Free Republic

In a dark room somewhere, Hillary Clinton continues to self-medicate her depression with as much alcohol as she can afford. Martin O’Malley is looking distressingly at his empty calendar trying to stay relevant. Andrew Cuomo scours the stores to claim as many bottles of slick hair gel he can. And Joe Biden, lol, poor Joe still thinks he’s got a shot despite most of his party voting base not having a clue of who the hell he is other than the guy that came in with Obama. They’ve all been usurped this week by the events that unfolded in Massachusetts...

Right blasts RNC 'autopsy' as power grab By: Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman March 18, 2013 12:21 PM EDT The GOP’s prescription to cure the ills that helped bring on yet another disastrous presidential cycle would revamp its presidential nominating rules in ways to benefit well-funded candidates and hamper insurgents - a move that quickly heated up the already smoldering feud between the Republican establishment and the tea party-inspired base. Tucked in near the end of the 97-page report, formally known as The Growth and Opportunity Project, are less than four pages that amount to a political bombshell: the five-member...

'...the system of Tammany Hall and the Chicago machine' Weighing-in on PAC-man Karl Rove's semi-declared war on constitutional conservatives, former House Speaker Gingrich made clear in a Human Events column what the discredited RINO-pumper is attempting to do with his so-called 'Conservative Victory Project': basically crush the TEA Party wing and centralize Republican Party power in favor of 'Rockefeller Republican', Big Government RINOs- an effort Newt described as 'repungnant' and alien to GOP principles: _______________________________________________________________________________ It is appalling how little some Republican consultants have learned from the 2012 defeat. It is even more disturbing how arrogant their plans for the future...

When Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss announced Friday that he wouldn’t seek a third term in 2014, a race that already was likely to feature a contested Republican primary exploded into a free-for-all. Several Republicans, including several congressmen, are eyeing the seat. The more crowded the field, the more likely the GOP race will pit mainstream conservatives against the hardliners who had grown disenchanted with Chambliss for working with Democrats to find common ground on budget and tax issues. Democrats, meanwhile, hope for exactly that kind of Republican fracas. They view the 69-year-old Chambliss’ decision as an opportunity to reverse the...

Official Washington hailed the deal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff as a significant bipartisan accomplishment. However, voters around the country viewed the deal in very partisan terms: Seven out of 10 Democrats approved of it, while seven...of 10 Republicans disapproved. Just a few days after reaching that agreement, an inside-the-Beltway publication reported another area of bipartisan agreement...while Washington Democrats have always viewed GOP voters as a problem, Washington Republicans "in many a post-election soul-searching session" have come to agree. More precisely, the article said the party's Election 2012 failures have "brought forth one principal conclusion from establishment Republicans: They...

The disastrous 2012 election and embarrassing fiscal cliff standoff has brought forth one principal conclusion from establishment Republicans: They have a primary problem. The intra-party contests, or threat thereof, have become the original sin that explains many of the party’s woes in the minds of GOP leaders. It’s the primaries that push their presidential nominees far to the right (see “self-deportation” and “47 percent”); produce lackluster Senate candidates (Todd Akin has almost become a one-word shorthand); and, as seen most vividly in the last two weeks, dissuade scores of gerrymandered House members from face-saving compromise while politically emasculating their speaker....

In the beginning, [Club for Growth] targeted liberal Republicans ..., but it now extends to politicians like Lugar, Capito, Saxby Chambliss and even ... Speaker Boehner, who [normally] would be considered conservative. The Club and its allies see themselves as “insurgents” against a Republican “establishment” ... Republicans, Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in National Review, have to [be] “the party of middle-class economic interests.” “It won’t kill the country if we raise taxes on millionaires a little bit,”... Bill Kristol opined. But the Club and its network blame the Republicans’ and Romney’s defeat on their not being conservative enough. “The first lesson”...

It is never too early to think ahead about the Presidential Election of 2016, and as pundits start debating and arguing about potential candidacies for President, it turns out that several states could witness a battle for the nomination among their own office holders, as witness the following: New York–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand–all Democrats Florida—Former Governor Jeb Bush, Governor Rick Scott, and Senator Marco Rubio–all Republicans. Virginia—Governor Bob McDonnell, Republican, and Senator Mark Warner, Democrat. Massachusetts—Governor Deval Patrick and Senator Elizabeth Warren–both Democrats. New Jersey—Governor Chris Christie, Republican, and Newark Mayor Cory...

Rain is forecast for many parts of Israel Sunday, and this has supporters of Binyamin Netanyahu worried. They believe that a downpour would favor Netanyahu's nemesis within Likud, Moshe Feiglin, in Sunday's Likud primaries, and endanger the political future of Likud "prince" Dan Meridor. Feiglin's supporters within Likud are considered to be a highly organized and dedicated group, in comparison with the average Likud member. Common political wisdom says that when a vote is held in unfavorable weather, it is the more dedicated and organized group that benefits. Netanyahu's people are concerned that Feiglin will attain a position on the...

In October 2011, the Republican Party of Virginia's State Central Committee voted to nominate its 2013 statewide ticket in a primary. Tuesday's Times-Dispatch reported that the committee might change the rules and opt to nominate candidates in a convention instead. The appropriate response runs to three words: Don't do it. The Times-Dispatch long has considered primaries the preferred vehicles for nominations — for both parties. Although primaries can compel campaigns to spend more money, they tend to leave less blood on the floor. Caucuses and conventions often turn personal; they open wounds. They also attract activists, ideologues, partisans and crackpots...

Don’t look now, but President Obama could actually lose his party’s nomination contest in this week’s Democratic primary contest in Texas. Probably not to any one of the three candidates opposing him, but he could still get less than 50% of the Democrat votes in the Texas Democratic primary. That would be pretty embarrassing. Kind of a spontaneous “no confidence” vote among Democrats.

Imagine that in one 2004 Republican primary, an opponent running to George Bush's left got 40% of the vote, and in another primary, more than 4-in-10 Republicans voted for "uncommitted" rather than support the incumbent president. Now imagine the doom the MSM would have found that to portend for Bush. But when a candidate running to the right of Barack Obama garners 40% of the vote in the Arkansas Dem primary, and "uncommitted" amasses an astounding 42% in Kentucky . . . crickets. On Morning Joe today, Politico's Patrick Gavin proclaimed that PBO's embarrassing performance "doesn't matter." View the video...

President Obama headed toward wins in both primaries Tuesday in Arkansas and Kentucky, but suffered losses of about 40 percent of the vote in each contest against token opposition. Over four in 10 Democratic voters in Kentucky's primary on Tuesday chose the "uncommitted" option versus President Barack Obama, who won the state's primary. And perennial candidate John Wolfe, Jr. took just about 40 percent of the primary vote versus Obama in Arkansas, according to early returns tabulated by the Associated Press. (Wolfe won't be awarded any delegates, either.) Advertise | AdChoices The president's performance in both contests carries no substantive...

Barack Obama had no national primary challengers in his second nomination race in most states, including Kentucky. Who knew it would still be a tough choice for voters? Kentucky voters in the Democratic primary preferred the empty slot to the empty suit, apparently: About two out of every five Democratic voters in Tuesday's presidential primary in Kentucky chose "uncommitted" instead of voting for President Barack Obama. "I'm at a victory celebration for 'uncommitted' who performed admirably" said [state GOP chair Steve] Robertson. "I've never met the guy but know that he highly embarrassed Obama."Robertson contended that the Democrats who vote...

Perhaps the prison inmate and the president could switch places? Wall Street Journal: ____________________________ Democrats-those are members of the president's party-voting in the West Virginia presidential primary gave 40% of their votes to a man whom the Associated Press identified as a federal prison inmate. Keith Judd is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas for making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999, the AP reported. With 90% of precincts reported, he had 40.3% of the vote to Mr. Obama's 59.7% Mr. Judd was leading or had won in at least five of the...

Instead of letting the establishment act like everybody is happy with Mitt Romney, how about if everybody in the remaining primaries votes for Ron Paul in protest? What is the worst that could happen? At least Ron Paul is pro-life and wants to get rid of the vile, evil, Marxist income tax. Mitt Romney is saying a lot of the right things, but talk is cheap for politicians at election time. It should be ALARMING for conservatives to see how many of Romney's people have been advising the Obama administration!! If you look at their history, instead of their promises,...

The results and turnout in tomorrow’s Primary Day voting in North Carolina will be an important indication of Barack Obama’s chances for holding the Tar Heel State in his column next November. Aside from the usual array of primary candidates from both Parties voters will be able to cast a ballot for or against Amendment One which will protect traditional marriage by banning same sex “marriage.” Already plagued by a Gay sexual harassment scandal hanging over the head of the outgoing Democrat State Chairman, the decision of its Democrat governor not to run for reelection and the specter of a...

After edging out Rockefeller 51% to 49% in the winner-take-all race in California, Goldwater had a huge majority of delegates, enough to easily win the nomination at the Republican convention. George Romney set about denouncing Goldwater, and even raised a stink at the convention to have Goldwater′s delegates disqualified. Romney was accusing many of Goldwater′s delegates as being everything from racists, members of the Ku-Klux-Klan, the John Birch Society and even accused some of being Communists! Imagine that! Once Goldwater was named the presidential nominee, George Romney still worked to undermine his campaign, refusing to endorse or support him. So...

RESULTS: April 24, 2012 - Multi-state Events Republican Presidential Primaries Five states – Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island – hold contests on April 24. The five states hold a combined total of 231 total delegates. Of that number, 204 delegates are stake in the primaries

After 6 terms in the United States senate, long time RINO Orrin Hatch will face his first primary battle after failing to attain the necessary 60% of delegate votes at Saturday’s Utah Republican convention. After falling 32 votes short of the required total on the final ballot, Hatch will take on conservative Republican Dan Liljenquist on June 26th. In 2010 Hatch watched nervously as Utah colleague Robert Bennett was removed from the Senate in his own primary contest, a victim of having too often sold-out the conservative Republican base. Concerned with mounting criticism of his own predilection for confirming Marxists...

It was inevitable. Mitt Romney is going to sell-out conservatives in his party in order to win the general. And if he wins, he'll sell them out again in order to be re-elected.* Zeke Miller and McKay Coppins reporting for Buzzfeed have found the first issue on which Romney is trying to put some distance between himself and the conservative wing of his party. Allahpundit, one of the most perceptive conservative bloggers, also detects the hint of conflict between the GOP candidate and the GOP Congress. Mitt Romney told reporters today that he supports efforts to extend low interest rates...

Apr 24 Rhode Island Primary Results — Apr 24 Pennsylvania Primary Results — Apr 24 New York Primary Results — Apr 24 Connecticut Primary Results — Apr 24 Delaware Primary Results

We are not yet defeated. Per Alinsky play book, they want us to feel defeated. But, if you look at the facts although it looks difficult, it is not impossible to still prevent Romney from winning the Nomination. Romney only has 535 committed delegates now. There are not many winner take all States left to win. And the pattern for Romney in proportional states is he wins urban but not rural areas. So, if conservatives come out to vote and in enough numbers while contining to vote the Not-Romney ticket he will be denied the 1444 he needs. The GOPe...

A Fox News Special: Paying at the Pump Co-hosted by Eric Bolling and Sarah Palin 10 p.m. Friday, Fox News Channel (in place of On the Record)A Fox News Special: Paying at the Pump(video follows Fox commercial)

Three months have passed, 36 states and territories have voted, and the Republican party has yet to settle on a presidential nominee. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have pinned their hopes on a brokered convention in which committee members, most of whom can vote independently, could play a decisive role. Nonetheless, members of the Republican National Committee tell National Review Online that a brokered convention is unlikely to happen. And thankfully so, since most members believe it would harm the party’s chances of victory in November. “There won’t be a brokered convention,” says Jack Lindley, chairman of the Vermont GOP....

As Rick Santorum prepared to address supporters in Milwaukee last weekend, his Wisconsin campaign team was setting up camp at their new state headquarters in Brookfield.“This area of the state is an important area for volunteers in the Republican nomination,” said Benjamin Hack, deputy director for Santorum’s Wisconsin campaign. In the back of an office building at 405 N. Calhoun Dr. adorned with several Santorum yard signs, the campaign’s headquarters is spacious and so far sparse, with boxes, telephones and chairs waiting on the floor. The back area is “off limits,” Hack said, but the front area has three...

HOCKESSIN, Delaware - In a sign that his campaign is in need of fresh funds, Newt Gingrich on Monday began charging $50 to have a photograph taken with him following a campaign speech to Republican County groups here in the northernmost part of the state. It was the first time the former House speaker has charged those attending one of his public speaking events to pose for a photograph with him. Lately, a member of his campaign staff has been snapping photographs of any interested attendee and later posting them online at the campaign's website, newt.org. On Monday night, those...

When I first read the headline from the Washington Post that turnout in the Republican primaries are actually up over 2008 and not depressed as the media has insisted for the last two months, I assumed that the comparison would be off, thanks to the longer, more drawn out process this year. After all, the primaries stopped being meaningful in February in 2008, while we’re heading into April with a fight still on our hands. However, the Post’s Aaron Blake accounts for that, and still concludes that in states which had meaningful primaries in both cycles, Republican turnout in 2012...

PPP's newest national poll finds that Mitt Romney leads with 34% to 31% for Rick Santorum, 20% for Newt Gingrich, and 9% for Ron Paul. But if Gingrich dropped out Santorum would have a small lead with 41% to 40% for Romney and 11% for Paul.46% of Republican primary voters actually do think it's time for Gingrich to drop out, while 42% think he should continue on. 48% of his supporters would go to Santorum, while 33% would pick Romney. Gingrich dropping out being worth 4 points to Santorum is also what we found on our Illinois poll over...

Two polls -- neither one from unbiased sources -- show that Senator Dick Lugar's re-election campaign is in big trouble. Politico: _____________________ Richard Mourdock has closed within single digits of Sen. Dick Lugar in the Indiana GOP Senate primary race, according to a pair of polls commissioned by groups seeking to oust the six-term incumbent. Both polls -- one paid for by Citizens United, the other by Rep. Joe Donnelly's campaign -- produced the same result: Lugar ahead by just 6 points, 45 percent to 39 percent. The Citizens United-Wenzel Strategies survey last week of likely primary voters shared first...

Turnout for the GOP Primary in Puerto Rico higher than expected. It helps that the local parties are having their own primaries, and you just walk from the local to the GOP primary next door. As they didn't have many election officials (only one at my voting station), people were voting openly right there at or near the registration desk. I saw a lot of Santorums and Gingrichs, but not a one Romney - the heavily favored PR GOP establishment candidate.

The mainstream media in Washington, DC is apoplectic after Gov. Sarah Palin backed Andrew Breitbart's project, "The Vetting." In an exclusive article for Breitbart.com entitled "Breitbart Is Here," Palin had endorsed Breitbart's effort to vet Barack Obama, his Republican rivals--and the mainstream media itself: Breitbart’s most immediate mission was the belated vetting of Barack Obama. This obviously is an issue very near and dear to my heart. During the ’08 campaign, the same media that reported breathlessly about an old used tanning bed I purchased to get some sun during the dark Alaskan winter, couldn’t be bothered to investigate Barack...

I apologize, if this disturbing video has already been posted before now http://us.mg4.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=7d1mfi4ov5sd2

A day after losing Mississippi and Alabama to Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney took his campaign to a state where he had no public schedule, no time carved out to mingle with voters, and no rallies or town halls. While Mr. Santorum and Newt Gingrich hunted for votes in Puerto Rico and Illinois, Mr. Romney traveled to New York City to raise money and reassure top Republican donors — a constituency that favors his candidacy, and one perhaps most rattled by his inability to win the confidence of the party’s conservative base. Mr. Romney has raised more than $63 million, twice...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The plodding Republican presidential nomination fight is grinding forward toward Puerto Rico — and a two-man race, with Rick Santorum ascendant and Mitt Romney vanquished in the Deep South. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the former Georgia lawmaker whose Southern strategy stalled, was all but relegated to an asterisk in the contest even as he vowed to stay in it. “Now is the time to pull together,” Santorum declared to conservatives in Lafayette, La., after winning Tuesday’s primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, urging the party’s faithful to unite behind him to beat Romney. “We are...

Ed Rollins is actually trying to say that Romney is being outspent by "Super PACs with unlimited money". GOD, I hate that guy!

Sarah Palin shot back at the Obama reelection campaign this week after it used footage of her in a fundraising video. "I’m not running for any office, but I’m more than happy to accept the dubious honor of being Barack Obama’s 'enemy of the week' if that includes the opportunity to debate him on the issues Americans are actually concerned about," Palin wrote in a note on her Facebook page, posted late Monday. Palin was responding to a Web video fundraising for Obama that uses recent footage of Palin criticizing the president. Palin also offered a challenge to Obama. "I’m...

On Friday I suggested that Mitt Romney would have a long slog to reach 1,144 delegates, and that he might not get there by the end of the primary calendar. While some readers were thrilled by this suggestion, others were much less ecstatic.Probably the biggest source of pushback was my assumption that there wouldn’t be a huge movement toward Romney -- in other words, that he wouldn’t gather momentum in the weeks and months ahead. Indeed, when making my predictions of how things would play out in a particular state, I used prior election outcomes from states with similar demographic...

WASHINGTON -- Mississippi has not been "used to mattering" in presidential politics, according to one close observer. But on the heels of hosting 2008's most important presidential debate, along comes Tuesday's Republican presidential primary with the potential to alter the course of the 2012 race for the White House. Along with Alabama, Tuesday's primaries in the Deep South are "do or die" contests for both former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum and former House speaker Newt Gingrich and should shape the race as either a three-way long slog into summer or a two-person contest going forward. Few expect front-runner former Massachusetts...

Be warned: This column probably will offend just about everyone. We start with news of offensive research at Cornell University. Researchers have challenged the assumption that most citizens can recognize the best political candidate when they see him. . . Is it any wonder that the candidate who will emerge as president will be no better than a pig in a poke?

Forget about Obama Girl. There's a new game in town: The Santorum Girls. Two home-schooled sisters in Oklahoma have created a frenzy on the Internet after writing and recording a country ode to Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum. The song, called "Game On," was released on YouTube on Super Tuesday when the four GOP White House hopefuls vied to win 10 states, including Oklahoma. So far the video has more than 150,000 hits. Haley, 18, and Camille Harris, 20 -- both daughters of a pastor -- are seen in the video strumming guitars and holding Santorum signs. Their parents and...

The Republican primary has revealed distinct geographic tendencies. Mitt Romney is dominant in New England and in the West. Newt Gingrich has run well in the Deep South, while Rick Santorum has done well in caucus states, the Great Plains, and the peripheral South (it remains to be seen whether his support has bled into Gingrich's strength in the Deep South). That leaves the Midwest as a battleground between Romney and Santorum. While Romney had a good night on Super Tuesday, the truth is that he did nothing to alter the basic regional nature of his support. He won handily...

Say, do you remember that time when Mitt Romney waded into the battle on Super Tuesday and knocked out his foes with an inspiring, decisive victory? Yeah… me neither. Last night had to be pretty much of a disappointment no matter who you happen to support. Allahpundit was covering it live, of course, but once all of the “victory party� hangovers have begun to fade, the results were less than impressive. We can justifiably say that Mitt “won� by racking up victories in Ohio, Massachusetts, Idaho, Virginia, Vermont and Alaska, along with a fairly impressive haul of delegates. But the...

As the presidential primary draws near in Tennessee, some hard decisions face us. Newt Gingrich to me is the top candidate. Smart, experienced and a great debater with the history of solid results to get it done. In his time as speaker he stood up to the media, balanced budgets, cut unemployment to half what it is now and did a wealth of other great things like reforming our welfare system. He would make an outstanding president. Unfortunately, politics is a cruel mistress. Things shift and momentum turns. After South Carolina 2 mediocre debates and some missteps (such as pushing...

According to the MSM, and most people who blindly follow their reports, Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary last night by about 3 points, 41 to 38. However, like the Electoral College, the point of the contest is not to win the popular vote (Gore – 2000) but to win more delegates per state based on the apportionment of those delegates. Michigan’s primary delegate system allows for a set number of delegates to be won by state wide popular vote and the rest to be evenly distributed by Congressional districts. When you consider the facts of the contest, and the...

The Obama team may be thinking a Santorum candidacy is good for them, but they should be careful what they wish for. "A Santorum candidacy will very likely push the Obama team much harder than a Romney candidacy would."

Residents of Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens, but they get a say in who should be president only by voting in the Democratic and Republican party primaries. Because Puerto Rico is a territory, not a state, Puerto Ricans are not allowed to vote in the general election. The political parties, on the other hand, can set their own nominating procedures, and on occasion Puerto Rico becomes a primary battleground. Four years ago, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fought hard for Puerto Rico's delegates. This year, it's the Republican primary on March 18 — and the territory's 23 delegates — that...

The Republican presidential race faces a potential turning point on Tuesday in contests in Arizona and Michigan, where upstart Rick Santorum threatens to plunge an already unpredictable nominating battle into chaos. Mitt Romney, the former front-runner and presumed nominee, and Santorum are in a close race in Michigan, the state where Romney was raised and his father was an auto executive and popular governor. A Santorum win there would be a devastating blow to Romney, turning lingering doubts about his ability to win the allegiance of Republican primary voters into a deep panic in the party's senior ranks. "If Santorum...

Washington (CNN) -- GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney won the close-watched Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll on Saturday. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, took 38% of the vote in the poll. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum received 31%, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was at 15% and Texas Rep. Ron Paul stood at 12%. When asked about their preference for vice president, 34% of the attendees at the conservative conference chose Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Apart from not having the first delegate commitment, exactly what have “victories” in Iowa, Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota acknowledged? First, that participants in caucuses are underwhelmed to voice their solidarity with their higher ground constituents. This “group think” forum is void, by necessity, of critical thought. This is not to say that the caucus forum is the antithesis of the primary process. It is always much easier when espousing your “heartfelt commitment” to an issue to take the high road when exposed to the crowd in a non-binding farcical display. These same “voters” will doubtlessly “rethink” that stance when confronted...