Free Republic

GO AWAY already It's over dude... As you've most likely already heard, the TEA Party right has declared all-out war on Karl 'Boss Hogg' Rove in the wake of numerous recent (expen$ive) GOP disasters in which 'The Architect' played an inglorious starring role. The final straw was likely his lack of willingness to take responsibility for an almost complete lack of success in the 2012 election cycle, instead pointing fingers and making excuses like an Italian cruise ship captain. Rove's flat-out whiffing in almost every race he backed -on top of improbable Romney defeat- would be enough for any sensible...

National Review Online has confirmed that Michele Bachmann will endorse Mitt Romney tomorrow at a campaign event in Virginia.

When Rick Santorum ended his presidential bid on Tuesday, he spoke about the illness of his three-year-old daughter, Bella, and expressed a desire to spend more time with her as a parent. But on Thursday, the former Pennsylvania senator suggested the decision largely came down instead to a simple reality: He was out of cold, hard cash. After losing Wisconsin's April 3 primary to rival Mitt Romney by seven points - a contest, Santorum said, that his campaign viewed as necessary to win in order to do well in his home state of Pennsylvania - his fundraising dried up. "For...

Foster Friess, the retired investor who spent nearly $1.7 million boosting Rick Santorum’s presidential run, is ready to help Mitt Romney. “I’m obviously going to be of help in whatever way I can,” Friess told POLITICO Tuesday afternoon, hours after Santorum suspended his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, cementing Romney’s status as the party’s presumptive nominee. Friess, who was in Washington to accept an award from the Horatio Alger Association, said he had yet to discuss his planned shift in allegiance with Romney’s campaign campaign or the Washington-based super PAC supporting it.

Newt Gingrich's campaign has asked the Tennessee Republican Party....to not seat Knoxville state Sen. Stacey Campfield as a Gingrich delegate at the national convention. Campfield, who served as a state co-chair for Gingrich's campaign, abruptly switched his support to Santorum days before the March 6 "Super Tuesday" election. "Please be advised that Stacey Campfield does not have the consent of the Newt Gingrich for President Campaign to be seated as a delegate at the Republican National Convention," wrote John Fluharty, the campaign's director of delegate access, in a Thursday letter to the state GOP committee. "As a matter of information,...

Newt Gingrich said today he would be willing to be second on a Mitt Romney ticket. “No, I wouldn’t say no,” Gingrich said on Fox News Channel’s Your World with Neil Cavuto about what he would do if he was asked to become Romney’s vice president. “I can’t imagine him offering.” He also blasted Obama’s remarks caught on mic to Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. “The question it raises is how many countries, whether it is Iran or somewhere else has he had a similar conversation with?” said Gingrich. “You know, let me pretend I’m tough long enough to get reelected,...

Americans Elect is a new group desperately trying to gain attention to run a presidential candidate who is, we are told, a  "bipartisan choice." Color me skeptical.  After reading Michael Warren's piece in The Weekly Standard, I was already sensing that the group -- with its disparate choices for president -- wasn't about any real policy ideas; "bipartisanship," after all, is about process (how one arrives at a decision) rather than about substance.  It sounds good, but doesn't mean anything on its own -- whether one favors bipartisan consensus depends on one's views on any given subject (i.e., pro-choicers and pro-lifers...

Rick Santorum could be the worst thing to happen to the GOP — ever. Worse even than George W. Bush. And that’s saying a lot. Bush did so much damage to the GOP brand, he almost destroyed the party forever. It was George Bush who brought us Barack Obama. Few Americans voted for Obama, they just voted for ABB (Anyone But Bush). Now the GOP has a golden opportunity. Obama has wrecked the U.S. economy from sea to shining sea. He has turned off voters by the millions. By historical standards, based on the current disastrous economic and unemployment numbers,...

I am a reluctant Democrat. Hell, I’m even a little embarrassed to call myself a Democrat. I’m not a fan of budgets increasing that should be decreasing. I am not a fan of coddling labor unions. I am not anti-union, but it seems like most unions are anti-hard work and I am certainly against that. But looking at my voting record, Team Dem has had my solid support over the years. Clinton got my vote twice; while Gore, Kerrey and Obama all got my vote, although the Kerrey vote earned me a trip to the ER for a panic attack....

U.S.English Chairman Mauro E. Mujica this week contacted former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, calling for the two Republican Presidential candidates to demand an English language requirement should Puerto Ricans elect statehood this coming November. Expected to make appearances in Puerto Rico this week, Romney and Santorum have not yet spoken out in support of requiring English as an official language in order for Puerto Rico to be granted statehood status. Romney has previously expressed support for statehood, should Puerto Ricans favor that in an upcoming plebiscite.

(CBS News) BILOXI, Miss. - The four main candidates for the Republican nomination for president say they're committed to staying in the race right up to the convention this August in Tampa, Fla. There's just one problem: If they do, it might turn out that no one gets the number of delegates needed to win the nomination outright. Stumping in Birmingham, Alabama, Mitt Romney continued his Southern charm offensive, celebrating an endorsement from the country band Alabama. "Wouldn't you love to hear them sing 'Sweet Home Alabama'? Wouldn't that be wonderful?" he asked a crowd at one campaign stop. In...

In Mississippi, Santorum Makes Case For Two-Man Race By NBC's Andrew Rafferty JACKSON, Miss. -- Rick Santorum called on Mississippi voters to deliver the knockout blow that would end Newt Gingrich's candidacy and make it a two-man race between Mitt Romney and the former Pennsylvania senator for the Republican nomination. "You have an opportunity here in Mississippi to narrow this race, narrow this race to a conservative versus the insider moderate. I ask you here tonight to stand with me," Santorum told a crowd of 300 at the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum on Wednesday. "If we win Mississippi, this...

America's long-slog presidential campaigns are a process of discovery. Candidates, voters and the press criss-cross a complex nation trying to discover where the public mind will be the first Tuesday in November. No candidate has had a more interesting journey through 2012's campaign frontier than Rick Santorum. Few are going to forget Sen. Santorum in the early debates, stuck in the left-field bleachers, begging to be heard over such center-ring heavyweights as Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain. In August, no one thought this guy would be toe-to-toe with the Romney machine in March. What happened? I went to...

March 8 Republican Split Decision Romney had a good night but Santorum has cause to fight on. If Republican poohbahs were hoping that Super Tuesday's 10 contests would settle the Republican primary contest, they woke up Wednesday disappointed. While Mitt Romney had a good night and stretched his lead among delegates, Rick Santorum did well enough to more than justify staying in the race. The good news for Mr. Romney is that he won easily where he had to—in New England and Virginia—and went on to win narrowly the crucial showdown in Ohio. The pundits made much of the large...

One of the many problems with ObamaCare is discovering that a self-bought policy is government run. What is the problem with a government policy? Well...it's government run. They get you coming and going. There's a pretend choice that is no choice, and even that non-choice is eventually forced out of business so that all is subsumed under the reality of a bureaucrat deciding if you get a heart bypass or a quick sendoff to the great beyond. Fake choices abound when dealing with politicians. That's why one simply must wonder about the Gingrich/Santorum splitting of the conservative vote. Who benefits?...

Rick Santorum indicated that Newt Gingrich should drop out of the presidential race, arguing -- as Gingrich did during his surge -- that splitting the "anti-Romney" vote helped Mitt Romney win the Michigan primary and Washington caucuses and contributes to his overall success so far. "It's always harder when you've got to conservative running in the race as we have seen in Washington and we've seen in other states," Santorum said on Fox News Sunday. "We have the anti-Romney vote, if you will. Both Gingrich and I are slugging away." Santorum stopped short of calling for Gingrich to exit the...

Mitt Romney, whose campaign is preparing a multi-million dollar wave of negative advertising to persuade voters that Rick Santorum should not be president, says he is open to the possibility of choosing Santorum to be his running mate should Romney win the Republican nomination. Romney appeared on Fox News Wednesday morning and was asked, "You and Rick Santorum, we haven't seen you go head-to-head yet…In the big picture, could you see a scenario where you two team up?" "Oh, I think it's always possible to have people come together in our party, whether it's Rick and I, or others in...

How disastrous was Specter prevailing over Toomey in 2004? In April 2009, Specter switched parties giving the Democrats a 60th vote in the Senate when Al Franken was declared the winner in Minnesota and sworn in after court challenges in July 2009. Specter put that vote to good use casting the 60th vote for cloture on Obamacare in late December 2009. Having enabled Obamacare to proceed to a full vote, Specter cast the 50th vote for Obamacare (guaranteeing passage because Biden could cast a tie breaker): They’re nothing if not prompt. Voting has begun on HR 3590, the Senate’s health...

At least it was cordial. But the 150 or so "movement conservatives" gathered at Paul Pressler's this weekend (1/13-14) were a fractured lot. Maybe 10% were for Perry. Almost all of them were against Romney. Well, sort of. Caveat below. There was an official Romney guy there who explained that "You'll either work with us now or work with us later, but you'll all have to get on Mitt's train, because we have the money and the organization, so there's no stopping us." This did not go over well. It just made everyone more determined than ever to do whatever...

After his embarrassing result in Iowa, Rick Perry seemed to get the message the polls have been sending him for months: Republican voters just aren’t that into him. On caucus night, said he’d go back to Texas and figure out what comes next. But within hours, Perry was sprinting into South Carolina, to make at least one more stand. Given that the TPM Poll Average shows Perry pulling just 4.8% support in the state, a clear question arises: What on earth is he thinking? The answer is, team Perry really thinks they can make it happen in South Carolina. The...

Romney! ObamaCare = RomneyCare = CommieCare. NO Romney! NO WAY!! STOP ROMNEY NOW!!! This is getting serious folks. We *must* stop this guy. We can't let Mitt (or Newt) get the nomination. Along with being way too liberal, Mitt is almost as corrupt as Newt. Romney and his campaign have paid off just about every politician in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. That is how he operates. His campaign shares their campaign contributions by passing some of them along to the campaign funds of politicians they want to influence -- and there are many greedy hands stuck out...

I’m rather tired of all the people who don’t like Romney trying to claim Rick Santorum is not a big government conservative, or not a pro-life statist. I would support him before I would support Romney too, but I have no intention of giving up ideological and intellectual consistency in the name of beating Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum is a pro-life statist. He is. You will have to deal with it. He is a big government conservative. Santorum is right on social issues, but has never let his love of social issues stand in the way of the creeping expansion...

Rick Santorum’s second-place finish in the Iowa Republican caucuses means he’s now a leading alternative to Mitt Romney — and a prime attack target for the front-runner. A former Pennsylvania U.S. senator, Santorum, 53, campaigned across Iowa in a Ram pickup truck arguing he is the most consistent candidate on such issues as ending abortions and curbing government waste. It’s a message that caught fire in the final days of a fluid primary and propelled him into the front tier of candidates. He finished just eight votes behind the well-funded and better-organized former Massachusetts governor, and also bested Ron Paul,...

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) won’t be returning to Congress on Friday to vote against a $1 trillion spending package that preserves funding for President Obama’s healthcare reform law, her office told The Hill. The presidential candidate is campaigning in Iowa on Friday, according to her campaign schedule. The omnibus is expected to sail through Congress after both parties signed off on it Thursday night. Still, Bachmann has made opposition to the healthcare law a focal point of her campaign and has taken to calling the two front-runners for the GOP nomination “Newt Romney” because of their past support for an...

Rep. Michele Bachmann on Saturday stood by her claim that Newt Gingrich supports "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, digging up a letter the former House speaker signed nearly eight years ago to combat claims that she was misrepresenting his plan. Gingrich, after saying at a Republican presidential primary debate that the U.S. should afford some illegal immigrants a pathway to legal status, has clarified that he only wants to open that door for some illegal immigrants who have been in the country 25 years or more. Bachmann, in an interview with Fox News, cited a 2004 letter Gingrich co-authored expressing support...

ATLANTA (AP) — Herman Cain is learning the hard way what it means to face the glare of the national spotlight. After captivating Republicans hungry for an alternative to 2012 GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, Cain has made a series of stumbles that have left some questioning whether he's ready for the White House.

Link only due to copyright issues: Link to Article

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., has supplanted other hopefuls as the strongest opponent to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released early Wednesday. Romney leads Bachmann, 25 percent to 14 percent. They are followed by two potential candidates who have not yet declared whether they will run: former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (12 percent) and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (10 percent). Romney's share of the vote is exactly identical to the previous Quinnipiac poll, in early June. But Bachmann has jumped eight points -- from six percent...

WASHINGTON - Representative Michele Bachmann has rapidly gained ground in a new poll of New Hampshire voters, tapping her popularity with Tea Party activists and potentially causing problems for Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor, who has long dominated polls in the Granite State, had his lead cut to single-digits in a new survey done by Public Policy Polling. Although polls taken six months before voters head to the polls can be unreliable, they can also provide a window into a volatile Republican electorate. Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican, would get 18 percent of the vote, according to the...

Rep. Michele Bachmann, stressing her Iowa roots and appealing directly to Tea Party voters, came out swinging Monday as she formally launched her campaign for president. Buoyed by a strong showing in several recent polls, the Minnesota congresswoman cast her campaign as the voice for "constitutional conservatives" looking for a government that lives within its means while giving the private sector the room to grow. She launched a broadside against President Obama for racking up too much debt while stimulating too little job growth and vowed to make him a "one-term president." "We cannot afford four more years of Barack...

Your candidate is getting the predictable Palin-treatment, but of course, you have so pissed off Palin supporters, you deal with it. After all, you are a serious campaign consultant. Michele Bachmann’s Holy War, at Rolling Stone, has this image accompanying the article, which says pretty much all you need to know: Your candidate is getting the predictable Palin-treatment, but of course, you have so pissed off Palin supporters, you deal with it. After all, you are a serious campaign consultant. Michele Bachmann’s Holy War, at Rolling Stone, has this image accompanying the article, which says pretty much all you need...

As NewsBusters has been reporting since Monday's Republican presidential debate, MSNBC's Chris Matthews is suddenly a big fan of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's (R-Minn.). On Saturday's "Fox News Watch," syndicated columnist Cal Thomas said, "Chris Matthews praises her, which is sort of like getting a civil rights affirmation from David Duke" (video follows with transcript and commentary): JON SCOTT, HOST: That's new Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann striking a cord at a Republican debate earlier this week. Cal, she got some pretty good reviews from the mainstream press, and yet many of those same members of the press were trying to...

Bachmann vs. Palin feud hits Twitter By Matt Lewis A few weeks ago, I pointed out that a prominent Sarah Palin blogger had turned on Michele Bachmann. On Fox News Sunday this week, Palin pointed out that she, unlike Bachmann, had executive experience (though added that Bachmann had strengths, too). The feud was taken to a new level, however, when Bachmann’s new “celebrity” campaign manager, Ed Rollins referred to Palin as “not serious.” This was too much for Palin supporter and talk radio host, Tammy Bruce who took to her Twitter feed. Bruce, who also appears in the new film...

Herman Cain’s scrappy campaign for the GOP presidential nomination is making an impression. From Public Policy Polling of North Carolina: Mitt Romney has the lead in PPP’s first Iowa poll since Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump exited the race, but with six different candidates polling in double digits it’s clear this thing is wide open. Romney polls at 21%. Sarah Palin and Herman Cain are tied for second at 15%. Newt Gingrich is 4th with 12%, Michele Bachmann 5th with 11%, Tim Pawlenty 6th with 10%, Ron Paul 7th with 8%, and Jon Huntsman 8th with 0% (only one respondent...

After Barack Obama, America's first African American president, is America now prepared to vote its first black president into office? This week, the Republicans' best shot for a presidential win, staunch conservative Herman Cain, takes to the campaign trail. After an impressive showing in the first debate amongst GOP hopefuls, Cain, rather than Romney or Gingrich, could be the one to beat in 2012 -- a true black man. To clarify, being black in America is not about the color of one's skin or the curl of one's natural hair, though part of it. It is about a shared history...

The man behind Donald Trump's possible 2012 presidential campaign is a registered Democrat who voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Not only that, but Michael Cohen, an executive at the Trump Organization who doubles as Trump's chief political advisor, once volunteered for 1988 presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and worked for a Democratic member of Congress. But since Obama's election in 2008, he said he has grown disappointed with the president, so much so that he now describes himself as "offended" by the administration's agenda. America, Cohen said, has become a "third-world nation," echoing words that have become a familiar refrain...

Sarah Palin is getting more advice from fellow Republicans – this time from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who says the former Alaska governor needs to "slow down." Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America Tuesday, Gingrich said a string of Palin's recent statements indicate she needs to "be more careful and think through what she's saying and how she's saying it." "There's no question that she has become more controversial," added Gingrich who may face off against Palin later in the year for the GOP presidential nomination.

Speaking on ABC’s Good Morning America Tuesday, Gingrich said a string of Palin’s recent statements indicate she needs to “be more careful and think through what she’s saying and how she’s saying it.” “There’s no question that she has become more controversial,” Worthless DeDe Scazzafaza supporter!!!!!!! Need to be careful who he supports

The America’s President Committee wants Indiana congressman Mike Pence to run for president. The group — which is made up of former Republican congressman Jim Ryun and Ralph Benko, a former Reagan-administration aide and author of the book The Websters’ Dictionary: How to Use the Web to Transform the World — has set up a new site, The Conservative Champion, dedicated to the concept of Pence for President. Benko spoke to NRO about the motivation behind the site. NRO: Why Mike Pence? BENKO: Mike Pence is extraordinary. He is across-the-board rock solid: He is pro-growth in a way I haven’t...

Likely 2012 Republican presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty said Sunday that when he promoted a bailout plan aimed at stabilizing the imploding mortgage market in 2008 he was speaking solely as a surrogate for GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona and never actually supported the idea himself. "Play the tape. It says 'he believes' and I was speaking as a spokesperson for Senator McCain," the former Minnesota governor said on "Fox News Sunday" after host Chris Wallace played video of Pawlenty endorsing what was billed as a bailout for both the mortgage industry and "Main Street." "But I didn’t...

Domenico Montanaro writes: A group of conservatives are pushing Indiana Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) to run for president in 2012. America's President Committee kicks off today with a signature drive to get Pence, who's popular with social conservatives, to launch a 2012 White House bid. Behind the group are former Kansas Congressman Jim Ryun and is coordinated by Ralph Benko, a former Reagan deputy counsel, who worked with the Bush administration's White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. “Throughout his distinguished career, Mike Pence has demonstrated the ability to enthusiastically advance the cause of conservatives and constitutional, limited government...

In light of curious buzz surrounding Rep. Mike Pence's future, a new group called America’s President Committee (APC) launched early Monday morning. A number of conservatives would like to see Congressman Mike Pence, Indiana Republican, make a run for the GOP nomination for president in the 2012 election cycle. The desire to see the Indiana representative conservative throw his hat in the ring is nothing new, as right of center media commentators Erick Erickson (CNN, Red State), Jennifer Rubin (Washington Post), and George Will (Washington Post) have all voiced for an Oval Office run for the Indiana Republican.

George Will today aptly details why Mike Pence, a stalwart on fiscal issues and an articulate proponent of conservative social values, would be an attractive 2012 presidential candidate. I'll go a step further than George and predict that Pence will announce early next year. A close friend and confidante of Pence's has been telling me for several weeks that Pence is "serious." This friend makes the case that Pence is a solid conservative on the range of issues conservatives care about and is the only candidate who can "seamlessly meld" the sometimes adversarial Tea Party and establishment wings of the...

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum seems in no hurry to make a decision about running for the Republican presidential nomination and acknowledged that a decision by Sarah Palin to enter the race would “take a lot of air out of the room.” Santorum, a favorite among the social conservatives who could be expected to flock to a Palin bid, told The Associated Press on Monday that a decision would come “some time in the next year. You try to hold off as long as you can.”

Politico's Martin and Smith remind the political world not to forget about Mike Huckabee when looking ahead to the 2012 GOP presidential contest. Dial down the deafening Sarah Palin buzz for just a moment: The most consequential decision in the 2012 Republican presidential sweepstakes could be whether Mike Huckabee decides to run again – and associates say the former Arkansas governor may well take the plunge. If Huckabee gets in, he will unquestionably be a force to be reckoned with in the fight for the nomination. He’d be the undisputed frontrunner in lead-off Iowa, where he won by nine points...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he's more inclined to run for president in 2012 than not to make a bid.

Barbour spent $174,248 and raised $108,152 between Oct. 14 and Nov. 22, leaving his Haley’s PAC with $389,518 still in the bank. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin raised nearly $500,000 in that period, while Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty raised $140,000. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s federal PAC reported $394,557 in contributions. Notably, the congressional candidates to whom Barbour donated in the campaign’s waning days were all in early primary states that will be key in 2012. Barbour gave $1,000 each to Reps.-elect Allen West in Florida, Frank Guinta in New Hampshire, Joe Heck in Nevada, Mick Mulvaney in South Carolina....

Former GOP Sen. Fred Thompson has written a memoir about his small-town childhood that will be released this May. “Teaching the Pig to Dance” recounts the movie star-turned-politician’s 50s-era upbringing in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. The title alludes to what Thompson concedes were some of his own flaws and specifically how difficult he made it for those who were trying to help raise him. "There is an old saying that teaching the pig to dance is a fruitless endeavor,” Thompson said in an e-mail. “It is a waste of your time and it irritates the pig. That was probably how my parents,...

The Winston-Salem Journal reports that Fred Thompson, who for much of last year's presidential shadow campaign was the great conservative hope, will finally campaign in person with John McCain. Thompson, like most of the rest of McCain's former opponents for the Republican presidential nomination, has endorsed McCain but, unlike the others, had not appeared with him on the campaign trail. Thompson gave only a terse endorsement to McCain after dropping out of the race earlier this year, saying, "This is no longer about past preferences or differences. It is about what is best for our country, and for me that...

What happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas -- especially if you're the wife of presidential candidate. Just ask Janet Huckabee, who attended a middleweight prize fight this last weekend in Vegas -- where she stayed at the Hooters Casino Hotel. That eye-opening combination -- a title bout in Sin City, which celebrates gambling, drinking and all things wild, along with a hospitality chain favoring buxom waitresses in low-cut garb -- could potentially shock the armies of evangelical conservative Christians who have made her husband, the former governor of Arkansas, the only remaining GOP opponent to party front-runner John...