Free Republic

The Republican National Committee is asking a federal court to restore the ability of national parties to raise unlimited amounts of money and to spend it to help elect state-level candidates. The case focuses on hotly contested governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia. The 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign financing law (PL 107-155) does not allow national parties to give money directly to state candidates. The RNC wants to change that so it can expressly back the party nominee for governor, advertise and send out mailings on behalf of state or local Republican candidates and make get-out-the-vote calls. The law also...

I have had the distinct pleasure of serving with Senator John McCain for the last 12 years in the U.S. Senate. Yet just as important to me as our shared years of service is our common respect for the conservative principles that have guided us in representing our state. That is why the characterization of John McCain as something other than a common-sense conservative is disturbing to me. Senator McCain’s detractors overlook his actual voting record of supporting conservative values. During my time in the Senate with John McCain, we have cast the same vote nearly nine times out of...

If Hillary Clinton ends up running against John McCain for the presidency in 2008, the two might vaguely remember competing against each other once before. That would have been in the summer of 2004 in Estonia where, according to The New York Times, the margin of victory was not votes, but shots of vodka. The instigator of the after-dinner contest, the Times reported for its Saturday editions, was Clinton, D-N.Y. McCain, R-Ariz., readily agreed. Aides to McCain did not return messages seeking comment Friday. Philippe Reines, Clinton's spokesman, played coy. "What happens in Estonia stays in Estonia," he said Friday...

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's vice president on Monday told top U.S. Republican Sen. John McCain he could "go to hell" for suggesting that "wackos" were governing the oil-producing South American country. Commenting on U.S. reliance on foreign oil supplies, McCain told Fox News Sunday, "We better understand the vulnerabilities that our economy and our very lives have ... when we're dependent on Iranian mullahs and wackos in Venezuela." Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and an OPEC member like Iran, supplies 15 percent of U.S. energy imports. But ties between Washington and left-wing President Hugo Chavez have deteriorated rapidly...

WASHINGTON -- Arizona Sen. John McCain privately urged fellow Republicans Tuesday to compromise with Democrats over President Bush's stalled judicial nominees, but Majority Leader Bill Frist countered by asking which of the controversial appeals court candidates should be jettisoned as part of a deal, according to officials familiar with the meeting. With a Senate showdown looming, possibly as early as next week, Democratic leader Harry Reid challenged Frist to allow GOP senators to "follow their consciences" when voting on a streamlined procedure for certain judicial nominations. "Senators should be bound by Senate loyalty rather than party loyalty on a question...

When CQ first covered the Bradley Smith interview that started the blogswarm on the FEC and the BCRA this week, I noted several unusual relationships between the donors and the institute, all hinging on Richard Davis, RI's president and John McCain's campaign manager. Since Davis also acts as McCain's chief political advisor, I found it odd that the RI -- which pays Davis a $110,000 "consulting fee" annually instead of a salary as its president -- received money from donors such as the sources that follow below. Bear in mind, please, that foundations don't just line up to hand out...