Free Republic

Four weeks away from the 2014 midterm elections and even some Democratic operatives struggle to imagine a scenario where they retain control of the U.S. Senate. The terrain and current momentum seem all but overwhelming and against them. A new CNN/ORC poll out Thursday morning suggests a Republican lead over a Democratic incumbent, this time in Alaska, and does nothing to calm Democrats' nerves. "If you put a gun to my head, I guess I'd say that we're going to lose the Senate," one Democratic consultant told me in a moment of anonymous candor. It's not even so much that...

A new poll out of Michigan’s U.S. Senate race shows that GOP candidate Terri Lynn Land is within the margin of error against Democratic nominee Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI). The poll, conducted by Wenzel Strategies from Oct. 6 through Oct. 7, shows Land at 44.3 percent and Peters at 46.9 percent. The survey of 615 likely voters in Michigan has a margin of error of 3.93 percent, meaning Peters’ 2.6 percent lead is within the margin of error. A total of 52.4 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of Peters and 37.3 percent viewed him unfavorably, while 50.9 percent...

Will conservatives lose three elections in a row – three chances to win the Senate, three chances to stop Obama and the Democrats’ agenda, three chances to put Democratic senators up in 2016 on the hot seat by forcing them to vote on popular legislation that liberals oppose – because a cohort of die-hard conservative purists cannot bring themselves to choose between the lesser of two evils? For conservatives, the stakes in this election could hardly be higher. The course could not be more clear.

During the Obama Chicago/Northwestern speech, he touted how well the economy is doing, how his policies have brought us back from the brink, millions of new jobs, etc. Well, if the economy is finally on a roll, why didn't President Obama just say that "Anyone Who Wants A Job Anywhere In The United States, CAN FIND ONE !!" Didn't Reagan or Bush make this statement during the peak years of their presidency?, Yes, we all laughed or gasped when we heard that. Well what about the 93 Million Americans who can't find a job, or gave up looking? Why didn't...

Despite calls by party leaders for would-be presidential candidates keep the gloves on, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is privately disparaging Chris Christie as the “Rudy Giuliani of this cycle,” to donors, according to a new Politico report that suggests a particularly nasty fight among GOP candidates is brewing even before the start of the 2016 campaign season. The report, quoting multiple sources, noted that Cruz is making the comparison to potential donors as he tries to expand his appeal beyond conservative Tea Partiers and access the easy campaign cash the flows most readily to those candidates with the highest...

Michigan GOP U.S. Senate nominee Terri Lynn Land called for the federal government to secure the U.S. border with Mexico and slammed President Barack Obama for failing to properly deal with Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists during an editorial board event with local news outlet MLive.com on Monday. “I’m a mom, I have two kids, and I’ll tell you it hurts my heart with these children who have come across this border,” Land said when asked about immigration reform and whether the U.S. government should allow illegal aliens to stay in the U.S. “President Obama has basically told them they could...

AUSTIN, Tex. — FOR most of a long, hot summer, Wendy Davis’s campaign for governor here resembled a cowboy lost in the desert — horseless, stumbling and finally just left for dead in the remorseless Texas heat. Despite a strong national profile, she trailed her Republican opponent, Attorney General Greg Abbott, sometimes by double digits. Among the experts, a conventional wisdom set in: Ms. Davis can’t win, Republicans can’t lose and Texas won’t change. Yet as summer has turned to fall, Ms. Davis has entered new territory: Last week a poll by the Texas Lyceum, a nonpartisan, nonprofit educational institution,...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) conceded that the state of Wisconsin lost its fight to ban same sex marriage on Monday when the Supreme Court declined to hear gay marriage cases in multiple states. With the Supreme Court's punt back to the appeals court that struck down the ban, county clerks in Wisconsin have started issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. And Walker seems to have accepted that this is the end of the road for the state's ban....

Public Policy Polling's first Connecticut poll of 2014 finds Dan Malloy with an 8 point lead for reelection over Republican foe Tom Foley, 43/35. Independent Joe Visconti is polling at 9%. Visconti is largely drawing voters away from Foley- his supporters say their second choice would be Foley by a 46/27 spread. In a head to head, Malloy's advantage over Foley is 6 points at 45/39. Malloy's had low approval numbers throughout most of his term and that hasn't changed- only 40% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 50% who disapprove. But Foley's numbers are even worse...

Are you among the 58 percent of Republicans who plan to send the president a message of opposition come Nov. 4? I certainly am. This recent Gallup poll reminds me of the comment currently circling my Facebook thanks to Emmy-award winning comedic actor/ political commentator, Dennis Miller: “Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for him.” I didn’t either (the second time around). In fact, we can see the writing on the wall this time around as the next election nears. The stats from this 2014 Gallup poll resembles the poll taken just before we witnessed the last huge gains for...

Politico’s David Nather cast the most mentioned Republican presidential contenders as un-presidential on Friday in a story headlined “GOP 2016ers on Ebola: Panic.” Only Rick Perry was the responsible one, he implied: For once, President Barack Obama and Texas Gov. Rick Perry are on the same page. At separate briefings on the Ebola crisis, Obama administration officials and Perry have delivered the same message: Don’t panic — the health authorities know what they’re doing. But for other Republicans — and conservative media outlets — it’s time for panic. The likely 2016 Republican presidential candidates — except for Perry — are...

Last year, there were 41 abortion clinics in Texas. On Thursday, 21 were left in the entire state. Today there were just seven. (An eighth is expected to open, but it is unclear whether it is open now.) Thursday evening, a three judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans allowed Texas to enforce a key provision of its sweeping abortion law, HB2, passed last year despite a filibuster by state Senator Wendy Davis — now the Democratic candidate for governor. The fate of the law is still winding its way through the appeals court process....

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is widely considered to be running for president in 2016. But he was really put out that someone apparently connected to him said so, anonymously, in a National Journal story and Cruz took to social media to make his point. “Heidi and I have not made any decisions about political plans past the mid-term elections,” Cruz posted on Facebook, referring to his wife. “Clearly we have an overzealous supporter out there making freelance comments, but to be clear, no decision has been made. “Whoever this ‘anonymous advisor’ was, he or she had no authority to...

Ruben Villarreal knew he was different, and it had nothing to do with his curlicue mustache. The Latino tire-shop owner with the ten- gallon hat had been mayor of this border town for several years before he dared to discuss his political affiliation. He felt like a “cactus around balloons.” “It’s not easy being Republican,” he said, “when everybody’s a Democrat.” As long as anyone can remember, the South Texas counties that make up the Rio Grande Valley have been two things: Hispanic and blue-as-the-big-sky Democrat. In Hidalgo County, along the Rio Grande, the locals say a Republican hasn’t won...

One of the most dispiriting storylines of the Obama era has been that Republicans have largely stood on the sidelines while a major cultural transformation has taken place: The country’s shift on gay rights. Republicans have either put up nominal resistance, or had nothing at all to say, as one change after another has come in rapid succession and majorities have come around on gay marriage. And yet you’d think the GOP cannot forever put off a real intra-party debate over whether the party will evolve culturally along with the rest of the country. That’s why it’s potentially significant that...

MILWAUKEE — She can rouse a crowd as she did here this week, connect with women and drive turnout among African-American voters. Yet despite the nail-biting closeness of state contests to decide which party will control the Senate, Michelle Obama has been largely absent from the campaign trail so far. She has her reasons, Democrats say: Mrs. Obama hates to be away from her daughters. She loathes Washington’s toxic politics. She resents Republicans for their opposition to her husband’s agenda. But she also believes some Senate Democrats have been insufficiently supportive of her own efforts to end childhood obesity. This...

Whether it's Cruz/Carson or Carson/Cruz, the Democrat ticket will have reason to worry. An Hispanic&Black ticket is the GOP's best hope to beat Hillary, or who ever is the nominee. This ticket will have the left leaning media in a state of panic. They can't bash a minority ticket. And what will Debbie Wasserman do? Accuse Ted and Ben of wife beating? If Hillary is the nominee and she is up against Cruz/Carson, will be interesting to see how she tries to tear down the first "Black/Hispanic Ticket".

In a one-on-one interview with The Brody File, Ted Cruz blames President Obama and Hillary Clinton for America’s failed leadership in the world, calling it the, “Obama/Clinton foreign policy.” “It has been a photo-op foreign policy, a press release foreign policy, Cruz tells The Brody File during a sit-down interview at the Values Voter Summit. In addition, he says the 2016 presidential election is the most important election in his lifetime. “We are at the edge of the cliff. We are at the edge of a precipice looking over and it is now or never. I don’t think we’ve reached...

So I've been catching up on all the latest accumulation of Washington wisdom — or, at least, all the wisdom that I can accumulate in a Twitter feed — and now I totally get why no one other than Rand Paul or Ted Cruz or the reincarnated Pat Buchanan can possibly win the Republican nomination in 2016. (Actually, Pat's alive and well — it's just that he's on the McLaughlin Group. My bad.) You see, the party's base voters — the ones who turn out to vote in primaries and caucuses — are too completely off the rails to nominate...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Wednesday questioned President Obama's decision to dispatch 3,000 U.S. troops to West Africa to help combat the Ebola virus. "Where is disease most transmittable? When you're in very close confines on a ship," Paul said on Laura Ingraham's radio show. "We all know about cruises and how they get these diarrhea viruses that are transmitted very easily and the whole ship gets sick. Can you imagine if a whole ship full of our soldiers catch Ebola?" "It's a big mistake to downplay and act as if 'oh, this is not a big deal, we can...