Free Republic

Gregory T. Angelo, Meghan McCain and Fred Karger signing the St. Louis Resolution Tuesday night. In a move designed to head off anti-gay rhetoric during the 2016 Republican presidential campaign, three prominent GOP leaders signed a resolution Tuesday and will send it off to the 18 prospective Republican candidates for president. After speaking on a panel entitled “Marriage Equality and the Republican Party” in Graham Chapel at Washington University, political columnist and television host Meghan McCain, Log Cabin Republican Executive Director, Gregory T. Angelo and the first openly gay candidate to run for President, Fred Karger, all signed the Resolution,...

Scott Walker and Jeb Bush head a crowded field of prospective Republican presidential candidates in the latest national poll released Thursday. Walker, the Wisconsin governor, polls at 18 percent, and Bush, the former Florida governor, is at 16 percent. The poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University, has New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 8 percent each; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 7 percent; Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 6 percent each; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 5 percent; former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum at 2 percent; and South Carolina Sen....

The budding Cruz 2016 campaign is adding some fund-raising muscle, with the Texas GOP finance chairman joining the effort. Hal Lambert, a Fort Worth money manager who has served three years as the state party’s top fund-raiser, said Tuesday that he is stepping down to help Sen. Ted Cruz if he runs for president. Lambert supported the 2012 presidential campaign of then-Gov. Rick Perry, who – like Cruz – has been spending lots of time with Republican activists in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, where early contests are critical stops on the way to the White House. “It’s not...

Sen. Ted Cruz leads a crowded field for the Republican presidential nomination in Texas, according to a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll released on Monday. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker grabbed only 2 percent of the vote in the last such poll in October, but he has surged to a close second. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whom 14 percent of Republican voters would have chosen in October, fell to fifth place in a wide-open field. Twenty percent of those surveyed went for Cruz, with Walker coming in with 19 percent. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and neurosurgeon Ben Carson...

News 4 San Antonio's Randy Beamer shows you the all-but-official kickoff of the 2016 Presidential Race at the Iowa "Freedom Summit" over the weekend. And he wants to know what you think of the Texans fighting for support of the GOP right. Sen. Ted Cruz and former Rick Perry are in a very crowded field of Republicans. With so many candidates, the race may get heated (and interesting) earlier than ever. So which of the Texans do you think has the better chance? And who would you put money on to get the most money from donors? Go to our...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is refusing to cede the argument many of his likely Republican presidential rivals are making: that governors are better equipped than legislators to be commander-in-chief. “Historically, when elections have focused in significant part on national security, that has given an advantage to candidates who have experience concerning national security,” the Texas senator said on Wednesday. “And that, by its nature, has tended to favor senators over governors.” Cruz's comments, made to reporters on Capitol Hill after delivering a foreign policy speech, follow remarks that former Texas Gov. Rick Perry made downplaying Senate experience ahead of a...

For any Texans torn between Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz as likely presidential candidates, the state’s former governor argued Thursday that executive experience matters. In a wide-ranging interview with The Texas Tribune and The Washington Post, Perry discussed international, presidential and Texas politics. Asked about what separates him from Cruz, Perry never mentioned his potential rival by name. Instead, he downplayed Senate experience and alluded to the fact that Cruz’s tenure in office is the same as then-Sen. Barack Obama's when he ran for president in 2008. “It’s one of the selling points, if you will, to the...

This should come as no surprise to those familiar with Scott Walker’s liberal record… "Full disclosure, my firm has consulted for Scott Walker. He’s a former client. " Mair is militantly pro-abortion and pro gay marriage– as per her horribly-designed website… (SNIP) What kind of person thinks to themselves: "This Liz Mair dude is somebody I want on my team. I’m going to hire him and pay him using donors’ hard-earned money."

Former Texas governor Rick Perry is benefiting from others’ foibles, as is often the case with a second-time presidential candidate. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had a miserable week, as did New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (now reportedly under another federal investigation). Meanwhile, Perry released a list of more than 80 top donors and methodically continued his charm offensive with the press and his comeback tour in early primary states. Pundits are reluctant to raise him above the “others” category, and it is true he remains in single digits in state and national polls — but then so do Sen. Marco...

West Des Moines, IA – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has confirmed he will participate in the first-ever Iowa Agriculture Summit on March 7, pushing the number of confirmed prospective presidential candidates in attendance to eight. Former Govs. Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee and Rick Perry, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, New York businessman Donald Trump and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker were the first prospective candidates to confirm their participation in the bipartisan event that will be held at the Elwell Family Food Center on the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Des Moines. “I am very pleased that...

The Post reports: Former Texas governor Rick Perry on Thursday will announce that he has recruited more than 80 major donors, including some of the biggest bundlers in Republican politics, to aid his efforts as he prepares for a likely 2016 presidential campaign. Perry’s list of supporters is heavy with wealthy Texans, including many energy executives, investors or other business leaders who have backed his previous campaigns, such as his unsuccessful 2012 presidential run. The Rick PAC Advisory Board also features bigwigs in California, New York, Florida, Illinois and other donor-rich states, as well as more than a dozen donors...

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) says that governors are much better suited for the presidency than senators — a useful argument for him to make as he looks to position himself for a potential 2016 bid against a field likely to include several senators. “Governors have to make choices every day. Governors are judged on the results of what we do,” Perry told The Daily Caller Friday. “Senators talk.” He added, “United States senators, by choosing to go into that line of work, don’t get to do that. They don’t get to learn, or to exhibit their leadership ability...

Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz might end up running against each other for the Republican presidential nomination, but they can agree on one thing: their distrust of the Federal Reserve. On Wednesday, the two Republican senators introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act which Mr. Paul has been pushing for some time.Republicans have questioned the Fed’s moves to stimulate the economy since the financial crisis, arguing that the expansion of its balance sheet will create economic instability. In 2011, Gov. Rick Perry called the Fed’s monetary policies potentially “treasonous” and said that Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman at the...

AUSTIN, Texas – A Texas judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss a felony abuse-of-power case against former Gov. Rick Perry on constitutional grounds, ruling that criminal charges against the possible 2016 presidential candidate should stand. In 44 pages of decisions and orders, District Judge Bert Richardson, who like Perry is a Republican, rejected calls from Perry's pricy defense team to toss the case because its client was acting within his rights as chief executive of America's second-most populous state when he publicly threatened, then carried out, a 2013 veto of state funding for public corruption prosecutors.

AUSTIN – A state judge on Tuesday refused to throw out an indictment accusing former Gov. Rick Perry of abusing his veto authority to try to force out a local prosecutor. Perry, who is actively eyeing another presidential bid, was indicted last summer. The charges stem from his 2013 threat to veto funding for a public corruption unit overseen by Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg unless she resigned after a drunken-driving arrest. Lehmberg stayed in office after serving jail time, and Perry axed the funding. The Republican said that Lehmberg, a Democrat, had lost the public’s confidence. A grand...

RedState assisted in sponsoring Rep. Steve King (R-IA)72%‘s event in Iowa this past weekend. I did not go, but made sure to pay attention to what was going on and who said what. As I have previously written, this is the most substantive field of Republican contenders since 1980. The number of Governors, Senators, and others who are running gives the GOP a deeper bench than any the Democrats can or will muster. They also agree on most topics and are trying to nuance themselves into unique positions. I appreciate Governor Perry’s desire to paint a vision for the country....

DES MOINES, Iowa — Texans Ted Cruz and Rick Perry courted Iowa conservatives on Saturday at the first major gathering of the 2016 Republican field — a chance for more than a half-dozen White House hopefuls to throw elbows, shape narratives, generate buzz and frame the choice to their advantage.Perry, making his first foray as an ex-governor, cast himself as a seasoned executive who can actually point to achievements — unlike, say, a senator.“I got a feeling that after six years of disappointment, of mediocrity and decline, a slow-course correction is not what voters are going to be looking for...

“The most important tax reform we can do is abolish the IRS,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told the fired-up audience. The firebrand senator compared the EPA to a locust and got a huge reaction when he demanded to “repeal every word of ObamaCare.” Sarah Palin, too, after telling reporters she’s thinking about a 2016 run, laced her speech with snappy one-liners as she lit into the current president. Of Obama, she said: “America, he’s just not that into you.” The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee also knocked the idea of a Hillary Clinton run. “Hey Iowa, can anyone stop Hillary?...

Illegal immigration jumped to the front of Iowa conservatives' minds on Saturday when a group of protesters heckled two potential presidential candidates for disagreeing with President Barack Obama's recent moves on the subject. 'If you become president, will you deport our families?' the group of eight shouted over and over from the balcony, after former Texas Gov. Rick Perry spoke about how he had mobilized his state's National Guard troops to patrol America's southern border. (SNIP) Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman in a shrinking House minority, held a small event across the street from the...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Bill Maher railed against the 2016 GOP field on Friday’s “Real Time,” dubbing Ted Cruz “the scariest Hispanic to come out of [Texas]” since Javier Bardem’s portrayal of assassin Anton Chigurh in “No Country for Old Men.”Maher initially introduced the 2016 field as a group of “corporate @$$lickers” who were trying to “sign up mega-rich donors like Sheldon Adelson before one of the other guys in the pack blows him first.” He then went after each candidate individually, calling Rick Perry an “Evangelical Texas $#*+-kicker with limited intellect” to draw a comparison between him and George W. Bush. Maher was...