Free Republic

State Sen. Stacey Campfield, co-chairman of Newt Gingrich’s campaign in Tennessee, announced today he is quitting that position to support Rick Santorum in the Republican presidential race. The Knoxville Republican made his announcement in a post on his blog. In an interview, Campfield said he believes that conservatives need to unite behind a single candidate and that Santorum is best positioned to defeat “establishment Republican” candidate Mitt Romney. Campfield’s decision comes after a conversation with Santorum earlier this week. In his blog post, Campfield said he was “twisted inside because of my loyalty to Newt, my loyalty must first lie...

Rick Santorum's speech to the Chattanooga Tea Party's Liberty Forum is uplifting and convincing that he is the constitutional conservative we need as President of the United States. The speech is brilliant in its scope and sincerity. It shows that he has a clear grasp of the constitutional conservative movement. It shows that he is one of us. Neither John McCain nor George W. Bush could have delivered such a speech. Ronald Reagan could have. Santorum is convincing in showing that he understands the purpose of the Constitution, why it is an extension of the principles of the Declaration of...

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum labeled Rush Limbaugh "absurd" over disparaging remarks from the radio talk show host directed at a law student who testified before a House panel in support of access to contraceptives. "He's being absurd, but that's you know, an entertainer can be absurd," Santorum told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Friday. "He's in a very different business than I am."

Rick Santorum today attempted to take back comments in which he said Barack Obama is a “snob” because he wants to see as many Americans as possible go to college. Speaking on CNN, Santorum said when he called Obama a snob, he was speaking more in terms of Obama’s larger policy agenda. “I was giving a long riff about the president mandating things on people,” Santorum said Friday. “I was talking about the government and president mandating healthcare and, you know, what kind of loans we’re going to get.” Santorum’s comment came in response to President Obama saying that every...

(CNN) -- Sen. Rick Santorum, who is campaigning to become America's second Catholic president, disagrees from the bottom of his gut with the first Catholic to hold the office. In October, he told a Catholic university audience that when he read the 1960 speech in which John F. Kennedy said: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," he "almost threw up." More recently, he elaborated on his dyspeptic condition in an ABC television interview, calling JFK's credo "an absolutist doctrine that was abhorrent at the time of 1960." But the Baptist ministers who...

Short on money and staff, Rick Santorum needs help to remain a viable threat to front-runner Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. One strategist hopes it will come from another rival, Newt Gingrich. Top adviser John Brabender says Santorum's future may depend upon Gingrich leaving the race. The former House speaker is showing no signs of bowing out, certainly not before next week's Super Tuesday voting. "If we could ever make this where we have all the conservatives and tea party supporters behind us as one candidate against Mitt Romney, we'll win the nomination," Brabender said...

Short on money and staff, Rick Santorum needs help to remain a viable threat to front-runner Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. One strategist hopes it will come from another rival, Newt Gingrich. Top adviser John Brabender says Santorum's future may depend upon Gingrich leaving the race. The former House speaker is showing no signs of bowing out, certainly not before next week's Super Tuesday voting.

Rick Santorum is stretching his criticism of President Obama's advocacy of universal college attendance into a broader attack on college itself. Santorum has three college degrees, which provides a good indication of how seriously one should take his assault on what he is labeling as Obama's elitism. As with so many of Santorum's statements, this criticism contains a grain of perception smothered in reactionary dogma. [BIG SNIP] In a nation in which almost everyone aspires to upward mobility, how is this a winning political argument? Sure, colleges are hothouses of liberalism. They have been for generations. And yet Americans of...

I was curious to see what would happen to Rick Santorum after being subjected to the harsh glare of the media spotlight, now that he's the Republican flavor of the week. It speaks highly of him that one of the worst things you can say about him is about a comment he made about college attendance. On MSNBC Monday night, Ed Shultz expressed shock that Santorum would say that President Obama is a snob for insisting that everyone goes to college. The progressive media framed his comment like this: "President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to...

It’s crunch time. I am not going to sugarcoat the news for conservatives. Hate me all you want, but Republicans have just about picked their nominee. Forget these headlines such as Paul Belaga’s “Romney Wins Michigan and Arizona, but Political Tourette’s Is Costing Him” or CNN‘s “Romney survives Michigan as all eyes turn to Super Tuesday” or the New York Daily News‘s “Mitt Romney avoids Michigan disaster, but has ‘blood on him’ heading into Super Tuesday: experts.” God does not roll dice with the universe, and neither does the Republican Party. I am looking at the plurality wins in Arizona...

There’s a tiny priest living in Rick Santorum’s trim, toned body, struggling to get out. The rogue priest escaped Sunday and said foolish things. The candidate most admired for plain speech made it plain and clear that he doesn’t believe in the wall between church and state and doesn’t think much of John F. Kennedy for saying he did. “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” he told ABC News. “The idea that church can have no influence or involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives...

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee came out in defense of President Barack Obama and his professed Christian faith on Thursday. During a press briefing at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Huckabee criticized the debates over Obama's religion and birthplace as "useless" and "unnecessary." "I know for some people that is an obsession but it's not with me," said the Southern Baptist. With rare public appearances at churches on Sundays and a smaller percentage of Americans (34 percent, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life) who believe the president is a Christian, debate continues to loom...

Republicans still have time to transform their concern about the explosion in the size of our government into a directed political force that sweeps elections this November. The single person who can now do the most to make this happen is RNC Chairman Michael Steele. How? By resigning. The latest mark against Steele is the apparent exposure of a personal belief deeply at odds with Republican philosophy. Yesterday, Mr. Steele said of the war in Afghanistan that “this was a war of Obama’s choosing.” ... Indeed, major donors have deserted the RNC. The DNC has led the RNC in fundraising....

Via Andrew, some real talk from David Frum: I was interviewed on PBS last week about Palin's book release. I said that Palin had an especially serious problem with women voters. This is just fact, again recorded in every survey. In October 2008, Palin's support dropped furthest and fastest among women, and especially among independents: more than two dozen points among independent women in barely 6 weeks. Consistently since the campaign, every survey has shown the former Alaska governor much more popular among men than women. And yet this attested statistical fact is shrugged off with comments like, "when I...

Vitiligo is a skin disorder that gained notoriety for being the cause of Micheal Jackson’s loss of skin color. I think I have discovered a condition that a lot of Black Republicans/Conservatives seem to have, Mental Vitiligo(M.V.).

<p>During the cold war, JFK claimed to have gone to the moon. He got congress to spend billions on his moon landing and pretended america landed there, convincing congress to give him billions, the fakeness of the landing is well documented.</p>

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has used $23,000 in campaign funds to pay the top Washington ethics lawyer, Stan Brand, who is fighting his case before the Senate ethics committee, according to Craig’s latest filing with the Federal Election Commission. No additional legal expenses appear in the report, but they eventually will. Craig, according to his office, has decided to use his campaign committee for attorney fees related to his criminal defense in Minnesota as well. “A better read (of the latest report) is that Stan Brand bills more quickly,” Craig’s spokesman, Dan Whiting, wrote in an email. The report covers...

"As president, I will set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming, an 80 percent reduction by 2050," he said. He proposed a modified "cap and trade" approach to reduce emissions, requiring businesses to buy allowances if they pollute, creating an incentive to reduce energy usage. "No business will be allowed to emit any greenhouse gases for free," he said. "Businesses don't own the sky, the public does, and if we want them to stop polluting it, we have to put a price on all pollution." Sen. Hillary...

A Minnesota judge denied a motion by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, to withdraw the guilty plea he entered in August in connection to an airport bathroom stall sting operation. The order, released Thursday, likely derails Craig's plans to remain in the Senate.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a 2008 Democratic presidential hopeful, is shown on a chair spinning in a circle, saying he was doing something no other candidate can, during a campaign stop, Saturday, Feb. 3, 2007, in Keene, N.H. 'Do you know why I can do it,' Kucinich asked. 'No strings. Imagine a president with no strings attached?' (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter)