Free Republic

In the last few days we’ve entered into a new phase in the campaign: Paul Manafort, the designated grownup in the Trump palace, has embarked on persuading Donald Trump to stop his degrading Twitter rants, and on persuading the RNC to learn to love its new, likely, master. “That’s what’s important for you to understand,” Manafort told the RNC. “That he gets it, and that the part he’s playing is evolving.” Seen in this light, it is not clear that Trump’s decision to disappoint the pro-life movement by abandoning the strong party-platform language that pro-life advocates have worked for years...

The Good Book says, "...be sure your sin will find you out," and this is a lesson that the monsters at Planned Parenthood have been learning for the past three weeks. Caught on camera, these hideous harvesters of human life have been exposed to the whole world as the fiends they are, talking about "gentler" techniques for murdering babies so that they don't "crunch" the organs of tiny unborn children, so they can sell them for profits euphemistically disguised as "reimbursements." The fact that I could even write a sentence like that is definitive proof that America is infected with...

The Republican Party, broadly speaking, is comprised of many factions that are often at odds with one another. Prominent examples are the battles between the grassroots and the national party establishment and between defense hawks and non-interventionists. Perhaps fiercer than any of these fights is the long-standing conflict between social conservatives and libertarians. But when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage last month, they created an opening for a wedding between these two groups, which could benefit the Republican Party ahead of the 2016 election. To be clear, libertarians come in many stripes. There are those who reject the political...

“To me, he’s just a guy with a big mouth and no results…” By now, you’ve heard that Ted Cruz thinks he’s running for president in 2016. Ted Cruz’s entire political career has been marked by opposing progress. He has no significant legislative or leadership record to speak of. But let’s be clear: Ted Cruz is not a serious candidate. He is not a serious politician. He is a serious pain in the ass. His own party rejects him, and that rejection highlights the schism inside the Republican party. In an interview with CNN, Rep. Peter King said that Senator...

A crop of Republican officials who wanted to oust former Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady for his statements supporting same-sex marriage have been replaced in their party positions. Illinois Republicans across the state held elections for all 18 state central committee member posts this week, replacing six of the seven officials who signed on to a letter last year to hold a vote on removing Brady as chairman. The seventh person to sign the letter, Mark Shaw of the 10th Congressional District, was re-elected to a four-year term. Brady began making public statements in January 2013 in support of same-sex...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Neal Boortz, subbing for Sean Hannity on his radio show on the day after Christmas, took the opportunity to unload a heap of libertarian wrath upon social conservatives, saying that Republicans will not win another election if they continue ”screaming and yelling about abortion, about gay rights, about prayer in school.” Boortz spat the words “social conservative Republicans” into the airwaves as he railed against (some unnamed) Republicans who, apparently “obsessed” with social issues, are running around the country raging against the forces trying to take prayer out of school. Boortz seemed particularly upset with Republicans who want to peer...

One of the largest elephants in the GOP's post-election room is the fate of Christian and other social conservatives. Party honchos can't just wish this problem away -- or, maybe they can. There has been increasing hostility toward Christian involvement in politics, and the animus hasn't been solely from the left. To be sure, Democrats have taken the lead, demonizing conservative Christians as science-challenged scolds who don't care about women's "reproductive rights," but there is plenty of antipathy from certain elements within the Republican Party, as well. Many establishment and some libertarian Republicans have long looked upon Christian conservatives with...

He was talking specifically about a bill pending in the Indiana state legislature, not proposing a new federal “truce” on social issues, but even so, this guy must understand that he’s under a microscope now that he’s being touted as a presidential contender, right? Every utterance is significant, and he’s already got not one but two strikes against him. Is he trying to scare social cons? I can kinda sorta understand that as a primary strategy, if you think there are enough centrist Republicans out there (or at least, anti-social-con Republicans) to push you through to the nomination, but you...

So, Barack Obama’s approval rating is falling so quickly that it may soon be journeying to the center of the earth. So, the economy is in such terrible shape that those supposedly untouchable middle class tax cuts may expire. So, Florida happens to have three of the most corrupt politicians in the country running for one of its United States Senate seats. So, what? Instead of my usual weekly analysis of political happenings across the United States, I have decided to take a different approach with today’s article. A few nights ago, I stumbled across a very interesting study conducted...

The big topic of discussion this week is the role conservatism played in the wins in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere, as well as in the loss of New York’s 23rd congressional district. Recent polls show that many more Americans self-identify as conservative than liberal, so it should not be terribly surprising that so many conservative candidates won Tuesday. It should not even be terribly surprising that some won big. Though if that is the case, what is the explanation for Doug Hoffman’s loss in New York? There are many possible reasons — including the spectacle that the race turned...

Wednesday night, while President Barack Obama held his televised press conference marking his first 100 days in office, the federal hate crimes bill passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 249 to 175. But not everyone believes this piece of legislation is a great idea. They are cautioning many supporters that such a law is a two-edged sword and may have unintended consequences that includes misuse by overzealous and politically motivated prosecutors. During a discussion of HR 1913, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, opponents of the proposed law offered compelling arguments for...

McCain is loathesome. And, it's not just fellow Republicans who despise him. But, if the hard core GOPers want to hate their front runner, who are we to stop them: But Sen. McCain still confronts a problem both in the remainder of the nomination race, and, if he wins, in the fall: He is simply loathed by many fellow Republicans, often for the very bipartisanship and maverick streak that attracts independents. His biggest, and perhaps final, test comes Tuesday, when 21 states hold contests -- most of them open only to Republican voters. "So it is over. Finished. In November,...

The Christmas ads that showed up in Iowa and New Hampshire — and here, on the Internet — are mostly just more ads, but with a new and disturbing twist. There is Barack Obama, being sensitive by letting his wife, Michelle, speak first; Rudy Giuliani, softening his image by joking with Santa, and Ron Paul grinning in the midst of family pandemonium. John McCain reminds us he was a prisoner of war, Fred Thompson offers heart-warming snapshots of the troops and John Edwards promises not to forget the poor. The hullabaloo has come over the ad for Mike Huckabee. He...

COLUMBIA, SC (AP) - The South Carolina affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee has endorsed Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson. South Carolina Citizens for Life on Wednesday praised the former Tennessee senator's voting record on abortion issues. In a news release, the group cited Thompson's vote against so-called partial-birth abortion and his stance for adult stem cell research but not embryonic stem cell research. Thompson has touted his anti-abortion voting record during his campaign. He has already been endorsed by the committee's national group.

According to The Politico, New York Post columnist and FOX News contributor Dick Morris has been secretly advising former client Mike Huckabee on his Presidential campaign. Morris claims he is acting in an entirely voluntary capacity by simply offering free advice. Keep in mind that nationally syndicated columnist George Will was pilloried by the media when it became public that he had secretly and voluntarily helped Ronald Reagan prepare for his Presidential debates in 1980. A prominent national GOP insider tells Politics1 that he believes Morris -- despite his claims to the contrary -- is paid for his services through...

David Horsey's latest takes a stab at understanding the latest twist in the horserace of the Republican nominating contest. Horsey's simplification of Rudy Giuliani as the candidate of national security conservatives, Mitt Romney for "business conservatives," and Mike Huckabee for social conservatives doesn't quite hold true in reality but it makes for a nice cartoon. My hunch, however, is that observers with little more than indirect experience with social conservatives may be a bit miffed in full at how Huckabee can be rising in Iowa and in the South given his well-documented problems with economic/small government conservatives. For one, Huckabee's...

According to MSNBC host Chris Matthews, 2008 Republican candidate Mike Huckabee has been given "the biggest free ride from the liberal media that I have ever seen in my life." Appearing on Monday's edition of "Morning Joe," the "Hardball" anchor speculated that left-wingers would enjoy seeing the GOP "chaos" that a Huckabee victory in Iowa would produce and, as a result, are ignoring the Republican's "crazy" views on gun control. Matthews derided as "black helicopter stuff," the former Arkansas governor's assertion that owning a gun gives Americans the ability to fight tyranny. "It sounds crazy," he told "Morning Joe" host...

Forty-one percent (41%) of American voters say they are conservative when it comes to “fiscal issues such as taxes, government spending, and business regulation.” A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 43% consider themselves fiscally moderate and 12% say liberal. At the same time, 37% say they are conservative when it comes to “social issues like abortion, public prayer, and church-state topics.” On such social issues, 30% say they are moderate while 30% say liberal. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Republicans consider themselves fiscal conservatives. Fifty percent (50%) of Democrats and 49% of those not affiliated with either major party...

DALLAS - When a pair of Mormon missionaries knocked at the door of Jerry Pierce's home in a north Dallas suburb last month, he marshaled his arguments and stood his ground. "I look forward to encounters like that. I like to talk to them about the nature of Christ and who Jesus is," said Pierce, a staunch Southern Baptist, the biggest Protestant denomination in the United States. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is running into similar resistance as he tries to win over Southern Baptists and other evangelical Protestants in the race for the Republican Party's nomination for the 2008 U.S....

Because the religious right is the most visible champion of social conservative values today, and the secular socialists have worked so hard to make sure that social conservatism is defined as some right-wing religious extremism, it is in vogue to refer to social conservatives as some mutant breed of social Nazis. (snip) However, in reality, social conservatism actually has little to do with religion. In fact, until recent years, when the Democratic Party became run by Democratic Secular Socialists, it wasn’t even an idea limited to the right or Republicans. It was a very fundamental American precept shared by most...