Free Republic

DALLAS - By most accounts, census tract 166.05 is not a particularly desirable place to live. Tucked between two major highways in southwest Dallas, the neighborhood is characterized by clusters of ramshackle, one-story houses, huge swaths of vacant land and big warehouses and storage centers. More than 40 percent of people living in the census tract have incomes below the poverty level, a proportion that more than doubled since 2000, according to U.S. Census data. Crime rates and levels of slum and blight are also high, according to the Dallas-based housing advocacy group the Inclusive Communities Project. Such placement "perpetuates...

Do supporters of the Christian right candidates Ted Cruz has eclipsed hate him so much they'd sabotage their own heroes? The late stages of the invisible primary would not be complete without reports of intrigue and skullduggery in Iowa, with campaigns forming tactical alliances against common enemies. We have one today from National Review's Tim Alberta and Eliana Johnson, who report that supporters of the last two caucus winners, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, are so bitter at being eclipsed by Ted Cruz that they are conspiring to block the Texan and instead elevate Marco Rubio. There's only one problem...

E.W. Jackson, the Republican Party of Virginia's 2013 nominee for lieutenant governor, has endorsed Ted Cruz for president. Jackson joins Ken Cuccinelli, the 2013 GOP nominee for governor, in backing the Texas senator. Cuccinelli, Virginia's former attorney general, endorsed Cruz during the Texas senator's Dec. 18 rally in Hanover County. "Senator Cruz knows that 'central planning' by Washington elites will never match the ingenuity and effectiveness of free-market capitalism working hand-in-hand with people of faith to restore cultural values and bring prosperity to the most needy people in our country," Jackson said in a statement....

A STRANGE COMPARISON -- "Marco Rubio's big problem--and his party's," by The Washington Post's Paul Waldman: "Believe it or not, the Iowa caucuses are just over a month away. And Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) -- establishment darling and the cognoscenti's assumed front-runner -- is heading to Iowa for a bus tour, bringing along a shiny new endorsement from Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, head of the special committee on Benghazi. Can you feel the excitement? Probably not, which is why this is an excellent demonstration of Rubio's problem, and the problem the GOP is facing as the actual voting...

Just like it's past time for Jeb Bush and Rand Paul to get out, and it's past time for Rick Santorum and George Pataki to get out. That's obvious, but it's made more obvious now that Huckabee is resorting to off-base and stupidly dishonest ads attempting to trash candidates who have taken his votes away. Here's a PAC ad Huckabee's camp is running in Iowa... (VIDEO-AT-LINK) The same consulting firm also put out similar attacks on Cruz in Iowa on his opposition to ethanol subsidies and accusing Cruz of being bankrolled by the oil industry....

Hundreds of fans were unable to get into his crowded rally Monday. But given the disorganized campaign in New Hampshire, they likely weren't missed or even counted in the first place. Hundreds of Donald Trump supporters received terrible news just moments before he took the stage in the gymnasium of a Nashua, New Hampshire, middle school: The event was over capacity. Some had stood in the cold for more than 90 minutes, waiting to hear Trump talk about how he is going to Make America Great Again. They were grumpy, sad, frustrated, and, well, angry like the man they love....

You want predictions? After a year like this?! Who knows. I will say in my defense that after Donald Trump went after John McCain, and nearly everybody in Punditland was saying that’s it, he’s cooked, I wrote no, not so fast. Five-plus months later, that column reads pretty well! So here I go. Who Will Be the Republican Presidential Nominee?: As I write these words, I’m gonna go ahead and say Ted Cruz, although I actually kinda think it will be Trump, and I’m aware that I’m just saying Cruz to sound respectable (Cruz! Respectable!). Marco Rubio...well, here’s the thing....

With a deeper-than-ever split between Republicans and Democrats over abortion, activists on both sides of the debate foresee a 2016 presidential campaign in which the nominees tackle the volatile topic more aggressively than in past elections. Friction over the issue also is likely to surface in key Senate races. And the opposing camps will be further energized by Republican-led congressional investigations of women’s health care provider Planned Parenthood and by Supreme Court consideration of tough anti-abortion laws in Texas....

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- Bernie Sanders said he thinks he can win over Donald Trump supporters because he can also channel the "legitimate" anger of "working-class people." In a CBS interview released Sunday, Sanders said many Trump supporters are people who are angry and fearful due to decreasing wages and the rising costs of tuition, among other issues. "What Trump has done with some success is taken that anger, taken those fears, which are legitimate, and converted them into anger against Mexicans, anger against Muslims," Sanders said, adding that he would use that anger to support things like an...

Link only: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/12/04/cruz-campaign-rents-des-moines-apartments/76778004/

He’s the GOP’s strongest candidate, right? But what if he can’t win a single early primary? The Rubio problem no one is talking about—yet. Everybody I know, I mean everybody, thinks Marco Rubio is the strongest Republican candidate. Yes, there’s a debate about how strong. Some say he’d beat Hillary Clinton, some say that what with some of the extreme positions he’s taken so far in this race, he’d be hard-pressed to do much better than Mitt Romney’s 206 electoral votes plus maybe his own Florida. So there’s a debate about that. But there ain’t much debate that he’s the,...

Author and political satirist P.J. O’Rourke stated Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump “will finally be exposed as a double agent,” criticized GOP presidential candidate Texas Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for “dragging in all these tired, sick, old social issues” and said of Cruz and Trump, “I really do hate it with this immigration stuff” on Tuesday’s broadcast of “CNN Tonight.”O’Rourke said, “Cruz could actually get…nominated. I’m assuming that Trump will finally be exposed as a double agent, and will have to be stuck in a Chappaqua safe house, or wherever Hillary has got Bill stashed. But Cruz could actually...

Could Mitt Romney and John McCain turn out to be the hidden arrows in Marco Rubio's political quiver in New Hampshire?[continued]

During an appearance yesterday on MSNBC, “Hardball” host Chris Matthews said that if progressives weren’t so consumed with discussing the antics of Donald Trump, they’d realize that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is a “scarier” candidate for president. “I expect if [Trump] keeps in there fighting against somebody like Cruz they’re going to realize something that really is scary to most moderates and progressives, that Cruz is scarier than Trump and that will be a frightening prospect to realize that Trump is the more – well, he’s not acceptable to progressives, but when you look at him against Cruz,” Matthews said....

There’s quite a 45th birthday present for Ted Cruz in today’s Quinnipiac University national poll of Republican primary voters. The Texas Senator is up 8 points since last month’s survey and has closed the gap on frontrunner Donald Trump to just 4 points. The poll, the first reliable national survey taken since last week’s GOP debate, shows the race substantially closer than a round of pre-debate surveys. It also reinforces that Cruz has been the major beneficiary of the deflation of Ben Carson’s brief poll surge. And it’s no mystery why. Forty percent of Republican voters said Cruz did the...

SALT LAKE CITY — Donald Trump continues to be the front-runner in the GOP presidential nomination race, but he's languishing in fourth place in a new poll of Utah voters. The new UtahPolicy.com poll by Dan Jones & Associates comes as former Utah governor and 2012 presidential candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. is suggesting Trump has a shot at winning the White House. "People really are hungry for change. They were last time, but it hadn't reached the 212-degree boiling point. This time it has," Huntsman told USA Today's weekly "Capital Download" video series. Huntsman said that's why he thinks Trump,...

The U.S. senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, brought his campaign for the Republican nomination for president to Trussville on Sunday and was greeted by an overflow crowd at the Civic Center. If you missed the speech, or were unable to attend, you can see it in it’s entirety in the video below. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)

Not since I voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 have I been so excited about the prospect of a true conservative as I was for 2016. With the likes of Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100% and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 94% there was plenty to be excited about. What I didn’t realize was the depth of disgust and anger that the base had for the establishment republicans. It wasn’t so apparent to me given that I have been living with RINO’s and turncoats up here in Massachusetts for decades. Then enter Trump. I could never have...

The two key ingredients to winning a primary are voter enthusiasm and a get-out-the-vote operation. In a caucus, the organization is even more important. You have to identify people in advance who will agree to go to caucuses, which is much, much more involved and time-consuming than simply voting. It can be a process that goes on for some time, and only committed caucus-goers will go in for that. That's why to be serious, you need an organization in every district and committed people you know by name who are going to show up. Ted Cruz has that in Iowa....

This is the Ted Cruz moment. There was nothing inevitable about it, nor is there anything conventional about him. Born in Canada, elected to the Senate from Alberta's muscular cousin, Texas, Mr. Cruz has until this month been overshadowed by his slightly younger fellow Cuban-American, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. No more. Cruz has soared to the lead in almost every poll in Iowa, eclipsing even Donald Trump, and ranks second to the billionaire businessman in almost every national poll. If there is an alternative to Trump right now -- and remember, as a cautionary note, how Republican polls and...