Free Republic

Don’t count Lindsey Graham among the Republican Presidential hopefuls who think that mass shooting in Charleston was about something other than race. He spoke out this weekend to address the murders, and his statement differs sharply from what some of his colleagues are saying. Unlike Rick Santorum and Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham isn’t pretending the murders were about religion or insisting that we can’t tell yet what motivated the attack. Instead, Graham openly recognizes that this attack was racially motivated — and says that America has a long way to go in the racial relations department. “There can be no...

Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the funding arm of the political network backed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, wants a lot more hard information from the crowded field of presidential contenders before deciding what to do with its considerable resources. The group is pressing every 2016 candidate to detail on the record their plans for economic growth, deficit reduction, entitlement reform, criminal justice and even foreign policy. The tax-exempt entity, a key node in a constellation of conservative entities that aims to spend $889 million before the next White House election, distributed a detailed survey Thursday to...

Ted Cruz said Saturday that the Confederate flag flying in front of their statehouse is “a question for South Carolina” to decide. He is not alone. Marco Rubio said the same: “This is an issue that they should debate and work through and not have a bunch of outsiders going in and telling them what to do.” Scott Walker and Carly Fiorina also feel it is an issue for South Carolina alone to decide. Funny. I seem to recall South Carolina trying to decide that issue in 1861, when on April 12 they opened fire on Fort Sumter, inaugurating the...

The fatal shootings this week at a historic black church in South Carolina has sparked a feud between the presidential campaigns of Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. Clinton suggested Thursday that Trump’s comments about Mexicans, during his campaign announcement speech three days earlier, could incite racial hatred like that which led to white male Dylann Roof on Wednesday evening allegedly killing nine black people attending a bible study inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, S.C. “The people who do this kind of dastardly, horrible act are a very small percentage,” Clinton said in Nevada on...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) When it comes to dealing with the Confederate flag, Jeb Bush isn't leaving much room for interpretation in his stance on the issue. The former governor recalled Saturday how he ordered the removal of the flag from Florida state grounds in 2001, adding that he believes South Carolina will do "the right thing" as the state decides what to do about the controversial symbol that flies at the capitol in Columbia. His comments come as 2016 presidential candidates face questions over how to handle the racially sensitive debate that follows the massacre of nine African-American parishioners by a white...

JOHNSTON, Iowa – Sen. Ted Cruz says whether or not South Carolina removes the Confederate flag from a state house memorial is an issue for the state to decide and that he sees “both sides” of the debate. In an interview with The Washington Post on Saturday, Cruz (R-Tex.) said that he understands why people equate the flag with both racial oppression and historical traditions. “I understand the passions that this debate evokes on both sides,” the GOP presidential hopeful said. “Both those who see a history of racial oppression and a history of slavery, which is the original sin...

Sen. Ted Cruz outlined how he would fix Social Security, striking a balance between candidates who propose immediate cuts and those who wish to leave it mostly in place.(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Cruz said he’d keep benefits the same for seniors and those close to retirement in a June 4 interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. For everyone else, he’d propose gradually increasing the retirement age, limiting the increase in benefits to the inflation rate and allowing workers to keep some of their tax payment in a private account. Cruz makes strong impression on conservative non-profit The Council for National Policy–a secretive, conservative non-profit...

America is in deep trouble. And it’s all Sean Hannity’s fault. So says newly minted GOP presidential candidate and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. Said Senator Graham in an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, as reported here in the Washington Examiner. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, thinks he knows why the country is increasingly divided on ideological lines, and it has a lot to do with MSNBC and Fox News. In an interview Tuesday with NBC, Graham said the current media environment makes it difficult for lawmakers to accomplish anything. He envisioned what...

GREENVILLE, S.C. — If Chris Christie runs for president, there's little doubt people will see plenty of the town halls the New Jersey governor is known for. That anything-goes format is his comfort zone, and voters tend to like it. Christie spent hours answering questions at two town hall-style events during the past week in South Carolina — one planned, the other an impromptu session in the back room of a bar. He'll be doing the same in Iowa in the days ahead....

* Iowa Senator Joni Ernst and co. are taking off from a Harley-Davidson dealership this morning in Des Moines for a 39 mile ride to Boone * Ride honoring the nation's veterans attracted only one candidate for the White House: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker * Perry will also ride with a group of veterans to Ernst's first annual 'Roast and Ride' but he's starting in Perry, Iowa * Will keep the spotlight on Perry, who is making the journey with Taya Kyle, wife of 'American Sniper,' and Marcus Luttrell, the 'Lone Survivor' * A half a dozen current and presumed...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) took a shot at former Gov. Jeb Bush's (R) prospects of clinching the 2016 Republican nomination for president on Thursday by wondering (rhetorically) if Bush could win any of the three crucial early primary states —New Hampshire, South Carolina, or Iowa. "If you look historically since World War II no one has ever won the nomination without winning at least one of those first three," Cruz said Thursday afternoon in an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News. "That has certainly been history. I think it's an interesting challenge for a number of other of these...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R- S.C.) is not only doing badly in the polls, he’s also doing poorly on social media. Facebook, which is typically a good measure of support for presidential candidates, didn’t light up Monday when Graham announced his 2016 bid for president. Graham’s announcement generated a paltry 142,000 Facebook interactions — meaning likes, posts, and comments — from just 84,000 people in a 24-hour period, according to CBS News. Of the 10 announced Republican candidates, Graham trails everyone except Former New York Gov. George Pataki who had just 81,000 interactions from 59,000 people. Most of Graham’s interactions came...

The GOP prez field's newest entrant makes up for his domestic RINOism with an off-the-rails foreign policy.Senator Lindsey Graham entered the presidential race yesterday. Unless something dramatic happens, he will be sworn in as president in January 2017. Wait. No? The opposite of that. Unless something dramatic happens, Lindsey Graham will not be sworn in as president in January 2017. Yes. Graham’s candidacy does seem poised, though, for one of those waves of boosterism in the mainstream media that translates into precisely zero increased support among Republican primary voters. (Hi, Jon Huntsman!) Political reporters and writers like Lindsey Graham. He’s...

Lindsey Graham is aiming to buck 130 years of tradition. American voters haven't elected an unmarried president since 1885, the same year the Washington Monument was dedicated on the National Mall and the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York. Graham is barely registering in the polls. But if he were to win the White House, he would join an elite club that includes just two previous presidents unmarried at the time of their election. James Buchanan, who preceded Abraham Lincoln's presidency, never married. Grover Cleveland won election as a bachelor, but married a woman while he was in office...

On and off the campaign trail in the Carolinas, voters say they have ‘no hard feelings’ toward Hillary Clinton. They say the opposite about Republicans.Bryan Burns could not make up his mind. Here was this African-American voter in khaki shorts, a v-neck T-shirt and black-rimmed eyeglasses, browsing shops at the Crabtree Valley Mall, on a swelteringly hot Friday in the not-yet summer of the American south. And there was Hillary Clinton, who needs to win the minds of exactly this kind of voter, a 30-year-old Virginia native who has spent the last decade living in North Carolina, a state that...

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina and Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton will cross paths Wednesday in South Carolina. And the Republican — the only woman among the vast GOP field — will try to show up Clinton by holding a regular old press conference… “Carly Fiorina is speaking in downtown Columbia, SC on Wednesday. And guess what? So is Hillary Clinton,” Fiorina spokeswoman Sarah I. Flores wrote in an e-mail Tuesday. Clinton will be inside the Columbia hotel shortly thereafter, holding another in her series of campaign roundtables. “Our events tomorrow are all open to the press. And by open...

WASHINGTON — They use words like “historic” and “charismatic,” phrases like “great potential” and “million-dollar smile.” They notice audience members moved to tears by an American-dream-come-true success story. When they look at the cold, hard political math, they get uneasy. An incipient sense of anxiety is tugging at some Democrats — a feeling tersely captured in four words from a blog post written recently by a seasoned party strategist in Florida: “Marco Rubio scares me.”

Last week I wrote that Bill Clinton, deep down, didn’t really want his wife to be president. On reflection, I don’t think she really wants to be president either. And for that matter, neither does Jeb Bush. Both Jeb and Hillary think they want to be president, have had it in their dreams for umpteen years, but now, faced with the reality, they don’t know why they’re doing it. At least they don’t act that way. They are lost people, running not on fumes, but on habit. They’re supposed to run. They were bred to run. But they don’t have...

Sen. Lindsey Graham will run for president, he told CBS This Morning Monday. “I’m running because I think the world is falling apart,” the South Carolina Republican said. “I’ve been more right than wrong on foreign policy.” He added that his top priorities will be working with Democrats to “go after [radical Islamists] before they come back here again.” Graham joins an increasingly crowded Republican field, which includes Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, and Rand Paul.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)The road to the White House goes through downtown Oklahoma City this week as hopefuls in the crowded Republican field audition on a stage ideally suited for their messages about military power, religious liberty and energy independence. Eleven Republicans with presidential aspirations — including some who have not officially declared their candidacy — will speak at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, which begins at the Cox Convention Center on Thursday and ends Saturday with the release of a straw poll. “This is a huge event for Oklahoma City,” said Gov. Mary Fallin, who will address the conference and introduce some...