Free Republic

These are tough times for the Republican maverick.Where once this was a celebrated archetype among the conservative tribe (as long as it included a devotion to low taxes and global military dominance) today there is just no room for deviation from the party line in even the smallest of ways. Take, for example, the plight of Sen. Lindsey Graham — who just suffered an epic humiliation at the hands of his own party in Charleston County, South Carolina, for being a RINO turncoat: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was censured Monday night by Republicans in Charleston County who don’t believe he’s...

Beretta is opening a new manufacturing facility in Tennessee, and we're welcoming them to the Volunteer State by giving away a Beretta 92a1 -the civilian version of the M9 - to one lucky 2nd Amendment supporter. Add your name to be automatically entered to win a Beretta 92A1. The deadline to enter is March 15th.

Serendipity: A happy chance or accident. Precisely the opposite of what happened to Senator Dick Lugar last Tuesday in Indiana. At the risk of being redundant, I wrote at the time of the 2010 elections that it wasn’t over ’til it’s over, but that the American Tea Party Patriots had put a new face on American politics. I said that the ‘Republicans-in-name-only’, the ones not voted out in the 2010 sweep of the US House of Representatives, were not the only ones who had to look to their seats in the upcoming 2012 primaries, House and Senate races. I’ve also...

In a tough year for Senate campaigns, Democrats will take everything they can get. This year's map of Senate races heavily favors the GOP, which will defend only 10 seats to Democrats' 23. Six Democratic incumbents have declined to run, and Democrats will have to defend seats in 11 competitive races, while Republicans will only defend in five. All of which makes Sen. Dick Lugar's loss welcome news for Democrats, who seem to have figured all along that their candidate, Blue Dog Rep. Joe Donnelly, would fare better against Tea Party-backed, Saran Palin-endorsed state Treasurer Richard Mourdock in November. Now...

In a radio interview just now, Herman Cain previewed his Tuesday night debate plan: “I’m going after Romney.” "I’m not going after Perry. I don’t need to go after Perry," Cain said, per POLITICO's Juana Summers.

(snip) Among other criticisms, Tea Party activists have taken Lugar to task for supporting the new START nuclear arms treaty with Russia, claiming the U.S. is giving up too much and Russia is not giving up enough. "I've been working systematically for 20 years going to Russia trying to help direct a situation in which we're taking warheads off of missiles every day, destroying missiles that were aimed at us; destroying submarines that carried misslies up and down our coast," said Lugar. "I've got to say 'Get real'. I hear Tea Party or other people talking about they were against...

Washington (CNN) – Still swaggering after its recent electoral successes, the Tea Party movement appears to be growing more emboldened as it tries to blaze a path to power. One new bold move: An activist group is publicly parading a list of lawmakers the group is determined to oust from office. On Thursday, the Tea Party Express added two more names to its "2012 Tea Party Target List" - Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. (snip) "Olympia Snowe dishonors the notion that the Republican Party is supposed to be the fiscally conservative, constitutionalist...

In a dramatic display of the new Republican order, Minnesota’s state GOP banished 18 prominent party members — including two former governors and a retired U.S. senator — as punishment for supporting a third-party candidate for governor. The stunning purge, narrowly passed by the state Republican central committee last weekend, suggests more than just a fit of pique: by banning some of the state’s leading moderates, the Minnesota GOP moved toward extinguishing a dying species of Republican in one of its last habitats. Those exiled warned that the measure, which bans the 18 former members from participating in party activities...

Shortcomings in Republican efforts during the elections are a reason Michael Steele should not continue as chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), a senator said in an interview Sunday. "Our ground game, was not as strong as it could've been. We were outmanned on the ground," Sen. Jim DeMint said on Fox New Sunday. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said Steele should be ousted because Republicans could have done a better job reaching voters.

Two years ago, Barack Obama and congressional Democrats rode a wave of voter disenchantment into power. Many Republicans, even in some traditional strongholds, were swept aside. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, was an exception. She didn’t defeat Democrat Tom Allen. She trounced him, 61-39 percent of the vote, a landslide victory political analysts attributed to Collins’ popularity with moderates, a standing shared by her Maine colleague, U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, also a Republican. Two years later, the same moderate image that protected Collins from the blue wave could make Snowe vulnerable to the red one advanced by the tea party....

WILMINGTON, DEL. - It's the "tea party" vs. the Republican Party in Tuesday's Senate primary in Delaware, where a popular moderate is suddenly under siege from a little-known conservative who in any other year might have been relegated to the footnotes of 2010's election records. That's not an entirely unfamiliar narrative in a year in which tea party organizations have ousted two incumbent senators. But Christine O'Donnell's battle with Rep. Mike Castle perhaps embodies the movement's greatest test, because unlike in other races in which the GOP has offered the tea party an awkward embrace, the Republican Party is fighting...

Lawyers for the state Republican Party are huddling to try to find out how they can close their primary election. Republican leaders who attended a mandatory state meeting last month voted to put a halt to the state's quasi-open primary system. Voters in 1998 approved allowing independents and voters in minor parties to vote in the Democratic or Republican primary. The move is coming at a time of heightened interest in the Republican primary. The Democratic ballot will be relatively tame compared with the GOP, where voters will make picks in high-profile races, like the McCain-Hayworth Senate match, and the...

PHOENIX, ARIZONA. FEBRUARY 10, 2010. Conservative J.D. Hayworth will conclude his statewide media tour announcing his Republican primary challenge to 24-year incumbent John McCain at Leisure World, a senior community McCain infamously dubbed “seizure world.” The Leisure World event will take place on February 17th at 908 S. Power Road, Mesa, AZ 85206. Prior to becoming a 73-year old senior himself McCain derided the well-known retirement community. “Most of the people coming here are not senior citizens moving to Leisure World, I mean Seizure World, I mean, uh, Sun City...I mentioned Seizure World a moment ago...the last election in 1984,...

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who recruited Gov. Charlie Crist to run for Florida’s open Senate seat next year, said today that the National Senatorial Campaign Committee will not put money into the primary Republican battle with former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio. “We will not spend money in a contested primary,” Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told ABC News.

After pumping more than $1 million into an upstate New York House race to elect the Conservative Party’s Doug Hoffman, the Club for Growth is on the hunt again. Chris Chocola, president of the conservative political action committee, made it clear the PAC is looking for more GOP targets who don’t embrace the Club’s limited-government approach. Priority No. 1 is likely to be the Senate contest in Florida, where Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who embraced President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, is being challenged by former State House Speaker Marco Rubio. . . . . . Beyond Florida, other establishment Republicans...

Republican Dede Scozzafava endorsed her former Democratic opponent Sunday in the race for an upstate New York congressional seat, one day after Scozzafava dropped out of the contest. Scozzafava dropped out after Conservative Party candidate Dough Hoffman experienced a late-in-the-game surge. But on Sunday, Scozzafava backed Democrat Bill Owens -- the announcement was made in a statement send out by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "I am supporting Bill Owens for Congress and urge you to do the same," she said. "In Bill Owens, I see a sense of duty and integrity that will guide him beyond political partisanship. He...

In response to the NY-23 news, Rush Limbaugh tells me: “Hmmm... I thought the Era of Reagan was over? Who was it that said that? Oh yeah, the smart people on our side who told us the only way we could win was with moderate/liberal candidates like Scozzafava. Hmmm...”

HOFFMAN, DOUGLAS Receipts $307,889 Individual $187,389 PAC $0 Party $18,500 Candidate $102,000 Other $0 Disbursements Cash on Hand Debt $234,843 $146,090 $430,400 10/14/2009 SCOZZAFAVA, DIERDRE K Receipts $250,206 Individual $120,442 PAC $103,891 Party $13,850 Candidate $12,000 Other $23 Disbursements Cash on Hand Debt $209,502 $81,407 $24,000 10/14/2009 OWENS, WILLIAM Receipts $503,297 Individual $320,654 PAC $161,050 Party $9,916 Candidate $11,677 Other $0 Disbursements Cash on Hand Debt $374,936 $256,721 $251,121 10/14/2009

Today in the "Politico," Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen offered "six ways" the GOP could "save itself." There are a couple of good ideas; there's a lot of junk. Here is the link (sorry, I'm html-handicapped): http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=E9CE165D-3048-5C12-0076A085B3FE4630 PREFACE: Let me begin by saying I think that for too long we have avoided being blunt because of a (false) view that we have to be "sensitive" and because people don't want "partisanship." I think people DO want partisanship and combat, only will never say so. But it is very clear from their voting behavior that when one side fights and the...

It’s not as if we haven’t tried this one on for size before. A GOP incumbent senator convinces himself he’s landed gentry, rather than a public servant. He disses his constituents and could care less what he at one time proposed a conservative should stand for. He then gets challenged in a senatorial primary and thanks to generous support from the NRSC, holds on by the skin of his teeth and runs in the general election. This scenario has played out twice in recent election cycles. In 2004, Arlen Specter wore out his welcome with a baronial arrogance that made...