Free Republic

Just when it appeared that public interest was fading, celebrity developer Donald Trump has revived the theory that [B. Hussein Obama] was born overseas... Where did this idea come from? Who started it? And is there a grain of truth there? The answer lies in Democratic, not Republican politics, and in the bitter, exhausting spring of 2008. At the time, the Democratic presidential primary was slipping away from Hillary Clinton and some of her most passionate supporters grasped for something, anything that would deal a final reversal to Barack Obama. .....Clinton supporters circulated an anonymous email questioning Obama’s citizenship. “Barack...

Eighteen months ago, TAC publisher Ron Unz discovered an astonishing account of the role the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, had played in suppressing information about what happened to American soldiers missing in action in Vietnam. Below, we present in full Sydney Schanberg’s explosive story.

It's official: Nicolle Wallace really doesn't like Sarah Palin. On today's Morning Joe, Wallace—who was Palin's chief handler during the 2008 campaign—took the occasion of Palin's speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit on Saturday to jab at the former veep candidate. Wallace had been asked to comment on conservative columnist Byron York's panning of Palin's speech as "long, rambling, and at times barely coherent." York's column also passed along criticism of the speech by a number of Iowa Republicans. Wallace said that it was interesting to see York come "full circle," since back in 2008 he had been a staunch...

Four years ago, David Axelrod was exuberantly riding the Obama wave. Today, the poor guy sounds decidedly down in the dumps. Check out this line from an email he sent to people on the Obama campaign list: "I don't know how this is going to end. But no matter what, I know each of us will have given this campaign everything we've got." Yikes! Take two Prozac and call me in the morning if you're still trailing by five in the Gallup poll! More after the jump.

On Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office confirmed what we've been saying for years now: President Obama has broken his pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. During his 2008 campaign, Obama promised Americans that he wouldn't raise taxes on anybody making less than $250,000 a year. Technically, he broke that pledge weeks after taking office, when he signed an increase in cigarette taxes, which fall disproportionately on those with lower incomes. Now, the CBO has released updated estimates showing that Obamacare's insurance mandate -- which the Supreme Court ruled to be a tax -- will hit millions of...

Barack Obama's 2008 campaign is under investigation for alleged voter fraud during the Democratic primaries. Many Indiana voters are claiming their signatures were forged. The Democratic Party within the state was quick to react calling it an 'isolated incident', while the Republican Party says it's cheating if found guilty. In each congressional district in Indiana, you need 500 signatures - Obama qualified with 534. It is being said 150 of them were forged.

Last election cycle, they started early, to wear down the American People, so they would vote democratic!

Three-quarters (74%) of internet users went online during the 2008 election to take part in, or get news and information about the 2008 campaign. This represents 55% of the entire adult population, and marks the first time the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that more than half the voting-age population used the internet to connect to the political process during an election cycle. SNIP This post-election survey finding comes after a similar poll in the spring of 2008. At that time, our survey found than 46% of Americans were online political users. In 2004, using a somewhat...

Former visiting St. Olaf College professor Phillip Busse paid a $480 fine after pleading guilty to misdemeanor theft charges stemming from a series of political campaign sign thefts. During the election season earlier this fall, Busse admitted to taking multiple John McCain/Sarah Palin lawn signs along a stretch of Hwy. 19 near St. Olaf in an article on the “Huffington Post,” a national news blog. After receiving several complaints about Busse’s article, members of the Rice County Sheriff’s Department met with Busse in late October and charged him with theft of three campaign signs. The erstwhile journalist and professor appeared...

Sen. John McCain and the Republican National Committee will unleash a barrage of spending on television advertising that will allow him to keep pace with Sen. Barack Obama's ad blitz during the campaign's final days, but the expenditures will impact McCain's get-out-the-vote efforts, according to Republican strategists. McCain has faced a severe spending imbalance during most of the fall, but the Republican nominee squirreled away enough funds to pay for a raft of television ads in critical battleground states over the next four days, said Evan Tracey, a political analyst who monitors television spending. The decision to finance a final...

A growing number of voters have concluded that Senator John McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is not qualified to be vice president, weighing down the Republican ticket in the last days of the campaign, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. All told, 59 percent of voters surveyed said Ms. Palin was not prepared for the job, up nine percentage points since the beginning of the month. Nearly a third of voters polled said the vice-presidential selection would be a major factor influencing their vote for president, and those voters broadly favor Senator Barack Obama,...

Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business. The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel. In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters' 64 one-way and...

Before we get started: Does anyone know whether Joe the Plumber is kin to Six-Pack Joe? This was by far the most interesting debate to date, perhaps because we are -- at last -- down to the wire. Just as people often reveal their truer natures in times of crisis or under extreme pressure, McCain and Obama tonight seemed reduced to their essential selves. Cool Obama was quintessentially cool. Tense McCain was INTENSE. Both men smiled a lot, but both seemed less good-natured than like well-mannered pit bulls (without the lipstick), snarling behind teeth bared in imitations of mirth. At...

The 2007 state fair was days away when Alaska's public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, took another call about one of his troopers, Michael Wooten. This time, the director of Gov. Sarah Palin's Anchorage office was on the line. As Mr. Monegan recalls it, the aide said the governor had heard that Mr. Wooten was assigned to work the kickoff to the fair. If so, Mr. Monegan should do something about it, because Ms. Palin was also planning to attend and did not want the trooper nearby. Somewhat bewildered, Mr. Monegan soon determined that Mr. Wooten had indeed volunteered for duty...

Let me say at the outset: I'll be voting for John McCain on November 4. I'll be voting for the man who was right about the surge, who holds clear-eyed views about terrorism and America's enemies, who has fought for leaner government over 20 years, who maneuvered the Roberts and Alito nominations through the Senate, who was right about Vladimir Putin.... Bona fides established? OK, now for the sermon. American voters are staggering under the worst financial crisis since at least 1982. Asset values are tumbling, consumer spending is contracting, and a recession is visibly on the way. This crisis...

Full breakdown here.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin remained in the dark while her husband repeatedly asked top state officials to help get his former brother-in-law kicked off the state police force, Palin's husband and top aides said in affidavits provided to The Associated Press. Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, is the focus of a legislative investigation into whether she abused her authority by firing the state's public safety commissioner to settle a long-standing family dispute. The commissioner says he was fired after resisting pressure to fire Mike Wooten, a trooper involved in a bitter divorce with Palin's sister....

Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign denounced a racially charged newspaper column written by a member of his leadership team in Virginia. Bobby May, the author of the column, which appeared in a southwest Virginia newspaper called the Voice, has been removed from the campaign. He had represented Buchanan County. The column spoofed Democratic candidate Barack Obama's platform. For example, May wrote that if Obama were elected, he would divert more foreign aid to Africa "so the Obama family there can skim enough to allow them to free their goats and live the American Dream."...

In the land of instant television punditry, at least, the ayes had it when it came to the second debate between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain last night. It was summed up perhaps most directly by George Stephanopoulos of ABC: "Obama is two for two, he definitely won tonight." Where the night of the first debate between Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain, and the debate last week between Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Gov. Sarah Palin, seemed to bring initial mixed reviews – which eventually evolved over time to largely favor the Democratic ticket — this one...

This reader out-Andies Andy: Well I have gone outside and pulled up my Mcain/Palin sign. This election is over. I will vote for Mcain but I know that come Nov. 5 Obama will be our president-elect. I feel sorry for Sarah Palin. A once promising career will be permanently connected to the landside loss of John McCain. I weep for my children and their families. Steady on. This next month is going to be a long month. Lots of things will happen. But McCain has to make some of them happen. His charge that Obama doesn't know the difference between...