Free Republic

Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, called President Obama a “Captain Schettino” for going on the campaign trail. “We’re going to talk about our own little Captain Schettino, which is President Obama who’s abandoning the ship here in the United States and is more interested in campaigning than doing his job as president,” Priebus said on CBS’s Face The Nation. Francesco Schettino was the captain of the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that partially sank off the coast of Italy earlier this month. Schettino allegedly abandoned ship and has been arrested on multiple charges.

Two more former aides to Gov. Scott Walker have been charged with crimes linked to political fundraising while working on county time in the ongoing John Doe investigation. Both worked for Walker while he was serving as Milwaukee County Executive, and both are accused of fundraising activities while at their taxpayer-funded day jobs. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm said Thursday that Kelly Rindfleisch, the former deputy chief of staff for Walker, also worked as a fundraiser for then lieutenant governor candidate Brett Davis. She is charged with four felony counts of misconduct in public office. Prosecutors say Rindfleisch spent...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Tuesday that he’s not worried about the muddled state of affairs in the Republican presidential primary and predicts the party “will have a nominee pretty quickly.” “It’s a horse race. There’s no doubt about it. Let’s put this in perspective. We haven’t had one single primary yet,” said Priebus on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “We’ll get there. And we will have a nominee pretty quickly.” Priebus dismissed worries that there is currently no clear leader in the GOP contest and said it was nothing for Republicans to worry about.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus reiterated his call for Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation on Wednesday, and promised Operation Fast and Furious will be an election issue in 2012. “Holder may want to point fingers and play the blame game, but as the Attorney General, he bears the responsibility,” Priebus told The Daily Caller. “It’s past time for the attorney general to come clean and take responsibility and if he doesn’t, he has a boss who should.” “Obama’s leadership deficit in holding the members of his administration accountable demonstrates yet again that the president is taking Washington in the...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus repeated his party’s commitment to stronger voter identification laws, saying that the GOP would not give up the fight against voter fraud. “I think that we need to make it easy to vote, hard to cheat, and I think that that’s a mantra that we ought to shout from the rooftops all over the country as a Party,” ... Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) Chairman David Norcross said that voter fraud issues were very real, despite complaints from liberals that it is largely a phantom problem. Cross cited several cases where states had found...

Republican Leadership Conference kicks off C.J. Ciaramella Top Republicans will flock to New Orleans today for the Republican Leadership Conference, where presidential hopefuls and GOP leaders will try to woo the party faithful during the three-day event. The annual conference, formerly the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, has become a bellwether for the Republican Party, especially because of its audience straw polls. Presidential candidates speaking this year include Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman. (DNC chair looking forward to working...

RALEIGH, N.C (AP) — The Republican National Committee's new chairman on Wednesday pleaded with North Carolina party leaders for more money to support candidates in 2012, but some activists told him the national party needs to better embrace the conservative values of the tea party movement. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said Wednesday that North Carolina will be a battleground state in the 2012 election. President Barack Obama carried the Tar Heel State in 2008 and Democrats plan to hold their 2012 convention in Charlotte. But Priebus said the RNC will first need to make progress in reducing its debt. RNC...

After two tumultuous years, the Republican National Committee is getting back to business. The hangover from former RNC chairman Michael Steele’s tenure still hasn’t faded. But the new party chairman, Reince Priebus, has begun to restore order and to replenish the committee’s depleted bank account. Whether he can raise enough money and create the machinery needed to help the party’s 2012 nominee compete against President Obama and his seasoned political operation will be the real test of his chairmanship. Priebus, the former Wisconsin GOP chairman, is taking things a step at a time: restore connections with the party’s major donors,...

Reince Priebus, just over a month into his term as Republican National Committee chairman, is cutting costs and cultivating the party’s donor base in an aggressive bid to fix the national party’s tattered balance sheet. The former Wisconsin Republican Party chairman has less than 20 months to whip the GOP’s most important money-raising instrument into shape to ensure his party’s candidates can compete with President Obama and congressional Democrats in the 2012 elections. The troubled tenure of predecessor Michael S. Steele left the RNC deeply in debt and with what was once a battalion of big donors reduced to platoon...

The Republican National Committee raised $5.7 million in January, and new Chairman Reince Priebus said Sunday that $3.5 million of the total came in after his election Jan. 14. “We owe a lot of our success to major donors who helped us reach 180 percent of our monthly major donor goal, and we were able to accomplish that in the last two weeks of January,” Priebus said in a statement. “I am thankful for the outpouring of support I’ve seen over the past month, from both long-time and first-time donors, but we have a lot of work to do.” Priebus...

Two years ago today, President Obama signed into law a “stimulus package” that his administration promised would keep unemployment under 8 percent. What has been the result of nearly $1 trillion spent on the so-called “stimulus?” Twenty-one months of unemployment at or above 9 percent, 2.6 million jobs lost, unsustainable budget deficits and an ever-growing national debt. Americans rejected the Democrats’ reckless tax and spend policies last November. Despite this “shellacking,” Mr. Obama‘s proposed budget ignores the will of the American people and reflects a complete lack of seriousness for our fiscal crisis. In my capacity as the new chairman...

WASHINGTON -- Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus took the job with $23 million in debt and cut a third of the staff he inherited from his predecessor, the controversial and gaffe-prone Michael Steele. In year-end federal finance reports on Monday, the GOP central committee showed that $2 million of its debt came during Steele's final two weeks as he sought to keep hold of his chairmanship. The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, reported a continued fraction of that debt but had enough cash in the bank to pay off the loans immediately. "While the year-end FEC report reveals...

With the new RNC election last week, we saw the expulsion of Michael Steele, after he racked up a huge deficit while he came in with a sizable surplus. Steele was out by the end of the fourth round which left Priebus, Anuzis, Cino, and Wagner. Priebus finally won in the seventh round, beating Cino and Anuzis. With Priebus ready to set the stage for the 2012 races, is his appointment a good thing or a disaster?

Jan 14, 2011 - 7:42 - All-Star panel's debt ceiling debate

New Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus has fired several employees of a division working to set up the party's 2012 convention after committee members complained about an unprecedented rush of early spending. In an email to committee members obtained by National Journal, Priebus said he had asked for and accepted the resignation of Belinda Cook, the top RNC liaison organizing the convention in Tampa. Priebus also said he would ask for and accept resignations of the rest of the employees of the Committee on Arrangements, the body that oversees convention plans. "This is just the first step toward organizing...

It seems fair to ask, when one uses standard liberal catch-phrasing, volunteers for an organization like the NAACP, becomes party to an eminent domain lawsuit to take property from a small business on behalf of the government and is linked to the solicitation of government stimulus funding, just how conservative is said individual? Given that the individual in question is Reince Priebus, currently seeking the RNC Chairmanship and talking like a conservative, how is it that he seems to have so walked the walk of a typical liberal over the years? This was only ten years ago, after all. Certainly,...

WASHINGTON --Reince Priebus was elected chairman of the Republican National Committee on Friday after Michael Steeledropped his bid to stay atop the party for another two years. Priebus clinched the victory after seven rounds, securing 97 votes, more than the 85 required to win. Steele dropped out of the race after four rounds. "At this time, I will step aside for others to lead," Steele told the168 RNC committee members at the Gaylord Resort in National Harbor, Md. "But in so doing, I hope y'all appreciate the legacy we leave. Despite the noise -- because lord know we had a...

..very early.......

Based upon talking to multiple sources over a period of weeks, I've been able to confirm that a deal struck between the Barbours, Henry and Haley, and Reince Priebus, is set to put Nick Ayers in at the RNC as political director to pave the way for Barbour's 2012 Presidential bid. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is trying to get his southern claws around the RNC as one of his cronies, Nick Ayers, the 28 year old Republican Governors Association Director, is being pumped up to challenge an already embattled Michael Steele. Incoming Republican Governor Association Chairman, Texas Gov. Rick Perry,...

Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus led after the first ballot in the race for chairman of the Republican National Committee. Needing 85 votes among the 168 members to win, Priebus took 45 votes in the first round. Trailing Priebus after one round is Chairman Michael Steele with 44 votes, former RNC official Maria Cino with 32 votes, Michigan Committeeman Saul Anuzis with 24 votes, and former Missouri GOP Chairwoman Ann Wagner with 23 votes. Several more ballots are expected before someone reaches the 85-vote threshold. Steele won the 2009 race after six rounds, defeating a five-candidate field that included...