Free Republic

Behind Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s visit to Iowa this week to campaign for local politicians is a careful effort to remake his image from the 2012 Republican presidential candidate who couldn’t remember a key message during a debate, to a more polished and prepared contender. While he denies it is a dress rehearsal for a second presidential run, Perry is studying policy, traveling and meeting with key activists as he campaigns for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and U.S. Senate candidate Matt Whitaker in the state expected to host the first presidential caucus of 2016. …

If the Republican nominee for president is going to come from the ranks of current or former governors, the GOP could do worse than choose former chairman of the House Republican Conference and current governor of Indiana Mike Pence.Pence is the kind of candidate who just might be able to act as a bridge between the warring conservative factions. His conservative voting record as a House member is nearly impeccable: no to No Child Left Behind and the prescription drug biil; no to the bank bailout; and a budget hawk who was calling for big cuts in spending before...

President Barack Obama spars with Jaren Paul Suber, a 14-year-old Make-A-Wish recipient from Rowlett, Texas, in the Oval Office, March 20, 2014

Most Americans would rather have a president who believes in God rather than one who doesn't. In a recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center, Americans ranked atheism as the most negative trait that could be displayed by presidential candidates who plan to seek the White House in 2016. (Photo: Pew Research Center) Atheism was ranked the lowest on a list of 16 presidential traits where military service was ranked as the most appealing."Not believing in God and never having held elected office before are the most negatively viewed traits among those tested. Just over half (53 percent) say they...

Hillary Clinton is riding high in the betting for 2016, but this week was filled with reminders, if they were needed, that her dream of becoming America's first female president cannot be accomplished without indignity. Officially, Mrs Clinton is currently enjoying her first spell outside public life for 30 years, but in practice her undeclared campaign is already filling the vacuum left by an increasingly marginalised and irrelevant-looking second-term president. While Barack Obama was off fundraising in California this week, it was Mrs Clinton who was drawing all the attention on cable news. First, Monica Lewinsky broke her silence of...

The GOP’s Benghazi disease has metastasized into yet another committee in the Republican House of Inquisitions, seeking to waste taxpayer money in yet another failed effort to exploit the death of Americans and prosecute yet another witch hunt against Hillary Clinton. Clinton has answered. In her most important and profound speech since leaving the State Department, Clinton touted the benefits of ObamaCare and warned about the culture of gun violence that has killed far too many of America’s children. Speaking to the National Council for Behavioral Health, she called for redoubled efforts to redress economic inequality and a return to...

The US Supreme Court Monday decided to hear the case of an American born in Jerusalem, once again taking up the sensitive issue of the status of the contested city, according to AFP. The justices will hear arguments in the case in the fall before deciding on the constitutionality of a 2002 law that directs the State Department to give Israel as the country of birth in passports of Americans born in Jerusalem. At the center of the struggle between the Congress and the presidency is Menachem Zivotofsky, who was born in Jerusalem in 2002 to two American parents. …

Hillary Clinton may end up deciding that she wants to spend the 935 days until Election 2016 making corporate speeches and spoiling her grandchild. Recent events have exposed weaknesses in Clinton’s supposedly impregnable armor, gaps through which a Democratic or Republican challenger could damage, perhaps even defeat her. The bad headlines to which she has been subjected are enough to make anyone — anyone who isn’t a Clinton — think twice about running for president. Look at the polls. This week’s Fox News poll has Clinton’s favorable rating at its lowest point in six years. She is at 49 percent...

After the 1848 revolution in France, the slogan of the non-socialist revolutionaries, lifted from a speech by Lamartine, became “the tricolor [flag] has gone around the world; the red flag [of socialism] has only gone around the Champs-de-Mars [a large park on the Left Bank of Paris].” ...................................................... John Kasich and Mike Pence, both governors of substantial Midwestern states, have been around the track many times. Both served with distinction in Congress. Kasich was a congressman from 1981 until 2001. He was a key player during the heady Gingrich days during which he became Chairman of the House Budget Committee.

If you’re wondering why this otherwise prosaic Bloomberg piece about Pence’s national future begins with a mention of the Koch brothers, it’s probably because the guy who wrote it worked for Paul Sarbanes and, briefly, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz before resuming his career as an impartial reporter.But never mind that. Is Pence the dark horse? “I have no doubt that he would make a great president,” said Steven Chancellor, the chief executive officer of Evansville, Indiana-based American Patriot Group, the parent of a company that makes ready-to-eat rations for the Pentagon. “He certainly distinguished himself in the House” and is “off...

O ver the weekend, Jeb Bush cracked open the door to a possible 2016 run, which has already sparked a round of moaning that American democracy is being bigfooted by political dynasties. A contest against Hillary Clinton would mean that either a Bush or a Clinton has been on nearly every presidential ticket since 1980, and even Barbara Bush has lamented that we can't seem to find anyone from any other family to run for president. In Politico, Larry Sabato argued that eight more years under a Clinton or Bush would make America "monarchial," and undercut our ability to promote...

A fiendishly clever theory from Peter Beinart. Remember “Operation Chaos”? That was Rush Limbaugh’s plan to have GOP voters wreak havoc on the Democratic nominating process in 2008. With McCain’s nomination already all but assured and Obama clinging to an apparently insurmountable lead over Hillary, Rush encouraged Republicans in states with open primaries (i.e. states where you don’t have to be registered as a party member to vote in that party’s primary) to cross over and vote for Hillary in the Democratic primary instead. The idea was to drag the primary process out for Democrats as long as possible, forcing...

The White House asked major TV networks for a prime-time slot for President Barack Obama’s Tuesday speech proclaiming Obamacare had reached its 7.1 million enrollment milestone, but network officials rebuffed the request. Citing three sources familiar with the request, Buzzfeed reports that the broadcasters refused to make any accommodation, leaving Obama to host his address in the Rose Garden during the day while daytime talk shows were airing.

HOWIE CARR, HOST: Who are you for, for president right now, Ann? ANN COULTER: Well, don't tell him but I'm planning on giving Mitt Romney a little more time to rest -- flying out, kidnapping him and depriving him of sleep, food and water until he agrees to run again. CARR: You're kidding? COULTER: No. CARR: You really want him to run again? COULTER: Yeah, I think he was a fantastic candidate. As I've told you before, he would have won by a larger landslide than Ronald Reagan did in 1980 without Teddy Kennedy's immigration bill. And it's basically impossible...

If the 2016 presidential race were a game of “hot or not,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren would be winning with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton close behind, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would be losing ground, according to a new poll. When Americans were asked to give prominent politicians a score, zero to 100, of how “warm,” or favorable, they feel toward that person, the Massachusetts Democratic senator was the highest-rated of the bunch with a “temperature” of 48.6, according to a Quinnipiac poll out Thursday. Clinton was in second place at 47.8, Republican Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan followed...

Let’s start off with the caveat that 2016 polls at this point share something in common with John Nance Garner’s view of the Vice Presidency — “not worth a bucket of warm piss,” although it’s often used with “spit” as a euphemism. Had we taken polls seriously in early 2006, the nominees in 2008 would have been Hillary Clinton and, er … John McCain. Still, we haven’t even seen a partial roster of people actually aiming for the nod, and yet Mike Huckabee — who came in second or third in 2008, depending how one counts — seems to be...

On Tuesday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., presented his 2015 budget proposal. The Senate Democrats did not provide any such proposal; President Barack Obama's proposal posited an unending federal deficit and massive tax increases. Ryan's proposal, by contrast, lowered the rate of increase of spending moderately (by $5.1 trillion over the next decade), struck Obamacare from the rolls, and suggested revamps to Social Security and Medicare. This was possibly the dumbest thing Ryan could have done. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., immediately jumped on the budget proposal, suggesting that Ryan's budget came from "Kochtopia," and that it...

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced a plan to repeal and replace President Obama’s health-care law, an effort by the Republican to insert himself into the increasingly competitive early maneuvering for his party’s presidential nomination. Jindal, a former state and federal health official, said his plan is one of many policy proposals he will release in coming months, making clear that he wants to be seen as a policy-driven problem solver. In his 26-page plan, Jindal lays out a lengthy critique of the health law — which he refers to throughout as “Obamacare” — and reiterates his belief that it needs...

The first FLOTUS ticket? Oh, hell no. Reminder: It’s totally not a cult. We’re not sure we feel safe with these drivers on the road. And frighteningly, they’ve been tooling around with these “Hillary Clinton/Michelle Obama 2016″ stickers for a while. Shudder.

The chore of determining who is the inevitable candidate for Republicans – at least in the minds of beltway insiders and the media – is clearly becoming more difficult. But the Washington Post takes a swing at the problem this weekend as they delve into the number of big donors who are now courting Jeb Bush to get off the bench and toss his hat in the ring. Many of the Republican Party’s most powerful insiders and financiers have begun a behind-the-scenes campaign to draft former Florida governor Jeb Bush into the 2016 presidential race, courting him and his intimates...