Free Republic

Chris Plante, morning radio talk show host for 630 WMAL, Washington, D.C. (the home of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin) will be on the "CNN Newsroom" show tonight at 10:00 p.m. with Rick Sanchez to discuss OPERATION CHAOS. This announcement just came out of Chris' own mouth during his Sunday show a few minutes ago. Stay Tuned! SEND TO ALL LIMBAUGH PING LISTS, AS WELL AS HANNITY'S AND LEVIN'S....

WASHINGTON — One of President Nixon’s daughters, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, apparently supports a Democrat in this year’s presidential contest — Barack Obama. Eisenhower has contributed the maximum amount allowed during the primary season to Obama’s campaign: $2,300. Federal Election Commission records show she gave Obama’s campaign $1,000 on Feb. 4, another $1,000 on Feb. 18 and $300 on March 5. One of her father’s staunchest defenders during the Watergate scandal, she married the grandson of another Republican president, David Eisenhower, just before her father took office. Since her father’s resignation, she has written several books and is now co-chair of...

MIAMI -- A donor to the Democratic Party asked for a rebate out of frustration over the party's Florida delegate dilemma -- and he got it. Federal records show that Paul Cejas has given six-figure sums to the Democratic National Committee for years, NBC 6's Nick Bogert reported. Cejas asked for his last donation back. He said he was angry with the party, particularly party Chair Howard Dean, over the failure to resolve Florida's delegate dilemma. "Frankly, he's dropped the ball, and I told him, 'You're going to go down in history as the worst chairman of the Democratic Party...

Maybe, just maybe, it’s now worth at least asking whether Hillary Clinton might wind up as the Democratic candidate for vice president. When the chatter about a Democratic “dream ticket” began last year, it was easy to dismiss. Either Clinton or Obama would win a clear victory in the primaries and, after what inevitably would be a contentious campaign, each would want as little to do with the other as possible. Clinton, if she emerged victorious, would instead choose some kind of national security graybeard to her political right, a retired general perhaps, or maybe even a Republican. Likewise, Obama...

In some ways, Barack Obama's speech on race last week was as brilliant as it was nuanced. But for all its rhetorical beauty, it was also an enormous step backward and, in the end, a rather self-serving call for more discussion about racial grievance in a country that has already done way too much talking. Until last week, so much of Obama's appeal lay in the fact that he was not asking us to talk about the racial divide. Instead, he offered himself as a living and breathing symbol of racial reconciliation; his very origins pointed to the goal of...

When Democrats contemplate the apocalypse these days, they have visions of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton slugging it out à la Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter at the 1980 convention. The campaign's current trajectory is, in fact, alarmingly similar to the one that produced that disastrous affair. Back then, Carter had built up a delegate lead with early wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, and several Southern states. But, as the primary season dragged on, Kennedy began pocketing big states and gaining momentum. Once all the voting ended and Kennedy came up short, he eyed the New York convention as a...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Barack Obama's speech last week, hastily prepared to extinguish the firestorm over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, won critical praise for style and substance but failed politically. By elevating the question of race in America, the front-running Democratic presidential candidate has deepened the dilemma created by his campaign's success against the party establishment's anointed choice, Hillary Clinton. In rejecting the racist views of his longtime spiritual mentor but not disowning him, Obama has unwittingly enhanced his image as the African-American candidate -- not just a remarkable candidate who happens to be black. That poses a racial dilemma for...

Some 50 delegates were reportedly poised to unite behind Barack Obama if he had won by even 1 point in Texas. He lost the popular vote by 100,000 ballots, and now we learn that 100,000 Republicans voted for Hillary Clinton, probably not because of some change in party allegiance but because they thought she would be the easier candidate to beat. This kind of strategic voting often backfires (think Ralph Nader). The Texas crossovers are winners. By helping to prolong the Democratic race, they can claim credit for weakening the eventual nominee, whoever it turns out to be. Obama has...

Mr. Obama’s Philadelphia speech, in spite of its eloquent passages expressing his hope for better racial relations in America, is a mastery example of literary subterfuge, the broadening of the scenery whereby an object of inquiry becomes blurred and lost in the background, or more bluntly, the escaping of a slippery fish from a pond into a lake to hide in a wider expanse of water. His speech is essentially a sophisticated lawyerly defense of Rev Wright’s sin on the basis of self-defense. While Mr. Obama’s understanding on the root causes of America’s racial problems is quite apt, he attempts...

There are moments — increasingly rare in risk-abhorrent modern campaigns — when politicians are called upon to bare their fundamental beliefs. In the best of these moments, the speaker does not just salve the current political wound, but also illuminates larger, troubling issues that the nation is wrestling with. Inaugural addresses by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt come to mind, as does John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religion, with its enduring vision of the separation between church and state. Senator Barack Obama, who has not faced such tests of character this year, faced one on Tuesday. It is...

I have been troubled by Former President Bill and Senator Hillary Clinton's "presumptuous" offer to Senator Barack Obama to serve as vice-president during her presidency. Her assumption is that she would be more electable by the public at large and become the nation's first female president. While we would be ecstatic to have Barack as vice president, all of this is totally ignoring the fact that he is clearly the Democratic frontrunner in the race. After listening to the Clintons, I had a chance to talk to my dear friend Rev. Art Forbes when he came by the office to...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton essentially even in the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. It’s Obama 46% Clinton 45% (see recent daily results). This reflects an unusually sharp change from yesterday’s results when Obama led by eight points and reached the 50% level of support for the first time. Daily tracking results are collected via nightly telephone surveys and reported on a four-day rolling average basis. Last night’s results were very favorable for Clinton and it remains to be seen whether this marks a lasting change in the race...