Free Republic

Ted Cruz may have been the first to announce a run for the presidency, but John Kasich connects with middle class voters, cares for the poor, and balances budgets. If not Bush, who? If I were a betting man, I would be that Jeb Bush would win the GOP nomination and that he would face off against Hillary Clinton. Sounds kind of boring, but after eight years of President Obama, boring sounds great. But what if it’s not Bush. Who would it be? Here is my Top 10 list, from worst to first: 10) Ted Cruz: I don’t think that...

Rand Paul has cast himself as a Diogenes for the modern era, a truth-seeker who can't seem to find an honest man — or woman — no matter where he shines his lamp in Washington. That's why his willingness to say almost anything about himself and other Republicans, regardless of whether it's true, poses an existential threat to his brand. It's only a matter of time before the offended start punching back publicly, and that will surely start with fellow Republicans. Many of them had a right to be aggrieved after Paul's speech this weekend at the First in the...

Ted Cruz is running for president as an outsider, and his relatively lean campaign staff reflects that approach. The Texas senator, who once played a pivotal role in shutting down the federal government, loves to rail against Washington, and his supporters have embraced the tagline “make D.C. listen.” Cruz was the first presidential contender out of the gates with an official announcement and did so with a core group of staffers that lacks bold-faced Beltway names. It’s largely a Texas-heavy group of strategists plus a handful of operatives with experience doing conservative combat. The Lone Star State Republican’s base begins...

Ted Cruz is personally against the legalization of marijuana but the Republican presidential candidate said this weekend that he believes states have the right to put decriminalization laws on the books if they want - even though they directly conflict with federal law. Cruz implied during a conversation with Daily Mail Online on Saturday that if he ascended to the highest elected office he wouldn't make his attorney general enforce federal laws pertaining to marijuana in states that have approved sales and consumption of the drug. The position stands in contrast to the views of at least three of his...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-04-20/can-ted-cruz-make-rand-paul-obsolete-

By going first, Ted Cruz soaked up more attention than fellow Republicans Rand Paul and Marco Rubio.Hillary Clinton's low-key 2016 presidential announcement still drowned out Marco Rubio's glitzier launch. But Ted Cruz made the biggest media splash among the three Republicans to kick-start candidacies, in part by risking an early and unorthodox launch. Those are the major takeaways from a new study measuring the media impact of the first four White House campaign announcements by GOP consulting firm The Gage Group and Zignal Labs, a media story-tracking platform that pinpoints trends in real time. News of Clinton's announcement easily trumped...

LITCHFIELD, N.H.—Appealing to New Hampshire’s powerful gun culture, Sen. Ted Cruz said Sunday that he’s “pressing” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain to hold hearings on whether soldiers should be allowed to carry their own concealed firearms onto military bases. “I am very concerned about that policy,” the Texas senator told 120 gun owners at a hunting club here, before taking a trip to a firing range for some target practice. “I think it’s very important to have a public discussion about why we’re denying our soldiers the ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights.” Defense Department leaders oppose...

Unlike in her last campaign, Hillaryland 2016 is a sunny, optimistic place where you can reinvent yourself, and she can, too.Hillary Clinton has represented many things to many people over the years, including feminism supposedly run amok. Between now and 575 days from now, though, she represents one big thing: the best chance to elect a woman to the highest political office in the world. As such, Clinton has galvanized not only the people who voted and worked for her in 2008 but also – and importantly – more than a few who broke for Barack Obama way back then....

Bernie Sanders couldn’t have said it better: “There’s a group of folks in our party who would have troops in six countries right now — maybe more,” the Kentucky senator told hundreds of activists at a GOP cattle call that has drawn every major presidential aspirant. “This is something, if you watch closely, that will separate me from many other Republicans. The other Republicans will criticize Hillary Clinton and the president for their foreign policy, but they would have done the same thing – just 10 times over!” “Six countries – maybe more”? Which countries, Senator? And how many of...

NASHUA, N.H. – Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has attended a wedding reception for a gay couple, he said Sunday, though the potential 2016 contender still believes marriage should be between a man and a woman. “That’s certainly a personal issue. For a family member, Tonette and I and our family have already had a family member who’s had a reception. I haven’t been at a wedding,” Walker said when msnbc asked whether he would be willing to attend a gay wedding. “That’s true even though my position on marriage is still that it’s defined between a man and a woman,...

Ted Cruz headlined the daytime portion of the Republican Leadership Summit in Nashua, N.H., Saturday, where 20 presidential candidates or those seriously thinking about it came to speak. “What a testament to the desire for Americans: We want something new, we want new leadership to change the page, and to turnaround,” the 44-year-old U.S. senator from Texas said as he began his remarks. “You know the Democratic version of this I’m pretty sure is Hillary Clinton having a conversation with a Chipotle clerk,” he said. It was one of countless times Republicans jabbed Clinton for her clandestine appearance at the...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)NASHUA, N.H. —Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker closed the NHGOP’s First-in-the-Nation Republican Leadership Summit on Saturday night with a call for “common sense” leadership to promote “big and bold” ideas. Walker, who has been leading the GOP presidential field in recent New Hampshire polling, told several hundred Republicans who remained for the separately ticketed Saturday night dinner that if he runs for president, he would apply the same principles and approach that he said has turned around his state’s economy. Introduced by former Gov. John H. Sununu, Walker said he decided to run for governor because he and his wife wanted...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/politics/2015/04/18/ted-cruz-scott-walker-jeb-bush/25987009/

It's almost always the colonels who lead the coups. Why? Because they're usually young, hungry and oh-so-close to holding the reins of power, if only those pesky generals weren't in the way. The US isn't big on military putsches, but in the past month the Republican Party has witnessed a political equivalent, as three Republican "colonels" - first-term senators with little establishment authority but lots of ambition - made their moves for the White House. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio may be junior players in congressional chambers but Republican politics, and US electioneering in general, have changed in...

The first two Republicans to declare their presidential ambitions—Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky—will most likely battle each other for a limited pool of funds donated by true-red conservatives. Marco Rubio, the third Republican to declare his candidacy, has a much better shot at corralling serious corporate money. Politically, Rubio has been migrating from the limited-government, Tea Party edge of the GOP toward the mainstream, aligning himself with business interests seeking modest reforms rather than the radical downsizing of government. “Rubio has positioned himself as an establishment candidate with appeal to grass-roots conservatives,” says Ford...

Several years ago, Sen. Marco Rubio was the face of the so-called “pro-amnesty” faction of the Republican Party — a subset of the party who believe in a pathway to citizenship for people currently in the U.S. illegally. That position helped catapult him to media prominence but has become something of a liability for him as he attempts to court staunch conservatives during his 2016 presidential run. During his speech earlier this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Rubio effectively walked back his previous “amnesty” support by telling the crowd that before a pathway reform can be negotiated,...

In which we learn that old memes do not learn new tricks as Politico explains the biggest factors facing Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign.Remember how important it was for Democratic senatorial candidates in the 2014 midterms to "distance themselves" from the massively unpopular policies of the massively unpopular incumbent president? Remember how well that worked out for Senators Bruce Braley, Alison Lundergan Grimes, and Michelle Nunn? Well, thanks to Tiger Beat On The Potomac this morning, we see that someone's rolled back the stone on that particular meme. The two factors that might be most vital to Hillary Clinton's...

Ted Cruz thinks Americans should arm themselves against "tyranny," and Lindsey Graham thinks that's crazy. As incredible as it sounds, there’s an argument going on right now between two Republican senators (and, potentially, two Republican candidates for the presidency) over whether the American citizenry should be ready to fight a war against the federal government. The two senators in question are Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, and they can’t seem to agree whether the Second Amendment serves as bulwark against government “tyranny.” It all started with a fundraising email Cruz sent making the case that “The 2nd Amendment to the...

If Jeb Bush doesn’t win any of the first four GOP contests — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — does that eliminate him from the Republican race? Or does he have the staying power to survive those losses? If Texas Sen. Ted Cruz finishes first in the Iowa caucuses, does that all but eliminate hopefuls such as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Ben Carson from the race? If Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul finishes fourth in Iowa (which would be worse than his father’s third-place showing in the caucuses...

Ted Cruz is raising money for his presidential campaign at a significantly faster rate than Mitt Romney did four years ago, eclipsing the early total raised by the former Massachusetts governor who went on to win the Republican nomination in 2012. The conservative Texas senator, who is seeking to unite the Republicans’ tea party wing behind his White House run, raised $4.3 million during the final days of March – his first full week after declaring as a candidate for president. Cruz proved particularly popular with small donors, raising more in his first week from contributors giving $200 or less...