Free Republic

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will speak for the first time at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, a clear sign that he is mulling a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. The American Conservative Union, which sponsors the conference, announced Tuesday that Bush will address the group, set for March 14-16 in National Harbor, Md., just outside Washington. Bush has been invited by the group to speak at CPAC several times, but this will be his first appearance. “We are pleased to announce that my friend Gov. Jeb Bush will be a featured speaker at CPAC 2013,”...

He's already being treated like the 2016 GOP presidential front-runner, and now there is another reason Republicans are excitedly buzzing about Florida Sen. Marco Rubio: He alone would reverse the party's slide among Hispanic voters. A new nationwide poll from JZ Analytics found that Rubio would get 48 percent of the Hispanic vote, about twice what Mitt Romney won in 2012. Republican strategist told Secrets that a win among Latino voters that big would assure Rubio the presidency, since he would also likely keep the regular GOP base. "If he does that good, then he's the next president," said a...

Demography isn't destiny—and assuming that it is will likely make liberals overreach again. Many are arguing these days that President Obama has forged a new majority coalition of women, minorities, young people and upscale cultural liberals so large and durable that he can do what no president has done before—pursue a very liberal agenda without serious opposition or defections from his own party. Demography is destiny, this argument holds, and it is irrevocably on the side of Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party. Yes, there will be fewer whites and more minorities in the future, and Republicans will have to...

“I don’t think the party dies immediately,” Gilmore says. “It’s not going to just disappear like the Whigs did, since there is so much law that supports the two-party system. But Republicans will be locked into a permanent minority at the national level unless we seriously rethink our approach.”

Many are arguing these days that President Obama has forged a new majority coalition of women, minorities, young people and upscale cultural liberals so large and durable that he can do what no president has done before—pursue a very liberal agenda without serious opposition or defections from his own party. Demography is destiny, this argument holds, and it is irrevocably on the side of Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party. -snip- Republicans have a perception problem with Hispanics, but the GOP earned 44% of Hispanic votes in 2004 and can do so again with the right policies, many more Hispanic...

As a group of senators unveil their bipartisan proposal for immigration reform today and President Obama heads west this week to rally support for his own ideas, a separate bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House of Representatives is on the verge of finalizing its own designs for comprehensive immigration reform. The discussions, which top aides close to the talks discussed on the condition that they not be identified, are described as “Washington’s best-kept secret.” Last week, House Speaker John Boehner spilled the beans on the secret group, revealing that the lawmakers had been “meeting for three or four years...

A bipartisan group of senators has agreed on a set of principles for a sweeping overhaul of the immigration system, including a pathway to American citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants that would hinge on progress in securing the borders and ensuring that foreigners leave the country when their visas expire. -snip- “We on the Democratic side have said that we are flexible and we want to get a bill,” Mr. Schumer told reporters in New York on Sunday. “But there’s a bottom line, and that’s a path to citizenship for the 11 or so million people who qualify. We’ve...

Leading Democratic and Republican senators said on Sunday there were encouraging signs in the push to overhaul U.S. immigration laws - a top priority for President Obama's second term - and they would introduce their plan this week. -snip- McCain said the political aspect of immigration reform should sway any Republicans who object to a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. "We are losing dramatically the Hispanic vote, which we think should be ours, for a variety of reasons, and we've got to understand that," he said. McCain said change also was needed because "we can't go on forever with...

A bipartisan group of House members has been quietly meeting and is close to an agreement on changes to propose the nation’s immigration laws, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said last week in a speech to a Republican group.

Rick Perry who just announced his candidacy received more votes than Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. How much longer can Palin just drive around the country not doing much of anything and still expect to run for POTUS? A potential candidate without the organization to even manage 100 write in votes looks really really bad.

Former GOP presidential contender and potential 2012 candidate Mike Huckabee said Wednesday that he does not support a repeal of the 14th Amendment -- a part of the Constitution other Republican leaders have called into question recently because it guarantees citizenship for children born in the United States, regardless of their parents' immigration status. Huckabee said in an interview Wednesday that he does not support a repeal, NPR reports. While the former Arkansas governor said, "I'm not for an amnesty program," he added, "You do not punish a child for something the parent did." (snip) Huckabee told NPR that the...

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Friday said he thinks that Congress can get immigration reform done by March 2011, if not by the end of this year. While speaking at a fundraising event for the Irish Lobby for Immigration reform in New York while on recess, Schumer praised his former negotiating partner Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), noting that Graham took his cues from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "While Lindsey Graham is a great partner and he loves our bill," Schumer said, he really said his mentor was McCain, according to IrishCentral.com. (snip) In 2007, McCain attempted to push through a...

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) thinks Mitt Romney will win the GOP nomination for president in 2012. Schwarzenegger predicted on the Tonight Show on Thursday night the former Massachusetts governor will emerge from what could be a crowded field. "I think maybe Romney by a hair," he said. Schwarzenegger also lamented that he can't run himself because the Constitution requires the president to be born in the U.S.