Free Republic

The next two years are a good time to be a local candidate or party organization in Iowa and New Hampshire. The political action committees supporting Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton have already started doling out cash to the campaigns of potential supporters in the states with the earliest presidential contests of 2016. Leadership PACs — like the one Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, will be forming soon — provide a natural vehicle for sending campaign money to state and local candidates and committees in key early presidential states. Several potential presidential candidates, through their...

From the first day of 2011, Mitt Romney was the favorite to win the 2012 Republican presidential primary campaign. No one else was even close. The 2016 outlook could not be more different. Offered the choice to bet on one single candidate to win the nomination versus the rest of the field, the choice would have to be "the field." For the first time in years, there is no one next in line. And without a former vice president or powerhouse former candidate looking likely to run, Republicans are shaping up to spend the next year and a half fighting...

Since forming a presidential exploratory committee earlier this month, Jeb Bush is being considered a serious Republican candidate for president. But as George Will astutely pointed out last week, Bush has two significant hurdles; his support for Common Core and immigration reform. Will correctly points out that his support for the latter is far more nuanced than people understand. Bush does not advocate for more immigration through family reunification, which is the agenda of radical immigration activists, but instead for meeting employment needs, and he supports a path to legal status instead of citizenship. However, his support for Common Core...

Minnesota Congresswomen and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has become the latest politician to call for an impenetrable fence along the entire length of the border with Mexico. "President Obama has failed the American people by failing to secure the southern border," said Bachmann. "I will secure that border and that will be Job One." Statements like that may get some attention, but they are not practical. Don't take our word for it; take Rick Perry's. The Texas governor has been called a lot of things, but he's hardly a mushy liberal. Yet even this tough Texan sneers at calls for...

In a new poll of likely Republican primary voters nationwide by Zogby Analytics, 2012 GOP nominee Romney leads the pack with 14%, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (12%), Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (10%), New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (8%), former Arkansas Governor and now Fox News Host Mike Huckabee (7%), Florida Senator Marco Rubio (7%), Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (5%), Rep. and former Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan (4%), Texas Governor Rick Perry (4%), Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (3%), Texas Senator Ted Cruz (3%), South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (2%), former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (1%), and both...

In the aftermath of President Obama giving the Castro regime diplomatic recognition, Senator Marco Rubio has been pretty much everywhere, including multiple television appearances and authoring this Wall Street Journal op-ed. According to Senator Rubio, “By conceding to the oppressors in the Castro regime, this president and his administration have let the Cuban people down, further weakened America’s standing in the world and endangered Americans.” Whether or not one agrees with Rubio’s position–and I’m sympathetic to it–he makes his case clearly, intelligently, and with passion. Despite some differences with him now and then–I found his advocacy for the tactics that...

The approval comes one year after Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill into law allowing certain undocumented immigrants to pay in-state college tuition rates. In 2013, Christie and Democratic leaders reached a compromise to remove a clause in the bill that also would have offered the same undocumented immigrants state aid to help pay for their higher education.“We have the opportunity to allow all children in this state now to go to college and to go to college in an affordable manner. It provides opportunity and it makes New Jersey the kind of place that all of us want to...

The most conservative candidates are, with the exception of 1964, invariably the bridesmaid and never the bride in the GOP presidential primary. (In 1980, there were candidates such as Rep. Phil Crane of Illinois to Ronald Reagan’s right.) Part of the explanation is that the most conservative voters divide their support among candidates, leaving a path for a more moderate figure to coast to victory. And part of the explanation is that they tend to set upon candidates who self-destruct, are not qualified or are simply too extreme — and often all three. In 2016, how can they break this...

KASIE HUNT, MSNBC: And are you smart enough to be president of the United States?"

I’m sure we’re all relieved to know that after the many media debacles in the last few election cycles, the cable news denizens have learned their lesson. This time around things are going to be different. Candidates will be treated fairly, with an opportunity to make their case before the American people while being subjected to rigorous examination of their actual record and their stated positions on the issues.Naw, I’m just kidding. Nothing has actually changed at all. And to lead off the two year parade of embarrassing media moments, MSNBC featured an interview with Texas Governor Rick Perry...

Guess when you're as brilliant as Mike Barnicle, it's OK to ridicule others for their supposed lack of smarts. Today's Morning Joe was teasing an upcoming segment about a tough question that reporter Kasie Hunt had posed to Rick Perry. Mockingly trying to imagine the question, Barnicle offered "she asked him what day it was." View the video here.

"....A recent 90-minute interview with the Washington Post paid off with a Wednesday front-page story headlined, “New image, renewed ambition for Perry,” that was sprinkled with details about Perry’s preparations for a presidential run that the outgoing governor says isn’t yet a sure thing. “This Perry comes across as studious, contemplative and humble,” wrote Philip Rucker, national political reporter for the Post. “He said he is at peace with his 2012 presidential campaign, in which his shoot-first-aim-later approach proved catastrophic, but is hungry to redeem himself.” Coinciding with the story, Texans for Rick Perry released a stylized, three-minute video touting...

There's no official Sen. Ted Cruz presidential team — yet. But the Texas Republican is already surrounding himself with key strategists and advisers that could make his transparent White House ambitions a reality. The tea party firebrand relies on a small circle of advisers to inform his views and amplify his ultraconservative message. The inner circle breaks down into two groups: his chief advisers in the Senate office, and the chiefs of his nationally-focused political operation, which he beefed up in the summer of 2014 by hiring a crop of seasoned Republican campaign operatives. These are the key players that...

The Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom is delighted to welcome Senator Ted Cruz to deliver the 9th Margaret Thatcher Freedom Lecture. Previous speakers in the Thatcher Freedom Lecture series have included former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, journalist and author Charles Krauthammer, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, free market economist Hernando De Soto, historian Victor Davis Hanson, and human rights champion Natan Sharansky. In his address, Senator Cruz will outline his vision for restoring American leadership on the world stage and rebuilding partnerships with key U.S. allies at a time of increasing global threats to the...

The man who could be president is ambling through the Texas governor’s mansion on his own, whistling “Frosty the Snowman” as he approaches the parlor to greet a reporter. Gov. Rick Perry (R) leads a tour and points out a historically inaccurate depiction of frontiersman Davy Crockett in an oil painting in the foyer (“His coonskin cap — that’s a myth”). In Sam Houston’s bedroom upstairs, Perry lifts an antique upholstered settee, a gift from the French, to read an engraving signifying Texas’s early-1800s ties to France. He shows off a Civil War-era saber that belonged to a Union general...

Rick Santorum won primaries and caucuses in 11 states in 2012, coming in a respectable second in the GOP presidential primary season. And Republicans have a history of bestowing their nomination on the next guy in line, usually an also-ran from the last contest. Yet the former senator from Pennsylvania is rarely mentioned in the already feverish pre-game 2016 chatter among the political commentariat and the donor class. That’s just the way he likes it. Or so he says. “America loves an underdog. We’re definitely the underdog in this race,” he said in an interview Tuesday. Santorum added that being...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called school choice the greatest civil rights issue of the 21st century.Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called school choice "the most compelling civil rights issue of the 21st century" and suggested it will be a significant focus of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and human rights when he becomes chairman in the new Congress. The potential GOP presidential contender made the remarks during a Senate hearing on community policing, scheduled in the wake of racial protests sparked by the deaths of two unarmed African-American men at the hands of white police officers....

As his 14 years in office come to a close, Gov. Rick Perry is dramatically stepping up his outreach to those who could influence a 2016 presidential campaign that he has insisted would be the antithesis of his ill-fated bid three years ago. Angling for a head start in what could be a crowded field for his party's nomination, Perry is hunkering down in Austin with hundreds of influential activists, potential donors and policy experts. The aggressive foundation-laying, which is kicking into high gear this month, marks one of Perry's most organized efforts yet to prepare for the rigors of...

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, predicted Tuesday that neither Gov. Rick Perry nor Sen. Ted Cruz can win the presidency in 2016, calling them both too divisive to garner broad support. “When you get to the general election, people don’t generally want either an angry person or a very harsh, shrill, partisan person,” Castro said about Perry’s prospects. “They want somebody … whose aim at least is to bring people together.” Castro — in a rare joint appearance with twin brother Julián Castro, the Housing and Urban Development Secretary, at a Politico event titled “Lessons from Leaders” — said Cruz...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is inviting hundreds of prominent Republican donors and policy experts to a series of gatherings next month that are intended to rebuild his damaged national brand and lay the foundation for a potential 2016 presidential campaign, fundraisers and organizers confirmed to POLITICO. The small-group sessions kick off Tuesday and Wednesday in Austin with a pair of lunches and dinners held in the governor’s mansion wedged between policy briefings at the nearby office of Perry senior adviser Jeff Miller. In all, Perry’s team expects he will meet in person with more than 500 major donors and bundlers...