Free Republic

PHOENIX -- A new statewide poll suggests John McCain could get a fight in his bid for another term in the U.S. Senate. And it would come from his own party. A telephone survey of 570 likely Republican primary voters conducted by Rasmussen Reports found McCain the favorite of 45 percent of those questioned. But former Congressman and current radio talk show host J.D. Hayworth was backed by 43 percent, well within the 4 percentage point margin of error for the poll. Hayworth told Capitol Media Services late Friday he has not made a decision, saying he is in the...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicted disaster for his party if the conservative wing of the GOP continues to field independent candidates to the right of the party’s nominee. “If we get into a cycle where there are tea parties and there are conservative third-party candidates, we will make [Nancy] Pelosi speaker for life,” Gingrich told POLITICO in an interview Thursday, calling the practice “totally destructive.” But Gingrich, who broke with many fellow conservatives by getting behind the liberal Republican who was nominated but ultimately dropped out and backed the Democrat in a New York special congressional election, admitted that...

I read an October 28, 2009 article by JB Williams over at Canada Free Press titled “Tangible Tea Party Tactics” in which Williams argues that a primary tactic should be to take over the GOP. Williams frames these tactics as tangible and at first glance, he would seem to be correct and perhaps even plausible. But, is that really the point of the Tea Party Movement? Is it really a movement that seeks to simply replace the current crop of liberal democrats in the Congress with a conservative group of republicans? While I laud the idea and the passion behind...

November 8 Megan Whittemore McDonnell's Winning Strategy Virginia Governor-elect Bob McDonnell seems to have found a winning formula for unifying his party and delivering a clear message. During the campaign McDonnell focused on jobs, the economy, transportation and education while staying positive. "We kept it overwhelmingly positive, giving people an uplifting alternative for the future," McDonnell told Chris Wallace on FOX News Sunday. "We, I think, tapped into some of the sentiment at the national level on the issues of card check, cap and trade, and some under-funded mandates and things like that that were not resonating well with Virginia...

On Monday’s AC360, CNN’s Anderson Cooper forwarded the media’s new talking point about the New York 23 congressional race, that “Tea Party protesters and other conservative voices are...driving moderates out of the GOP.” Correspondent Tom Foreman continued on this note, stating that “angry conservatives...[are] forcing the party to choose between...its base and attracting more moderate Americans.” Cooper led the 10 pm Eastern hour of his program with the question, “Does the Republican Party have room for moderates?” The anchor outlined that “state and local elections tomorrow may have profound national effects, and President Obama and Sarah Palin are a big...

Richard Viguerie, the legendary hard-right activist who spent much of the past decade arguing that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were too liberal, now declares that: "Tea Party Activists Are the New GOP." There is little reason to argue with the man whose direct-mail campaigning funded the rise of the Republican right in the late 1970s and who grumbled loudly when Newt Gingrich, Bush, Cheney and Republican leaders tried to soften the party's roughest edges. Viguerie isn't grumbling now. He's celebrating. And rightly so. With the decision of moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava, the party's nominee in New York state...

Hoffman worries some incumbents By Reid Wilson - 10/31/09 04:23 PM ET The ascendance of the Conservative Party nominee in a New York special election suggests that some centrist candidates may be at risk to conservative challengers, strategists and members of Congress said this weekend. Businessman Doug Hoffman, running on the Conservative Party line, has seen his support surge in recent weeks. On Saturday, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee in the district, said she is suspending her campaign, and national party leaders rushed to back Hoffman. Strategists said the new developments are a shot in the arm for the...

Congressional campaign in upstate New York could play a big role in the GOP's approach to the 2010 elections and beyond. What began as a little-noticed congressional campaign in upstate New York has become a high-profile battle for the direction of the Republican Party, and it could play a big role in the GOP's approach to the 2010 elections and beyond. With Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman mounting a serious challenge to moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava and Democrat Bill Owens, prominent Republicans are splitting support between Hoffman and Scozzafava, providing an unusually raw display of the party's divisions. Supporters of...

"Doug Hoffman and NY-23 is an earthquake in American politics, and is the first of many challenges to establishment Republicans that we will see for the 2010 elections and beyond. The stupid decision by Republican leaders to pour $900,000 into the NY-23rd race against a conservative has unleashed a fury that will lead to new GOP leadership.

The GOP needs to shed its image as the "old white guy party," Jeb Bush said this week. Speaking at George Washington University, Bush said Republicans need to reach out to a more diverse group of voters. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize that in order for a political party to be successful it has to reach out to everyone," Bush said, according to the GW Hatchet. "In politics, you never win when you say 'us and them.' We need a more welcoming message."

I must admit, I was briefly excited yesterday when I went on the Washington Post’s website and saw this headline: “The Era of GOP Women”. Then I saw Meghan McCain’s picture next to it. I should have just stopped there and not clicked on the link. Foolishly, I did. Sigh. I should have known that it was a column by Kathleen Parker. I also should have known that when talking about GOP women, Parker would work in a slam against Sarah Palin. She did: "In the past few months, several conservative women have emerged as candidates and critics to challenge...

By Andrew W. Griffin Oklahoma Watchdog Posted: October 16, 2009 Andrew@oklahomawatchdog.org TULSA, Okla. – Former Fourth Congressional District Rep. J.C. Watts told a group of fellow Republicans Thursday night during a “Get Out the Vote” rally, “I’ve been accused of not being black enough.” And, “I’ve been accused of not being pure enough,” he told the gathering hosted by Better Business Bureau President Rick Brinkley and Oklahoma GOP Chairman Gary Jones. The audience included Attorney General candidate Ryan Leonard and Dewey Bartlett, running for Tulsa mayor. Watts, a former Oklahoma Sooners quarterback, said his experience in Congress shaped him and...

New polling brings good news and bad news for beleaguered Republicans yearning for a comeback in the Age of Obama. The encouraging message suggests that Americans strongly prefer conservative policies and values to the liberal approaches preached by the president. On the other hand, the same polls indicate that the two revival strategies most commonly discussed by the GOP will both lead to political dead ends. Neither a shift to more moderate positions nor an emphasis on rousing, uncompromising, us-vs.-them right wing rhetoric will bring Republicans back to power in Washington D.C. The only workable strategy for long-term GOP gains...

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is taking the opposite route of most defeated presidential candidates: rather than quickly bow out of national politics, McCain is working to become a transformative force in the Republican Party, Politico reported Friday. Concerned about the GOP's direction, McCain has been recruiting and raising money for candidates who share his pragmatic center-right style. McCain has been a particularly generous advisor to Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), who he encouraged to run for Senate and threw a $500,000 fundraiser to support.

A decisive shift in the political battleground has taken place, and few analysts have noticed. Sun Tzu, the Chinese warlord who assembled the psychological philosophy widely known today as The Art of War, knew what he was talking about, and would have been a formidable political strategist. With the exception of the queen, the game of chess assigns each piece very specific tactics, and very specific limitations. The queen can project its power in any direction and distance, thus rendering it a formidable piece. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the pawn. With the exception of its opening...

Remember Peter Wehner? You know, the guy who recently stated that there shouldn't be a place in the GOP for Gov. Palin because "she strikes me as being terribly out of sync with the needs of this moment." Well, he's now joined forces with another anti-Palin pundit, Michael Gerson, who described the Governor as 'fundamentally unserious'. This formidable intellectual tag team has produced an essay for Commentary Magazine in which they sketch a path to Republican revival. Or rather: Republican demise. Because having read it, I can't escape the conclusion that it is, how shall I put this, terribly out...

Republicans are once again ascendant—and for this they can thank Rahm Emanuel. John Batchelor gets the scoop from gleeful conservatives on the trail of Democratic destruction left by Obama’s bullying enforcer. Suddenly the disgraced and demoralized Republican Congress has an unearned future, thanks to the superhuman clumsiness of a man who has made himself indispensable to the Obama administration and insufferable to the Democratic Congress, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. The GOP always knew that Emanuel was a problem that could not be solved and could only be endured while he served three tempestuous terms in the House. But now...

~snip On that last point, he states emphatically, "I love Sarah Palin, I love her positions, I think she was a good governor. . . . I want her to be engaged in this rebuilding of the Republican Party. . . . She is substantially more the face of this country than some other people who might want to be the face of the Republican Party. To me she's the face of America. I mean she's a hard worker, she didn't come from money, she didn't come from privilege, she just worked hard. . . . I have not seen...

Let's face it, the Democrats have been running circles around the Republicans for the last few years. If the GOP plans on regaining control of Washington, they need these 4 things... NOTE: The author of this comic requests that you visit his web site and please refrain from copying the cartoon within this thread. Thanks!

Recent polls show that conservatives outnumber liberals by around a 2-1 margin, close to a 40% to 20% spread. They also show however that democrats outnumber republicans by a similar, though smaller margin(1.5-1 or more in some polls). A recent Gallup poll showed that conservatives out number liberals in all 50 states. It's interesting in that there are way more democrats than liberals, but by the same token there are way fewer republicans than conservatives. It seems to me the way back for conservatives is pretty simple math. They need to either a)have te Republican Party do a better job...

What is the opponent's next move on health care? What does the public need to know to prepare for it? __________________________________________________ THAT is what the GOP does so badly. They never anticipate, predict, AND BROADCAST the opponent's next move. On health care, anyone could predict the left's progression of tactics: extremists, racist nazis, violent extremists, dis-informed. Now we've entered another stage: re-write history (like portraying Florida as flooded with thuggish protesters stealing an election). The left's next step will be to write "town hall" history on both sides. Never mind what you saw with your own eyes and never mind...

There’s a slight spring in the step of Republicans these days. President Obama is stumbling on health reform and his job approval rating is sinking. Suddenly, life in the wilderness doesn’t look so bleak to a GOP that got trounced in the last two elections and was, to some, staring possible extinction in the face. The party could well take two key governorships – New Jersey and Virginia – away from the Democrats in November. Recruiting for next year’s House, Senate, and gubernatorial races has gotten easier, in anticipation of midterm elections that historically favor the out-of-power party. Already, top...

CHICAGO – Minnesota GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty took an aggressive line against President Barack Obama’s proposed health care overhaul Friday and insisted that a rejection of the Democratic plan could usher in a Republican resurgence. “It appears that President Obama is making great progress on climate change, he is changing the political climate in the country back to Republican,” Pawlenty said during a speech to the second annual GOPAC conference in Chicago. “He went around the country last fall promising ‘change we can believe in,’ but now we see it’s about changing what we believe in,” said Pawlenty, an anticipated...

At some point about five years ago, America became a “One-Party Country”—and the party in question was the GOP. Such, at least, was the conclusion of Los Angeles Times reporters Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten in the book they wrote under that title following the 2004 presidential election. Bizarre as their claim may sound today, it stood on solid ground. In November 2004, George W. Bush had won re-election with the largest number of votes up to that point in American history while racking up the seventh Republican win in the previous 10 races for the White House. Republicans, moreover,...

The Republican Party became Humpty Dumpy in August 2006 and, by the 2008 election, all the king’s horses and men couldn’t put the cracked party together again. The question now is whether it’s time for the GOP to try getting back up on the wall. What if I told you that, while the party’s base is anxious for Republicans to begin crafting a positive message and start building support for 2010, to do so at this moment would be premature? Might even hinder its long-term efforts? Instead, the GOP should retain a crisp message of being champions of limited government,...

Despite California's sorry status as an economic basket case, some GOP voices are suggesting, ever so hopefully, that the Golden State could be poised for a new profile - as the birthplace of a potential renaissance for the Republican Party. And it could start at the top, some argue, with the 2010 campaign for governor. National conservative columnist George Will penned a gushing piece to that effect after he got a rare, close-up look at billionaire former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and her well-funded campaign to become the next Republican governor. "Although California is a blue state, it has had...

Two weeks after President Obama said that Cambridge, Mass., police had “acted stupidly” by arresting Harvard University Prof. Henry Louis Gates for arguing with them inside his home, Republicans are still taking stock of their unexpected political gift. A Pew Research poll released on July 30 found the president’s approval rating among white voters slipping seven points, from 53 percent to 46 percent, explicitly because of their disappointment in the Gates remarks. A CNN/Opinion Research poll released on August 4 found that six out of 10 white voters disagreed with the president’s remarks. A Quinnipiac poll released on August 6...

While hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in battles over President Barack Obama’s ambitious legislative agenda in Washington, underneath the radar some of the Republican Party’s next best hopes are laying the groundwork for the bid to replace him — or at least secure their place in the GOP hierarchy. Consider this: In the first half of 2009, Mitt Romney’s political committee paid $188,000 to a small army of consultants, Newt Gingrich’s dropped $628,000 on charter flights, Mike Huckabee’s wrote staff paychecks totaling $131,000 and Sarah Palin’s spent $107,000 raising more money. All four are considered potential presidential candidates,...

Consider this: In the first half of 2009, Mitt Romney’s political committee paid $188,000 to a small army of consultants, Newt Gingrich’s dropped $628,000 on charter flights, Mike Huckabee’s wrote staff paychecks totaling $131,000 and Sarah Palin’s spent $107,000 raising more money. All four are considered potential presidential candidates, and the flurry of campaign finance activity, outlined in reports filed late last month with the Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service, may hold clues about their prospects — and intentions. Each insist they’re using their efforts to help rebuild the party — and the conservative movement — after the...

More than two dozen Republican gubernatorial candidates converged Friday at an Idaho resort for a three-day session organized by the Republican Governors Association to lay out a strategy to rebuild the GOP for the 2010 election cycle. The Sun Valley event will feature sessions led by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Michigan Gov. John Engler and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. It was the latest sign that the governors association and its chairman, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, were emerging as influential players in shaping a Republican comeback bid from disastrous losses in the past two election cycles. Mr. Barbour...

Sen. John McCain said he is saddened Sarah Palin has been the subject of "vicious attacks" but said his former GOP running mate has a promising future in the Republican Party. In an interview with CNN's "State of the Union," McCain said he believes Palin made the right decision by stepping down from her post as Alaska's governor 18 months before her first term was up and said he was upset that the ex-veep candidate continues to be the victim of searing criticism. "I respect Sarah Palin," McCain said in an interview that aired Sunday. "I appreciate her and her...

July 20, 2009 | Republicans can engage in complicated studies to determine the standing of our brand. We (after all, I most certainly am a Republican) can search for policy positions that better connect us to the concerns of voters. We can do any number of things to try to change our fortunes. Until we come to grips with some fundamental math, however, the numbers simply do not add up to the GOP prevailing in a national election any time soon. In 1976, 90 percent of the votes cast in the presidential election came from non-Hispanic whites. In 2008, John...

(CNN) — Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has a warning for Sarah Palin: Don't abandon the Republican Party. The former presidential candidate and potential future White House rival of Palin's said Tuesday he's concerned about speculation the Alaska governor may leave the GOP to become an independent. I hope she remains — let me be real clear — a part of the Republican Party," Huckabee told FOX News. "I'm a little concerned when I hear her say that she may sort of branch out and go third party or go independent. That would be a big mistake because we need...

But once we clear away the wreckage, the real question is what we will build in its place. Even as we rescue this economy from a full-blown crisis, For if we do not seize this moment to confront the weaknesses that have plagued our economy for decades, we will consign ourselves and our children to future crises, sluggish growth, or both. To build that foundation, we must lower the health-care costs that are driving us into debt, create the jobs of the future within our borders, give our workers the skills and training they need to compete for those jobs,...

Free RepublicBrowse · Search Pings · Mail News/ActivismTopics · Post Article Skip to comments.Purge the RINOs and the RINO Apologists 4/28/09 | Natural law Posted on 04/28/2009 7:57:14 PM PDT by Natural Law I am as sick to death of RINO apologists as I am the RINOs themselves. Too many real conservatives took a lot of flack here on FR during the last mid term and presidential election cycles for expecting Republicans to actually legislate like Republicans rather voting for every Obama-lite candidate with an “R” after their names who just might be electable. To too many, elections are...

Voters have now witnessed 2.5 years of Democratic control over Congress and six months of total control in Washington, and they don't much like what they see. The Rasmussen survey now finds that likely voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight out of ten key issues, including a 46-41 margin on the economy and 52-36 on taxes. If these trends continue, we may see the beginning of a Republican comeback in 2010.

Gov. Sarah Palin is the political train wreck that keeps on giving. First, she was an awful choice last year as John McCain's running mate. I came to this conclusion with regret - I am one of McCain's biggest admirers. But facts are facts. An inexperienced governor of a small state, she lacked the experience to be President and brought nothing to the ticket except a surefire knack for exciting voters who were already reliably Republican. It was a strategically awful choice, and I said so - both on and off microphone - at the time. Most pundits thought I...

Public anxiety over the economy, stocks in decline, rising unemployment and a string of expensive Democratic initiatives are all encouraging high-caliber Republicans to compete in 2010. The GOP is enjoying its best candidate recruitment streak in years. The past week has been chock-full of good news for Republicans on the recruiting front and follows troubling developments for Democrats on their side of the ballot. The GOP has seen candidate recruitment rise as joblessness continues to climb to new highs and Wall Street retreats after a brief respite in March, April and May. Compounding the situation, Republicans say, are Democrats’ recent...

Sarah Palin’s resignation and Mark Sanford’s downfall have renewed the media meme that the GOP is “leaderless,” therefore doomed. Google “Republican leaderless” and you get more than 38,000 results. The GOP has very real problems, but this one is mainly hype. In American politics, the -party that is out of power is naturally leaderless. The United States does not have a parliamentary system with one person heading the opposition. In our system of federalism, bicameralism, and separated powers, the party that does not hold the presidency has many voices. In search of drama, however, journalists depict this normal state of...

Jeb Bush interview, Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables, Florida. The scene: Lunchtime at Jeb Bush's modest office just outside Miami. Just Tucker and Jeb, no one else in sight. Sandwiches. Jeb, only fifty-six, the smarter Bush boy, a good governor, with a great many people expecting that he's not yet finished, but after passing on the chance to run for Mel Martinez's Senate seat earlier this year, there's not an obvious path back to power for him. And his party is a shambles. Obama strides the globe like a colossus, Specter is days away from jumping, and Congressman Eric Cantor's sad...

Issa unloads: Says GOP must address 'failures' of Bush and Hastert @ 1:15 pm by Michael O'Brien Republicans have a responsibility to reflect on the "failures" of leaders like former President George W. Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), a prominent House Republican said Tuesday. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, argued the GOP must "throw everything we did wrong under the bus" — even if it means alienating some members of the party. Issa said that his committee and Republicans in general wouldn't be doing their jobs "if we're...

David Frum has done conservatives a great favor, and we should be thankful. The favor is not that he has written another negative piece about Gov. Palin. No, that's nothing new for Frum, who has been bashing the governor since she stepped up onto the national stage. Frum's gift to conservatives is that in the article, he clearly demonstrates why Vichy Republicans cannot be trusted to act in the GOP's best interests. Referencing Todd Purdum's VF hit piece which has caused such a stir, Frum itemizes Purdum's anti-Palin talking points from the VF smear job, and then he makes this...

At a time when Republicans desperately are searching for a unifying leader and message, and Democrats add to their ranks in Congress, the former Massachusetts governor and 2008 presidential candidate is taking a no-excuses attitude toward his party. Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney called on Republicans to "stand up" to President Obama and his policies on the economy, health care and energy, in a wide-ranging interview with FOX News. At a time when Republicans desperately are searching for a unifying leader and message, and Democrats add to their ranks in Congress, the former Massachusetts governor and 2008 presidential candidate took...

A potential White House contender in 2012 staked a claim Sunday to rehabilitating the Republican Party in the wake of extramarital affairs by two leading Republicans that have damaged the GOP's family-values image. "Any time you have leading figures who are engaged in behavior that is sad and troubling and hypocritical, other people are going to look at that and say, 'Hmm, they don't walk the walk.' And so the words and the actions don't ring true," said Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn. "It certainly hurts the brand." Pawlenty added: "I think I can make a contribution, in a positive way,...

Since the day after John McCain lost the election, a battle has raged. “Pragmatists” have demanded that conservatives, particularly social conservatives, compromise their values in order to win elections. The argument between the principled and the “pragmatists” goes back and forth, and there are numerous variations. A personal favorite, from the conservatives, is the pugilistic argument: make us. This, of course, is not so much an argument as a challenge to the David Frums of the world. Conservatives did not obtain their spot in the GOP because the Rockefeller wing decided one day that, in order for the Republicans to...

Duncan Hunter, a retired Republican who once chaired the Armed Services Committee, has decided that Iraq War veterans are the perfect candidates to revive the Republican Party in 2010. Hunter -- a Vietnam War vet who briefly sought the 2008 Republican presidential nomination -- is already backing two such candidates as they launch challenges to two of the more junior members of the House Democratic majority: Jesse Kelly, who wants to take on two-term incumbent Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona's 8th District, and Vaughn Ward, whose target in Idaho's 1st District is freshman Democrat Walt Minnick. Hunter will be attending a...

For the past four years, Republican reformers have been warning of political disaster ahead. Our party's ideas have fallen behind the times, we are losing key demographic groups, and we have suffered disappointment and defeat in four of the six national elections since 1998. You'd think that such a record would demand reform. Yet most conservatives prefer to rationalize the dismal trends. They say: There's nothing wrong with conservatism. We lost in 2006 because of overspending and Iraq. We lost in 2008 because of the financial crisis and John McCain. There's no need to change or adapt. All we need...

The split among Conservatives who define themselves as social conservatives (SoCons) and fiscal conservatives (FiCons), each contending that their view and theirs alone is the key to conservative political success, is unraveling conservative unity. Social and fiscal issues are inextricably linked. Unlink them at your peril and you become the divided party of nebulous ideas and principles that appeal only to the ideological faithful. Liberals suffer no such division and win elections despite the fact most Americans are conservatives at heart and generally apolitical by nature. Liberals support gay marriage, abortion on demand at any time, the welfare state, racial...

If the liberal loons would have just shut up after the election in 2008, perhaps Sarah Palin would have been forgotten, a mere footnote in history. The problem is, the liberal loons just can't help themselves, and are genetically encoded to attack anyone with ideas they deem repellent. If you're pro life, you're an superstitious idiot. If you're against homosexual marriages you're a evil bigot. If you dare to question global warming, you're a dupe for big business. If you own a gun and like to hunt you're a mindless barbarian. We all know the predictable screed from the irrational...

click on the link.