Free Republic

In an attempt understand the allegation that Cruz paid "hush money" to Sarah Flores via Carly Fiorina I've researched filings available on the FEC website. The research is not 100% complete but I think there's enough to say "maybe", meaning it's not out of the question. There's enough here to warrant further investigation. I'll try to provide updates, motivation and time permitting. - - - Claim: The ($500K, excerpted) money from the Fiorina campaign was laundered through a company called MLJ Consulting. Nearly half of the money spent on ads, over $251,795, was paid to MLJ Consulting. On top of...

This week, the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) established a joint-fundraising account, "Romney Victory Inc." The idea is that donors can write one big check to the joint account, which can then be divvied up between Romney's campaign committee and the RNC. According to Romney Victory fundraising documents, the first $5000 in an individual's contributions to Romney Victory will go to the Romney campaign (the $2500 maximum for use in the primary campaign, which technically runs through the convention, and the $2500 maximum for the general election). The next $30,800 goes to the RNC, again the maximum...

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush dropped out of the Republican presidential primary two days ago, prompting campaign officials and supporters to look for a scapegoat for the debacle. They may have settled on a pricey one, indeed. Political strategist Mike Murphy, head of the pro-Bush super PAC Right to Rise USA, is under fire for allegedly giving himself a salary and compensation package that totals $14 million. "He made minimum of $14 million," a Bush campaign bundler told CNN.

Forty-five minutes late, Jeb Bush hurried onto the porch of a crowded barbecue restaurant where more than 100 people waited for the Republican presidential hopeful earlier this week. The former Florida governor - hoping to revive his struggling campaign and become the third Bush elected president - launched into a stump speech before taking questions at Hudson's Smokehouse, a favorite stop for GOP candidates. "Donald Trump's not going to get the nomination. He's not going to be president," Bush said of the GOP front-runner near the end of the hour, the crowd clapping and cheering in agreement. Bush's Wednesday visit...

-snip- To many of the billionaires it felt like a mugging. -snip- Rove's 2012 crash is having profound effects on the 2016 Republican primary. To begin with, George W. Bush's Brain is no longer considered much of a brain. "I gave Rove $500,000. What did I get for it? Nothing!" Langone told me. Two of Rove's most generous 2012 funders, Texas billionaires Bob Perry and Harold Simmons, have since passed away, and their heirs have turned off the cash spigot. "Everyone is still shocked Romney lost," says Simmons's widow, Annette. "I haven't committed at all." So far this year, Crossroads...

A few factors have increased the chances of a multi-ballot convention.... 17 candidates entered the race and 15 remain. ...five contenders who today appear to have the message, money, organization and poll numbers to play the long game: neurosurgeon Ben Carson, real-estate magnate Donald Trump, Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. What complicates the picture is the GOP’s rule requiring the 28 (states+) that vote before March 15 to award their delegates proportionally. The exception is South Carolina, whose winner-take-all primary was grandfathered in. Add in the eight states voting on or after March...

JACKSON, MISS. — Chris McDaniel supporters vowed to keep up the fight after the primary runoff was called for Sen. Thad Cochran Tuesday night, but by Wednesday afternoon several outside groups and one prominent Mississippi Republican threw cold water on talk of an official challenge. “My understanding is that is not going to happen,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) from Washington. “I kind of heard it through the grapevine at lunch.” Wicker supported Cochran’s reelection and was intimately involved in his fundraising operation for the runoff. The Club for Growth and Senate Conservatives Fund — two of McDaniel’s biggest national...

The Republican Party’s senior operatives publicly are committing the cardinal sin of promising to spend tens of millions of dollars of its most generous donors’ money to lard up on data: knowledge. What, instead, is required — to restore its ability to make good, winning, decisions — is virtue: understanding. This critical distinction appears lost on the politicos. Memo to the GOP donor base: to win (in 2014 and 2016 and beyond) the GOP can and must get just two things just right. First, the GOP must (and can) reunite its libertarian and conservative factions around the Constitution. Second, the...