Free Republic

(AUDIO-AT-LINK)Jeb Bush was pleading for money. Late last month a fundraising email, sent in his name, asked donors for "$100, $50, $25, or anything you can spare right now." Bush said his political action committee still needed $5,674 to meet a monthly goal. The same day his organization hit "send" on that email, Bush was talking about the big-donor fundraising for his superPAC — $100 million so far, some of it solicited by Bush himself. "We're going to completely adhere to the law for sure," the former Florida governor said on CBS's Face the Nation. Ever since Bush began soliciting...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is in Raleigh this weekend organizing his campaign in the state, sees some parallels between the crowded GOP presidential primary and the NCAA basketball tournament. With the GOP primary becoming increasingly crowded, Cruz said it is useful to break down the field into brackets. Candidates must win their brackets in order to advance. “I think of the Republican primary very much like an NCAA tournament bracket,” Cruz said in an interview at the Raleigh Convention Center on Friday. The typical Republican primary, Cruz said, is composed of 35 percent of self-identified moderates, 15 percent libertarians,...

... "We're looking for an economic vision that's going to create jobs and opportunities for the ladder of success to reach down to everybody."

The Koch brothers say they’ll spend over $900 million to make sure at least one of their five likely favorites gets across the finish line in the Republican primaries. Why not a billion dollars? Maybe they worry about the optics of spending that much money; it’s almost insulting to the candidates that they need that much outside help. Polls show Republicans are happy with their growing field of candidates, with the diversity and quality of the entrants. There are governors and ex-governors, four sitting senators and one ex-senator, a former neurosurgeon and a businesswoman, most with hefty resumes, yet nobody...

Sepp Blatter has resigned as Fifa president amid growing pressure following widespread allegations of corruption at football's world governing body. A new election will be held on May 13th.

In a Meet the Press interview on Sunday, presidential candidate Rick Santorum says the upcoming Supreme Court decision on gay marriage has "validity" but is not "the final word." Santorum, who officially announced his candidacy last week, was asked by Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd if he agreed with Mike Huckabee's assessment that states should take action to disregard a ruling many experts expect to be in favor of attempting to redefine marriage in the United States. "Well, I think the Supreme Court has, as an equal branch of government, the ability to overrule Congress and the president," declared...

Ugh. I may give Bernie Sanders a lot of flak for being unelectable, but I don't want anyone to think Democrats have the market cornered when it comes to candidates with no chance of winning. Though he hasn't announced, we assume Jeb Bush is going to seek the Republican nomination, and the party already has Mike Huckabee in the race. Now, it will have to deal with a doomed Rick Santorum candidacy as well. Santorum made his announcement in a televised interview with pretend journalist George Stephanopoulos, and you can watch the clip below. To quickly sum it up, he's...

Failed Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain decried former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) for entering a presidential race he is unlikely to win. The former Godfather’s Pizza CEO tweeted about Santorum’s “doomed presidential bid” and lobbed another bomb at ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, mocking Santorum for making his announcement in an interview with the “pretend journalist.” (Stephanopolous’ standing among Republicans has fallen considerably since POLITICO reported that he had given $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation.) The tweet linked to a blog post published by columnist Robert Laurie on the Cain TV website on Thursday, questioning “why every GOP throwback candidate feels they...

Rick Santorum has decided to inflict himself, yet again, on our fair nation, running for President a third (I think) time. Now, while I'm not entirely certain what America did to deserve such an honor, clearly God is trying to punish us for some string of transgressions, because otherwise, His chosen candidate, Santorum, would have long ago retired to head up a DC-based family-focused think tank or sell panini presses on late night television. Not that I begrudge Rick his chance. Although he's not very attractive as a candidate, he did do well last time around, and he has, at...

In 2012, former Senator Rick Santorum emerged from a crowded field of candidates from the Republican primary season to challenge Mitt Romney for the nomination. The field included a black man who was an early conservative favorite (Herman Cain) and luminaries Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich, and even a Paul – Congressman Ron, not Senator Rand. After numerous implosions, both due to internal personality issues and Romney Super-PAC orchestrations, the field was narrowed to Romney and Santorum. Today, at 5 pm EST, Rick Santorum is due to announce his second run at the brass ring in western Pennsylvania. As the...

CABOT, Pa. — Rick Santorum, the brusque and deeply conservative former senator who won nearly a dozen contests in the 2012 race for the Republican nomination, announced here Wednesday that he would seek to recapture that fleeting magic by entering a crowded primary likely to be far more difficult than the last.

Reigning 2012 Iowa caucus victor and former Sen. Rick Santorum is expected to announce another presidential bid Wednesday, jumping into a 2016 Republican field crowded with candidates just like him — socially conservative current and former U.S. senators. And though Santorum was in many ways the prototype for the wave of tea party lawmakers who went to Washington in 2010 — brash, unapologetically conservative, disliked by his Senate colleagues — he must now distinguish himself from opponents molded in his likeness while simultaneously grappling with issues that defined the Republican establishment a decade ago but look different today, such as...

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is praying for political lightning to strike twice. Even after pulling an upset win in the Iowa caucuses four years ago and going on to survive the longest against eventual nominee Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential hopeful is again the underdog in a much more crowded 2016 field. Expected to announce his second bid for president in his hometown of Butler, Pa., Wednesday, Santorum is nowhere near the silver-medal finish he pulled off in 2012. But that's not stopping him from still preaching his brand of "blue-collar conservatism" with an emphasis on workers and manufacturing...

Rick Santorum is not happy about the rules for the first 2016 Republican primary debate, hosted by Fox News, which will limit the number of candidates onstage based on their standing in the polls. (snip) Santorum is expected to announce his plans for 2016 on May 27 during a speech in his hometown of Butler, Pennsylvania.

Well, on Monday, via BuzzFeed, Robert Putnam said this: I’m a progressive and I think the evidence is that first of all, there has been a collapse in the working family class family, black and white, and that’s bad for kids ... But there is a presidential candidate, who yesterday quoted me as saying therefore—he’s quoted me as saying all black men are sexual predators. I’m not going to say who it is but what I’m trying to say is, he’s a conservative...

Link only, due to copyright issues: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/05/18/christian-evangelicals-elections-demographics-medved-column/26474707/

We all know that if the Republican debates include all the declared candidates that it's going to be a circus. Each candidate will only get to speak for a few minutes and we won't learn much. We'd learn more if the debates were limited to the candidates who had the greatest chance of getting the nomination. Here are the most realistic candidates--not the best candidates, but the ones who have at least a chance to win the nomination: Scott Walker: Current governor of Wisconsin, an inspirational speaker, riding high in several polls. Jeb Bush: Former governor of Florida, he's been...

Paul Pressler, a former Texas appeals court judge who has long been a supporter of conservative causes and active in Texas politics, announced Saturday that he is endorsing Sen. Ted Cruz (R) for president. Pressler, who in 2012 hosted a large group of evangelical leaders who voted to coalesce their support behind Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign as a challenge to frontrunner Mitt Romney, said he announced his endorsement of Cruz at a meeting of conservatives in Washington Saturday. “I feel that Ted Cruz is electable and he stands by his convictions in an articulate manner,” Pressler said in an interview...

Caffeinated Thoughts completed a non-scientific poll of our readership from May 1-8, 2015. U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) leads overall being first choice for just shy of 37% of those polled. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) leads among Iowan readers with almost 29% saying he is their first choice. Our overall results (1st Choice): 1. U.S. Senator Rand Paul – 36.8% 2. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz – 19.6% 3. Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum – 11.2% 4. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry – 8.0% 5. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal – 5.2% 6. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio – 4.0% 7. Former...

The GOP presidential primary is on course to be flooded with super PAC money. But in 2016, candidates will need more than a little dough to win over voters.The GOP could have a dozen deep-pocketed presidential contenders, and they'll all learn next year that when it comes to actual votes, that extra money doesn't buy what it used to. Already, super PACs are arming second- and third-tier candidates with tens of millions of dollars while the supposed GOP front-runner, Jeb Bush, promises a record-setting haul. This combined fundraising guarantees that by the time Republicans have picked their nominee in summer...