Free Republic

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...

At certain moments during the past year’s long and often tedious march to November, the political class, already bored with discussing a GOP Senate takeover most considered nearly certain, started debating a few post-election hypotheticals. With Republicans in control in both the House and the Senate, would the president try again to strike the elusive grand bargain?(No.) Would Senate Republicans retaliate against Democrats for choosing the so-called nuclear option? (Maybe.) Would Democrats filibuster relentlessly, like Republicans did when they were the minority party in the Senate? (Probably not.) Of all the questions about a Republican Senate that hovered over the...

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...

And who didn't take notice? If that is the manner of how Nancy Pelosi speaks, with the pauses, stuttering, stammering and "Brain Stoppages" as she was trying to explain to us that she never heard of Jonathan Gruber, you would think it was time for her to retire. And to think there was once a time when she was third in line for the Presidency? And this also applies to Harry Reid, then again, we all share the same opinions of "Prince Harry".

Not a perfect strategy but if you’re grasping for last-minute ways to deter Obama from dropping the A-bomb, this may be your best shot. Impeachment’s not happening. If it did happen, Obama would welcome it as a post-landslide deus ex machina that turns the country against the GOP. Defunding’s probably not happening either, I hate to tell you. McConnell and Boehner will have no choice now but to insert language defunding executive amnesty in the new continuing resolution next month, but Obama will veto that CR. And I just don’t believe B&M have the stomach for a protracted shutdown so...

In this year's midterms, Jews voted for Republican candidates more than they have in any election in the last decade. First, some raw facts. In the 2006 midterm elections, 87 percent of Jews voted for Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives. Last week, in the 2014 midterm elections, 66 percent cast ballots for Democrats. That's a 21-point drop in eight years—and, it might seem, a major cause for celebration among the likes of the Republican Jewish Coalition and philo-Semitic political strategists everywhere. But while Jewish support for Democrats has definitely declined over the last decade, the context is important....

President Rand Paul will keep you safer than the president who brought America into Iraq and Afghanistan, the same man who in 2000 argued against nation building and foreign military entanglements. He'll keep you safer than the president who just doubled America's military presence in Iraq, yet in 2011 promised, "The long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year." Rand Paul will also keep you safer than Hillary Clinton, a centrist with a neoconservative advisor named Robert Kagan who is quoted in The New York Times as saying, "I feel comfortable with her...

Sen. John McCain (R-Az.) said Wednesday he’s planning on running for reelection in 2016. “We’ve already talked with finance people in the state, we’ve already talked to different groups and organizations ranging from the Arizona Chamber to the Southern Arizona Defense Alliance to build the coalitions we need to build,” McCain told MSNBC News. The 78-year-old, five-term Republican senator, who has at times clashed with Tea Party conservatives, said he fully expects a challenge from the right. “You have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” he said to MSNBC. “I definitely think that I would have...

..... Now, with a likely Paul presidential run mere months away, Democrats and Republicans are asking the same question and debating among themselves what will be the political silver bullet that finally brings him down.

Senate Democrats want to enlist a progressive firebrand as a member of their leadership: Elizabeth Warren. The incoming Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, is engaged in private talks with the Massachusetts freshman to create a special leadership post for the former Harvard professor, according to several people familiar with the matter. It’s unclear exactly what the new job would entail — but luring the populist liberal into leadership could inject fresh blood into a team reeling from significant midterm election losses. Adding Warren, Democrats say, would bring in a nationally known name who could help sharpen the Democratic message as...

Sarah Palin did not support Rep. Bill Cassidy during Louisiana’s Senate jungle primary last week. But now that it’s between Cassidy and Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, the former Alaska governor is changing her tune. The 2008 vice-presidential nominee plans to appear alongside Cassidy, “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson and defeated conservative Senate candidate Rob Maness at a GOP unity rally on Saturday afternoon in Monroe, according to a source familiar with the event. The Palin visit follows a Monday event with Maness, Cassidy and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in Baton Rouge. Palin supported Maness in the primary and predicted that...

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich is not running for president, but he thinks any Democrat who is – including his “old friend” Hillary Clinton – should worry about Republicans outflanking them on populism. Reich, now a professor at the University of California Berkeley, first met Hillary Clinton when she was a freshman at Wellesley and they marched in civil rights demonstrations together. He met Bill Clinton around the same time at Oxford, when they were both Rhodes Scholars. He went on to work on both of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns, and joined the administration. In the Clinton cabinet, he was...

Republican Sen.-elect Joni Ernst easily won her race in Iowa last Tuesday, beating Democrat Bruce Braley by 8.5 percentage points. Her victory wasn’t shocking, but its size was (to everyone except pollster Ann Selzer, that is). The final FiveThirtyEight projection had Ernst winning by just 1.5 percentage points. What the heck happened? Here’s one explanation: White voters in Iowa without a college degree have shifted away from the Democratic Party. And if that shift persists, it could have a big effect on the presidential race in 2016, altering the White House math by eliminating the Democratic edge in the electoral...

Nancy Pelosi does not believe the midterm results were a Republican wave; she says they were more of a Democratic ebb. And in a new interview, the House Minority Leader says that it didn’t help that voters were distracted during the final leg of the campaign by various international crises. In an interview with Politico out today, Pelosi continued to insist there was “no wave of approval for the Republicans” and even admitted that Democrats need to do a better job mobilizing voter turnout on their side the next time around. But when pressed on whether the Democrats lost because...

* 'Stand for Principle PAC' isn't officially connected to the Texas senator * But his friends' establishment of a financial juggernaut to help him in 2016 is the biggest sign yet that he's running for president * Georgia business consultant filed papers with the FEC on Friday * Group can raise unlimited amounts of money as long as it doesn't coordinate its activities with any candidates * Former Cruz college roommate, considered his closest friend, chose the group's nameIf Ted Cruz isn't running for president, his closest friends are setting up a super PAC for nothing. The 'Stand for Principle'...

Looking ahead to the 2016 presidential election, how influential were each of the potential GOP candidates during the midterm election? The Appinions study I wrote about on Monday provides great data to answer this question. The midterms continue to be a highly salient topic, despite the fact that it’s been just over a week since voters drew the curtain on the campaign. Indeed, Appinions "Active Attention Index," a metric based on the quantity and quality of reactions on the topic from opinion leaders across multiple media venues, grew 34 percent, from 129,000 the day after the election to 173,000 on...

Texas U.S. Senate hopeful David Alameel, who lost to incumbent Republican John Cornyn by a 27-point margin on Nov. 4, is giving no indication of fading away. In an email Tuesday providing excerpts of his Election Night speech, Alameel trashed the Texas Democratic Party and vowed to carry on in 2018 – presumably when GOP Sen. Ted Cruz is up for reelection. “This is just the beginning for David Alameel for US Senate,” Alameel said. “We knew going in that it’s going to be an uphill battle. But we also knew that we’re in this for the long haul… Our...

HOUSTON, Texas – An article by the New York Times Editorial Board appears to agree with Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) that Attorney General Nominee Loretta Lynch must answer about whether she approves of President Obama’s threatened executive amnesty. Cruz and Lee came out quickly after the announcement of Lynch’s nomination demanding that Lynch provide her analysis of the president’s legal authority to issue amnesty for illegal immigrants through an executive order. “Several Republicans, including Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, have said Ms. Lynch must disclose her position on, among other things, the president’s announced plan...

Just days after Salon.com published a tasteless screed in which a relatively unknown author attacked the military and insisted that his freedoms were more threatened than protected by the armed forces (a piece delightfully eviscerated by our own Jazz Shaw), this online magazine has the strange honor of publishing an exclusive interview with incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Beyond McCain’s odd decision to give the race and sex-obsessed Salon an exclusive interview, the senator made the even more perplexing decision to obliquely attack a fellow Republican in that interview. McCain spoke with Salon’s...