Free Republic

Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has won another straw poll, boosting his national profile and elevating his name among potential 2016 presidential contenders. The firebrand freshman senator and tea party favorite was among a handful of 2016 hopefuls speaking at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans this week. Cruz finished in first place in the annual conference's presidential straw poll at 30.33%. Dr. Ben Carson, a Fox News commentator and conservative activist, finished in second with 29.38% while Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, was third with 10.43%. Fox News host and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Governor Rick Perry rounded...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Sen. Ted Cruz said Saturday that the GOP can bolster its appeal by sticking to its conservative principles and embracing a bottom-up campaign model that empowers grassroots voters. Speaking at the Republican Leadership Conference, Mr. Cruz said the party must ditch the Washington-centric campaign model and stop listening to the political consultants. “A lot of Republicans tend to have top-down Soviet-style campaigns,” Mr. Cruz said. “It is very odd for a party that believes in free market that they run campaigns through command and control.” “That is disempowering and it doesn’t inspire,” Mr. Cruz said. “What is far more effective...

Barbara Bush may believe her son Jeb should pass on a 2016 bid because there have been enough Bushes in the White House already. But her husband, former President George H.W. Bush, disagrees and thinks Jeb should go for it. So revealed Jeb’s younger brother, Neil Bush, in an interview with CNN on Thursday that shed additional light on the conflicting sentiments within the former first clan about another potential Bush presidential run. Neil Bush spoke about his father’s desire to see another son seek the White House and said Barbara Bush’s cautionary words won’t affect Jeb Bush’s decision. The...

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott slammed the federal Bureau of Land Management’s claims that private property within the state now belongs to the federal government. The BLM says the federal government owns a 90,000 acre piece of land along Texas’s Red River, despite it being maintained and cultivated by private landowners for generations and no law has been passed by Congress giving BLM ownership of the land. In the wake of cattle rancher Cliven Bundy’s standoff with federal agents over desert tortoise habitat in Nevada, Abbott — who is currently running for governor — argues that BLM’s plans to seize...

In 2013, freshmen senators Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) seemed like two peas in a pod. Both railed at the NSA, backed the government shutdown, opposed intervention in Syria and championed the tea party faithful. But 2014 has been a different story. Cruz has become a serious, vocal proponent of a tough foreign policy and harsh critic of President Obama’s approach to Iran and Russia. He gave serious speeches on the importance of standing up to Vladimir Putin and on the folly of expecting Iran to give away its nuclear weapons program without stringent sanctions and/or the threat...

Ted Cruz is the most popular politician in Texas, according to a Public Policy Polling Texas poll. Cruz has a 47 percent approval rating – better than both Rick Perry and John Cornyn, with only 35 percent who disapprove of him. He also continues to lead the Republican primary field for presidential candidates in Texas with 25 percent willing to support his campaign compared to Jeb Bush at 14 percent and Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul and Rick Perry each at 10 percent. Chris Christie and Paul Ryan received support for a potential presidential campaign from 5 percent of Texans polled,...

MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Republican presidential primary is up and running in New Hampshire, where conservative prospects lined up in Manchester Saturday for the first cattle call of the 2016 cycle. Speakers at the New Hampshire Freedom Summit, which was sponsored by Citizens United and Koch-backed Americans For Prosperity, included Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, all of whom would be top tier presidential contenders should they run. Donald Trump also spoke. Huckabee seemed especially determined to show he could compete for conservative votes against politicians like Paul and Cruz, who have each...

The Republican party has a problem in the upcoming midterm election and that problem is general un-likability. Most conservative political pundits are willing to concede that point, but one Texas senator has apparently found a new way to boost the Republican party and his own popularity. By combining some religious rhetoric with a little bit of “Reaganite” posturing, Ted Cruz is attempting to be the Republican messiah by playing up religious persecution. In a recent speech to the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, Cruz gave a call to action to the student body that was couched in surprisingly religious terms....

Speaking to reporters on April 3rd, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said the shooting at Fort Hood should revive the gun control push. According to The Washington Post, Reid said, "As I was told today, [Army Spc. Ivan Lopez] bought his gun a day or two before he killed these people. Couldn't we at least have background checks so that people who are ill mentally, or who are felons, shouldn't be able to buy guns?" This is somewhat misleading because "law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the pistol used by Lopez... was purchased legally last month......

On Tuesday, Mike Dickinson, the Virginia Democrat seeking the House seat currently held by Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., compared the Tea Party to the terror group al-Qaeda on Twitter and claimed that Sarah Palin, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., are the U.S. equivalent of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 terror attacks. Ultimately, Dickinson called the Tea Party and Sarah Palin "pure unamerican (sic) trash." "The tea party is Americas version of Al-Qaeda. Ted Cruz/Sarah Palin/Rand Paul all on same level as Bin laden (sic)," he claimed. "Tea party and Al-Qaeda: both resort to...

Braley camp: He knew he was being recorded when he disparaged Iowa farmers and Grassley POSTED AT 9:21 AM ON APRIL 1, 2014 BY GUY BENSON Many of us assumed this recording was made surreptitiously. It must have been. There’s no way a statewide office-seeker from Iowa would knowingly demean farmers and a beloved state political figure on tape, right? Wrong, says the Braley campaign, via the Des Moines Register: Braley’s campaign strategists say the candidate knew he was being videotaped at the private fundraiser when he made the remark that has the political world buzzing, describing Chuck Grassley as...

On the surface, the recent Texas Republican primaries were a race to the right on nearly every issue. But the underlying strength of every successful federal Republican campaign on March 4 was the ability to run an organized campaign. Texas is so big, so complex, so expensive that for any ambitious Republican, conservatism is important but organization is paramount. “The Republican political electorate is clearly looking for strong conservatives up and down the ballot, but money does matter at the statewide level because it takes so much time and resources to get your message out to the voters,” Texas-based GOP...

Editor's note: Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and "Governing America." (CNN) -- ...The weaknesses of both men—Cruz in terms of his style and Paul in terms of his rhetoric—point out how desperate the GOP is to find someone who can build a broad coalition, something that is essential for a presidential victory, particularly when Republicans will likely be facing a formidable candidate. The problems of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have been a huge blow to the party, and there are not many alternatives at...

There is another roadblock on the Democrats' plan to turn Texas blue. On Monday Michael Barone belatedly noted the unexpected showing of Ray Madrigal indicates possible dissatisfaction by Hispanics with the pro-abortion feminists beloved by Democratic Party leadership. What hasn't earned more than a couple of brief mentions, however, is the unexpected development in the US Senate race in Texas. The Democrat plan was to have an attractive, well financed candidate ready for after the Republicans pulled themselves apart in a battle between the establishment and the Tea Party. The reality is the Republican primary was tame but there is...

There are so many good conservatives in and running for office that could take America back from liberal socialists and moderate spend thrifts that it’s hard to know them all without excessive effort. Sens. Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Reps. Paul Ryan, and candidate Elizabeth Cheney are all known names, but somebody has something bad to say about everybody. Romney was equally conservative but allowed his name to be smeared by moderates led by Boehner in Congress who cost him the election by attacking conservatives. Tea Party members need to stop being churlish when it comes to some of...

Few on the center-right grasp the politics of polarization. The idea is to always have someone more extreme than you making your position closer to the relative center and moving the ball further in your direction. The Democrats and the left have known this for years. Look at all the real crazies they have accumulated over time and molded into an almost groupthink legion. Then note that barely a word of chastisement comes from them when they say wild and crazy stuff or do wild and crazy things. Try the counterpart to the Tea Party - the Occupy Movement. Both...

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texans went to the polls on Tuesday in primary elections where the top candidates for governor were expected to post easy wins and favorites of the conservative Tea Party movement are trying to topple established Republicans in several races. U.S. Senator John Cornyn, a Republican, will win his race easily, opinion polls show. Attorney General Greg Abbott, the leading Republican candidate for governor, and state Senator Wendy Davis, the top Democratic Party candidate, were also expected to win by wide margins. Voting closes at 7 p.m. U.S. Central Time. Run-off elections will be held on May...

Who’s likely to do well in New Hampshire’s 2016 first-in-the-nation presidential primary? It’s a preposterous question, here in 2014, but what the heck? We asked six experts to weigh in on some of the biggest political players. Our analysts are Wayne Lesperance, political science professor at New England College; Phil Boynton, president of the University of New Hampshire College Republicans; Peter Burling, Democratic national committeeman; Dante Scala, professor of political science at UNH; Jess Steever, vice president of the Plymouth State University Democrats; and Brandon Lemay, public relations officer for the PSU Democrats. Today, our panelists consider the Republicans. Tomorrow,...

Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) may be the brightest light to adorn the Republican party in many years. He knows how to make the case for conservative ideas, pointing, for example, to the contrasting fates of Detroit and Houston to illustrate the superiority of conservative policies. So it’s particularly galling to see that rather than train his fire at Obama and the liberal machine that cocoons him, Cruz has become a one-man wrecking ball against Republicans. His most recent foray into sabotaging his colleagues concerned the debt-limit increase. Because Speaker Boehner sent over a “clean” debt-limit bill, Republican senators had...

A candidate for Orange County Republican County chair was arrested for beating up a man outside an early voting site Tuesday afternoon. 70-year-old Jerry Wilson was arrested for Class A misdemeanor assault and taken to the Orange County, TX jail. Vidor, TX Police Chief Dave Shows said the victim in the attack was bleeding. He had a bloody nose, and injuries around the eyes and head. Chief Shows said the disturbance started at the early voting poll at the Vidor community center off Interstate 10. The victim was working for another candidate. The argument apparently started with a confrontation about...