Free Republic

John Roco argues that a pattern of increasing power enabling access to a female 'of more desire to him' has defined Newt Gingrich for the election, debates, presidential race of 2012, as well as leaving a wife when she was 'baggage' of being ill, and seemingly not to serve his purposes. John Roco also argues of Newt Gingrich's attack ability at debates, whether South Carolina, Florida or future, actually becomes an extreme deficit of one who would want to be leader of our nation, needing to 'contain' outbursts and expressions of ego empowerment. Admiral Patrick Walsh is mentioned as one...

Rove is very much in a “do I have to do everything myself” mode these days, which is why he’s also running the GOP’s congressional campaign as an independently funded venture. Here he is practically acting as a Romney surrogate on Fox and attacking Herman Cain, because actual Romney surrogates seem unable to.

On the day Mitt Romney formally announced his bid for the GOP presidential nomination, former Alaska Governor took a shot at his Massachusetts health care plan by criticizing government mandates. RealClearPolitics reports: ‘[E]ven on a state level and a local level, mandates coming from a governing body, it’s tough for a lot of us to accept because we have great faith in the private sector and in our own families and in our businessmen and women in making decisions for ourselves,’ Palin said. ‘Not any level of government telling us what to do.’ And yet… even her home state of...

When I was a Senate staffer more than a decade ago, Republicans hit on a tactic to advance school choice. They kept narrowing the eligibility standard to cover poorer and poorer families with children in only the most spectacularly failing schools, daring Democrats to vote against the most sympathetic possible group of students. I remember one liberal senator saying in exasperation, "Someday, you are going to make this impossible to oppose." . . .

When I see the fervor of Sarah Palin’s fans — and by no means just those who swell the adoring crowds who go to her public appearances — I am convinced that the question is not, “How can she win the GOP nomination?” but “How can she not win it?” When you have anywhere between five and fifteen GOP candidates, all expressing basically the same conservative views, how can anyone other than the only one with the passionate fan base possibly win? And yet: Reading between the lines of what conservative-movement people are saying and writing, there is a great...

I spent only a few hours with the former governor, helping to prepare her for the vice presidential debate in October 2008. And during that brief window, I saw Palin at one of her most vulnerable moments, when any result other than a complete train wreck seemed impossible. And yet I also saw a determined woman buckle down, recover her confidence and then storm the national stage where she more than held her own against a seven-term senator. Did she face some tough slogging to reach her remarkable perch? Sure, you betcha. I admire her tenacity, her verve, her moxie,...

For many Republicans, the bright, golden haze of Election Day is marred by a thunderhead on the horizon -- the increasingly erratic political interventions of Sarah Palin. In the past, Palin embodied the populist style of the Tea Party movement while espousing a fairly mainstream Republican ideology. On economic, social and foreign policy, Palin seldom strayed from a simplified, popularized Reaganism. The mama grizzly may have been ferocious, but her talking points came from the Heritage Foundation instead of from darker corners of the right. But this election season has called that perception into question. Palin's endorsement of Christine O'Donnell...

Republican National Chairman Michael Steele is spending twice as much as his recent predecessors on private planes and paying more for limousines, catering and flowers – expenses that are infuriating the party's major donors who say Republicans need every penny they can get for the fight to win back Congress. Most recently, donors grumbled when Steele hired renowned chef Wolfgang Puck's local crew to cater the RNC's Christmas party inside the trendy Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, and then moved its annual winter meeting from Washington to Hawaii. For some major GOP donors, both decisions were symbolic of the kind of...

In light of a recent poll that shows former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney leading the pack of possible 2012 GOP presidential contenders, 10 serious questions were presented that Romney must answer satisfactorily in order to gain the support of conservatives. To answer these questions Romney supporters provided various explanations concerning the candidate's stance on key issues impacting conservative support, among these being gun rights, property rights, and healthcare. Conservatives are individualistic voters who think independently. Unanimous agreement on the issues is an unrealistic expectation. However, in general conservatives can unite around several core principles:

There will be much harrumphing and punditry in the next few days about the meaning of Scott Brown's victory and his phenomenal campaign for Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat.... As important as the Massachusetts special election was to the health-care debate, it also represents a come-to-Jesus moment for the GOP. What kind of party will it be? On the surface, Brown's success, especially among independents, suggests that the GOP tent is expanding to make room even for moderate, pro-choice candidates like Brown. Have fiscal conservatives displaced social conservatives as the base?...

A top adviser on Hispanic issues to John McCain’s presidential campaign said Sunday that a joint interview with McCain and Sarah Palin planned for Univision last fall had to be canceled because Palin was unprepared to discuss Latin America policy. “She did not feel comfortable speaking about issues regarding Hispanics and Latin America,” GOP consultant Ana Navarro told Univision anchor Jorge Ramos in an interview. “Those are not topics that come up frequently in Alaska. So she asked to cancel the interview and, unfortunately, you were already there.”

The ostensible subject of their debate at FrontPage Magazine is: "Is Glenn Beck Good for Conservatives?" But David Horowitz, after an opening compliment of David Frum, makes clear, in scathing language I have never seen him use against another conservative, that the real problem and the real subject of the discussion is not Beck, but Frum himself. (I've abridged Horowitz's comment, but the whole thing is worth reading, as he goes into detail tearing apart Frum's pious claim that Frum in the past has defended conservatives from liberal attacks.) Horowitz replies to David Frum: ... But it is the intemperate...

Recent polls in two crucial primary states--Iowa and New Hampshire--show that Mitt Romney has leapfrogged John McCain and Rudy Giuliani to claim momentum in the race for the Republican nomination for president. The latest Des Moines Register poll shows Romney with 30 percent support, a 12-point lead over his nearest competitor in Iowa, McCain. Even better, Romney's internal polling has him running 17 points ahead of the competition in the Hawkeye State. A Zogby poll of New Hampshire voters offers similar results: Romney leads with 35 percent while McCain and Giuliani tie for second with 19 percent. This surge of...