is a perfect polishing of the populist, moderate Charlie Crist. Middle-class voters who can't afford a new car can afford,...

WASHINGTON—A week from today, Americans will pick a new president, but a surprising beneficiary may be off the ballot: Mitt Romney. With polls in key states forecasting a comfortable victory by Sen. Barack Obama and fellow Democrats, Republicans may find themselves booted out of the White House, shoved further into the minority in Congress and marginalized in the powerhouse of Washington. If Sen. John McCain loses next Tuesday, Romney could be well positioned to rise as a leader of the Republican Party to guide conservatives through a few years in the political wilderness and a favorite for the GOP presidential...

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s (Ariz.) latest television ad says that the country is in worse shape now than it was before President Bush began his second term. “Washington’s broken. John McCain knows it,” the ad says. “We’re worse off than we were four years ago.” The ad, titled “Broken,” shows that McCain is, at least in part, running away from President Bush’s record and looking to win favor with the centrist voters who have supported him in the past. The ad, which is slated to run in key states, comes after Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) made...

ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today released its latest television ad, entitled "Broken." The ad highlights John McCain's record of taking on the special interests in Washington. The ad will air in key states. VIEW THE AD HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylJkmMR8Fek Script For "Broken" (TV :60) ANNCR: Washington's broken. John McCain knows it. We're worse off than we were four years ago. Only McCain has taken on big tobacco, drug companies, fought corruption in both parties. He'll reform Wall Street, battle Big Oil, make America prosper again. He's the original maverick. One is ready to lead -- McCain....

Senator McCain gave a speech in Portland, Oregon Monday reiterating and explaining his longstanding support for a “cap-and-trade” approach to global warming. He proposes that the government require reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions but allow companies to trade emissions credits, supposedly creating an efficient, market-based distribution of the regulatory burden. Support for this policy is the biggest mistake his campaign has made so far. Early in this speech, Sen. McCain ran through a litany of woes that we can expect from global warming: “reduced water supplies, more forest fires than in previous decades, changes in crop production, more heat waves afflicting...

(The Politico) "The hot-button issue of immigration doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon – at least not in Republican circles. On NPR’s “Morning Edition” today, John McCain suggested that strong anti-immigrant rhetoric contributed to two recent, high-profile GOP Congressional losses – of former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who badly lost to Sen. Bob Casey in 2006, and Jim Oberweis, who lost the heavily Republican seat of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert this month in a special election.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- Embattled....Bernard Kerik has withdrawn from contracts to advise two Caribbean governments on security because of his unresolved legal troubles......President Bharrat Jagdeo announced... Kerik was canceling commitments to Guyana and Trinidad......Kerik did not want either country "tainted" by allegations of ethics violations. Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Sat Mar 3, 3:14 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has taken a wide lead over his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination but many voters remain unaware of his stand on key issues, a new poll showed Saturday. Giuliani is favored by an impressive 59 percent of Republican voters over his main rival, Senator John McCain (news, bio, voting record), who trails with 34 percent support, according to the latest Newsweek poll. Giuliani has surged ahead since a January 25 Newsweek poll, when he had a narrow lead of four points over McCain that...

Secret study cited "weirdness factor" among candidate weaknesses FEBRUARY 12--As he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph Giuliani will have to contend with political and personal baggage unknown to prospective supporters whose knowledge of the former New York mayor is limited to his post-September 11 exploits. So, in a bid to educate the electorate, we're offering excerpts from a remarkable "vulnerability study" that was commissioned by Giuliani's campaign prior to his successful 1993 City Hall run. The confidential 450-page report, authored by Giuliani's research director and another aide, was the campaign's attempt to identify possible lines of attack against...

As Mayor Giuliani looks over the acres of gleaming tractors, mammoth cotton harvesters, and hightech cow milking equipment at a fair in California's vast agricultural heartland tomorrow morning, he will surely feel like he's a long way from Manhattan. The prospect of a visit from the man billed as America's mayor already has local folks in California's central valley atwitter. "Honestly, this is probably the biggest name we've had," the chairman of the World Ag Expo in Tulare, Calif., Bruce Shannon, said yesterday. Mr. Shannon allowed that Mr. Giuliani had "probably not run into a lot of combines and tractors"...

<p>There's no nice way to put this. The Republican ideologues in Virginia's House of Delegates are failing. They are failing the people of Virginia, failing to fulfill their constitutional duties, failing as leaders and failing to come up with anything resembling a real budget. They can't even convince us that they are working any longer or care about anything other than ideology.</p>