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Polls indicating that the Republican Party is moving further to the right are leaving a large faction of moderate Republicans feeling disenchanted with the party’s conservative drift, reports The Boston Globe. In 2010, some of the GOP’s most outspoken leaders helped propel Republican candidates into power in the House. The tea party movement was influential in securing this takeover. But Gallup poll findings to be released Friday indicate that the GOP’s conservative shift is isolating its moderate wing, the Globe reported. Self-described moderates made up almost one-third of the Republican Party just 10 years ago. Now, that fraction has dropped...

(Washington, DC) -- Republican congressional leaders are reportedly agreeing to billions of dollars in revenue increases as federal deficit discussions continue. Republican Senator Jon Kyl announced the move today saying revenue increases don't necessarily mean tax hikes. On the Senate floor Kyl said, quote, "If the government sells something and gets revenue from it, that's revenue." He also suggested user fees for government services could provide additional revenue. He says all the revenue increases Republicans have agreed to amount to between 150 billion and 200 billion dollars.

He’s a flip-flopper who can seem disconnected from average citizens, and wears health care reform as a political albatross around his neck. That’s the standard line of attack against Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But, the same critique could also apply to President Obama. That means if Romney gets past GOP doubters and wins his party’s nomination, the 2012 election could be a head-to-head between two men with similar vulnerabilities. On the surface, they have little in common. Romney and Obama represent dramatically different backgrounds and cultivate vastly different political images. But they share some interesting traits. With or without...

The U.S. Senate today overcame a Republican filibuster and approved a former Planned Parenthood abortion business director, John McConnell, as a federal judge in Rhode Island. Senators voted 63-33 to surpass the 60-vote threshold necessary to stop the filibuster and approve the nomination of McConnell’s nomination to the District Court for the District of Rhode Island. his nomination previously cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee recently on a party-line 11-7 vote. Senate Republicans joining all Democrats to end debate included Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Susan Collins of Maine, Lyndsey Graham of South Carolina, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Mark Kirk of Illinois,...

Sen. Susan Collins is part of a renewed bid to pass a bipartisan bill protecting against workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Maine Republican is a lead co-sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, ENDA, along with Democrats Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Tom Harkin of Iowa and Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that the Tea Party needs to commit to being problem-solvers in the new Congress. On "Face the Nation," Graham was asked about the prospects for bipartisanship come January. "The House is in revolt," he said of the difficulty of extending the Bush-era tax cuts. "People are pissed off in the House at the estate tax. That's going to carry over a bit." Graham said that big government and spending is on the "run and retreat," but that the coming months will test the grass-roots movement that helped turn the tide in the midterm election. "The...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Six years ago, Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced a rare type of bill that blocked the U.S. government from punishing an South Carolina high school girl for a crime her mother had committed long ago by smuggling her across the Mexico border.</p>

Long-simmering tensions within the Republican Party spilled into public view Wednesday as the pragmatic and conservative wings of the GOP blamed each other in blunt terms for the party’s failure to capture the Senate. With tea party-backed candidates going down in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada, depriving Republicans of what would have been a 50-50 Senate, a bloc of prominent senators and operatives said party purists like Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) had foolishly pushed nominees too conservative to win in politically competitive states. (snip) Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott put it plainly: “We did not nominate our...

Washington (CNN) -- Bipartisanship is in the eye of the beholder, it seems, as Democrats and Republicans ponder how cooperation between them can improve after the upcoming congressional elections. The voting on November 2 is expected to diminish Democratic majorities in both chambers and perhaps cost them control of the House. Whatever the final tally, widespread voter dissatisfaction with the hostile political climate in Washington is evident. Democrats blame Republican intransigence, calling the GOP a "party of no" that has opposed almost every initiative to undermine President Barack Obama's campaign pledge to change Washington politics. Republican leaders say their opposition...

<p>Washington (CNN) – Sarah Palin will join forces with Michael Steele and the Republican National Committee next month to hold a pair of fundraising rallies, according to multiple Republican sources.</p> <p>The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee will team up with the RNC chairman at an event in Anaheim, California, on October 16 and in Orlando, Florida, on October 23.</p>

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Two senior Republican US Senators pleaded Thursday for a Florida pastor to abandon plans to burn hundreds of Korans, warning the incendiary gesture could endanger US troops overseas. "Pastor (Terry) Jones' threats to burn the Koran will put American service men/women in danger -- for their sake please don't do it!" the party's 2008 presidential candidate, John McCain, said on his Twitter feed. And Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that the "stunt" risked endangering US troops in the field, while urging the news media to show restraint amid global outrage at the pastor's plans.

<p>PHOENIX (AP) - Both were once considered vulnerable but recently have found stronger footing in their Republican primary races.</p> <p>Now, Arizona Sen. John McCain and Gov. Jan Brewer will campaign together at six events in five communities on Friday and Saturday.</p>

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell will host his first fundraiser for Arizona Sen. John McCain, facing a tough primary battle against former congressman J.D. Hayworth, at a McLean home later this month, advisers to the governor say. The June 14 fundraiser will be at the home of Bobbie Kilberg, president and chief executive of the Northern Virginia Technology Council. Kilberg, an adviser to McDonnell, is a member of McDonnell's new government reform commission. Other hosts include businessman Fred Malek, the commission chairman who has been under fire in recent weeks because of questions that have been raised about his past, former...

Here's a political story that really couldn't have gone better for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Today, President Obama joined Senate Republicans for their weekly luncheon, and according to people who were in attendance, McCain used his time to inform the president that the National Guard needed to head to the U.S.-Mexico border in order to control crime and make it at least possible to begin a discussion on comprehensive immigration reform. According to Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.), who backed up McCain, the senator even informed the president that he was doing a disservice by mischaracterizing what was in Arizona's new...

A top Senate negotiator on climate change believes that a sudden turn by Senate Democrats to immigration could “destroy” any hope of a major climate and energy bill this year. “This comes out of left field,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), after hearing that Democratic leaders may now push immigration reform ahead of a climate bill. “I’m working as earnestly as I can to craft climate and energy independence, clean air and jobs, and now we’re being told that we’re going to immigration. We haven’t done anything to prepare the body of the country for immigration.” “This destroys the ability...

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has introduced a bill that would allow the President to imprison an unlimited number of American citizens (as well as foreigners) indefinitely without trial. Known as The Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, or S. 3081, the bill authorizes the President to deny a detainee a trial by jury simply by designating that person an “enemy belligerent.” The bill, which has eight cosponsors, explicitly names U.S. citizens as among those who can be detained indefinitely without trial: An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent...

Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) campaign is attacking former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) again for being a "birther." A new Web video from McCain's campaign casts Hayworth as a loony right-winger who suggests the president was born in Kenya and thinks gay marriage will lead to marriage between men and horses. "I've committed to exposing the secret Kenyan brithplace of the president of the United States," the fake Hayworth says. "Second, I've stood up against the grave threat of man-horse marriage." The video is a parody of a Hayworth ad, pretending to promote the candidate's positions on those issues. McCain has...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says he is not abandoning negotiations on a comprehensive energy and climate bill even as he warns of partisan gridlock following the Democrats' push this week to pass health care reform. "It's going to make it very difficult to do anything complicated and controversial," Graham told reporters yesterday. "I'm still committed to trying to roll out a vision of how you can price carbon and make it business-friendly. We're still going to do that. ... But the truth of the matter is, I think you're going to find most of our colleagues around here risk adverse."...

PHOENIX (AP) — John McCain and Sarah Palin are scheduled to campaign together in Arizona next week for the first time since they conceded the presidential election in Phoenix in 2008. Palin and McCain will be at a rally and picnic in Tucson on March 26, followed the next day by a rally in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.

Senator Lindsey Graham, ever the faithful follower of uber-RINO John McCain, scored three RINO initiatives in just one week. Reminiscent of the "the band's getting back together" scenes from the movie "Blues Brothers", Graham and McCain reached back to the good old days of bipartisan shafting of conservative judicial nominees and offered the Democrats another "Gang of Fourteen"--this time to shaft the public with a bipartisan Obamacare bill. The offer must have been tempting to the Democrats who remember how "bipartisan leadership" from Graham and McCain spiked conservative guns when the Republicans were in the majority in the Senate. But...