Free Republic

Since 1952, nearly every battle for an open Republican presidential nomination when there has been no Republican incumbent running for re-election has followed two dependable storylines. First, a year before the party convention, the GOP voters have settled on a front-runner and then, with the only exception being former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (who, before he self-destructed his campaign in 2008, led in the 2007 polls), 12 months later, nominated that early front-runner. Beginning with Dwight Eisenhower in 1951 — followed by Richard Nixon in 1959 (and again in 1967), Barry Goldwater in 1963, Ronald Reagan in 1979, George...

If there's one think you can say about the 2016 Republican presidential field, it is this: It is going to be HUGE. There are currently 23 names on the long, long list of potential candidates. That's twice (!) as many people as have ever run for the GOP nomination in the past. Now, not all of those "candidates" will actually run -- Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker and Rep. Marsha Blackburn don't make much sense as presidential candidates, to name just two -- but that's a huge field of prospective candidates. And while all two dozen names being mentioned won't make...

Though the Republican presidential primaries are some 14 months away, the groundwork now being set will separate those who are likely to be serious contenders from the also-rans, writes veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove in The Wall Street Journal. Rove calls this crucial stage-setting process the "invisible primaries" in which the candidates compete to distill their messages, raise cash, and put together cohesive campaign staffs. He dismisses current polling numbers — showing Mitt Romney way ahead — as reflecting "little more than name recognition." Rove lauds New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, and Sen. Marco Rubio,...

Sen. Ted Cruz is winning on social media. Between Sept. 1 to Dec. 1, the Texas Republican garnered the most mentions on Twitter out of 10 potential 2016 candidates, with 4.55 million mentions to his two handles, @SenTedCruz and @TedCruz, according to data provided to Politico. Cruz also had similar success on Facebook, with 1.8 million people talking about him, adding up to a whopping 5.6 million interactions (posts, comments and likes) between Aug. 22 and Nov. 22. The only other candidate with as much clout as Cruz on social media was former Secretary of State and likely 2016 Democratic...

While discussing The View on Tuesday's Wendy Williams Show, Joy Behar called Nicolle Wallace “a day at the beach” in comparison to her predecessor Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Hasselbeck, who has since moved on to a cozy job with Fox News Channel, was known for her conservative opinions, which often resulted in heated debates between her and the show’s other hosts. Wallace, who has been labeled a conservative, peculiarly finds herself in the favorable opinion of Behar: "I like that little Republican over there. Nicole [Wallace]," Behar said of The View's newest co-host. "You know, I have dealt with Elisabeth Hasselbeck and...

Even after a historic midterm win, Republican confusion over how to respond to Obama on immigration is evidence of a changing party.It was a quiet meeting on the eve of a political explosion. At 4 p.m. on Wednesday, 30 or so members of the 2012 GOP freshman class of the House of Representatives gathered in a conference room in the Capitol Visitor Center for what’s become a monthly conclave. For the junior representatives, this was a chance to get some face time with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Everyone knew that the next evening, President Barack Obama planned to deliver an...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)DES MOINES, Iowa – His name is growing in popularity across the country and across the state and on Saturday Dr. Ben Carson was back in Des Moines for the second time since August. He spoke tonight at the “Celebrate the Family” dinner event hosted by The Family Leader. The retired neuro surgeon confirms he’s thinking about running for president in 2016 but didn’t go into detail during his speech. Carson spoke for 45 minutes on several issues; faith and government, health and education. He says, “Really the thing that is going to save America, is going to be the...

GOP's Sessions: Obama's amnesty 'worse than you think'WASHINGTON – Phone lines are melting on Capitol Hill with outraged citizens calling their elected representatives to complain about the president’s order effectively granting amnesty to illegal immigrants. A number of Capitol Hill offices closed today for the Thanksgiving recess, but aides report hearing from upset voters even at the offices in lawmakers’ home states. The offices of Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, confirmed a flood of complaints, and an aide to Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., told WND, “We are getting tons of phone calls to block executive amnesty.” “I...

Dear Republican Party, On November 4th the American people spoke with a resounding voice, and voted “no” to President Obama’s Marxist Progressive agenda/tactics. The numbers show the American people gave you a definitive mandate as well. Democrats are now at their lowest numbers in state legislatures nationwide in 86 years, and Republicans now control more than two-thirds of the state legislative chambers across the country. Republicans have the most seats in the U.S. House of Representatives since before the Great Depression. Republicans posted one of the top five election year swings in the U.S. Senate in the past 70 years....

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) on Sunday warned that President Obama's executive actions and general "lawlessness" on immigration could lead to "ethnic cleansing." Kobach, a vocal advocate of the anti-immigrant movement, claimed during his radio talk show that there was a strategy to replace American voters with Hispanic ones who favored socialism. "The long term strategy of, first of all, replacing American voters with illegal aliens, recently legalized, who then become U.S. citizens," Kobach said. "There is still a decided bias in favor of bigger government not smaller government. So maybe this strategy of replacing American voters with...

A Minnesota Republican Party official issued a “call to arms” against Muslims Thursday, calling them “terrorists” and “parasites” and suggesting that someone should “frag ‘em.” Jack Whitley, chairman of the Big Stone County Republican Party, has no apology for a series of inflammatory posts on his personal Facebook page -- remarks state GOP officials have condemned as "outrageous." “Muslims are terrorists. They don’t belong in this country,” Whitley told the Star Tribune Thursday.

The top minds in the proto-Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign infrastructure are already gaming out Electoral College scenarios. What they think they have is a candidate who could compete in a handful of traditionally red states, putting Republicans on the defensive and increasing her chances of winning the White House. Mitch Stewart, Obama's 2012 battleground state director who is now an independent consultant advising the grassroots group Ready for Hillary, laid out the electoral math to TPM in a recent interview. Clinton will start with Obama's map, he said, and can build from there. There are two buckets of states potentially...

From the first post-cruise edition of the Morning Jolt… What (Some of) You Missed on the National Review Post-Election Cruise Beats a polar vortex, doesn’t it? A bit of 2016 talk from our recently-concluded cruise… Allen West pointed out you don’t often see two presidential candidates from the same state competing against each other for long – their bases of support among donors, activists, and volunteers usually overlap and they can’t sustain two candidates simultaneously. At this very early date, the potential Republican 2016 field includes two candidates from Florida (Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio), two from Texas (Ted Cruz...

LEBANON, N.H. -- Can you discern, deep in the new Republican Party -- amid the conservative warriors and tea-infused crusaders -- a faint moderate heartbeat? Hardly anyone is asking that question this month, in the wake of the Republican tsunami that swept Democrats out of office and swept a Republican majority into the Senate chamber. But two unrelated events this month make the question worth posing, if only to explore the possibility and to understand the political landscape here in the state that only 15 months from now will hold the first presidential primary. The first of those events took...

DES MOINES, Iowa — If you’re a die-hard Democrat in New York hoping to overcome the disappointment that was Nov. 4, you’re worried. But here in Iowa, where the first-in-the-nation caucuses are a mere 14 months away, some are breaking into a cold sweat. Most party leaders here will assure you all conversations about the 2016 presidential nomination still begin and end with Hillary Clinton. The former first lady and secretary of state is a sentimental favorite. Though she has not formally announced her candidacy, her well-oiled super PAC may be the most deeply rooted ever at this stage in...

Political prognostications are a risky business. But I have been thinking about what the Republicans might do if Hillary Clinton announces in early 2015 (since she has indicated that is when she will make her decision) that she is running for president. While Republicans dislike this prospect because they know she might win, not to mention take most of the available oxygen out of the race along the way, they understand that they have no woman in their ranks who is qualified to be president, and it is a stretch to say they even have a woman qualified to be...

Twenty years ago, emboldened by Newt Gingrich's triumphant "Republican revolution" in the midterm elections, a raft of Republicans--some famous, some not so famous--readied their campaigns to take on a Democrat named Clinton in a race that may well echo in 2016, albeit with a different Clinton. The 1994 "Republican Revolution," had just taken hold, and Republican party scrambled for the GOP presidential nomination and the chance to take on President Bill Clinton in 1996. It turned out to be more difficult than some of those candidates anticipated. "My name-face recognition was pretty low," said former Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, one...

The Democratic dream of “turning Texas blue” dissolved on Nov. 4. The left had elevated Wendy Davis, an obscure state senator, to superstar status after she delivered an emotional 11-hour panegyric to abortion. She was expected to ride her celebrity status and the “war on women” into the executive mansion in Austin. She had only to defeat a Republican white man. It didn’t quite work out that way, drawing just 38.9 percent of the vote. From the top of the ballot on down, the wreckage from the Democratic effort was strewn across the state from Texarkana westward to El Paso....

Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Clinton? Gradually it is sinking in to Official Washington that the 2014 election could very well do to Democrats what the 1930 election did to Republicans: make them irrelevant for at least a generation. In 1930, the first election after the Stock Market Crash saw Republicans go from a 270-164 majority in the House to a minority, albeit by one seat. In the next three elections, Republicans would continue to lose until there were only 88 Republicans in the House after the 1936 election. The Depression wiped out two-thirds of the House...

Fox News and potential presidential candidate Ben Carson went their separate ways last week. Is Fox host and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee next? The tension between Huckabee's current job and possible future job has been laid bare in a number of recent news stories. Huckabee, who sought the Republican nomination for president in 2008, is clearly considering a second run -- which would mean he'd have to give up his Saturday night show on Fox News. On Wednesday, Fox News executive vice president of programming Bill Shine indicated that a decision might be made soon. "We are taking a...