Free Republic

President Obama on Wednesday predicted the Republican Party would have to "move back to the center" if it ever wanted to win another presidential election. During an interview with "Marketplace" radio show, Obama defended his recent effort to sidestep Congress on a number of issues this year in the face of inaction. He said Republicans are unable to carry out "basic functions of government,” pointing to the failure to pass immigration reform and the government shutdown last year. "I don't think this is a permanent state of affairs,” he said. “I think over time the Republican Party will move back...

Hillary Clinton had a tense exchange with an NPR host in an interview airing Thursday over whether she made “a calculus” against publicly supporting gay marriage before endorsing it last year. It’s the first time Clinton, a potential candidate for president in 2016, has been extensively questioned about her support for gay marriage. She did not back it in her 2008 presidential campaign but she issued support for it by video in 2013, weeks after leaving the State Department. Her support came after President Barack Obama, shoved toward it publicly by Vice President Joe Biden, backed gay marriage in the...

Dr. Ben Carson, potential contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, has been enjoying near "rock star" status in ostensibly conservative circles. If that continues, "conservatives" had might as well give up trying to cast themselves as representing the "pro-gun" position, because Carson's stance on guns is one that would probably not displease the Brady Campaign. Carson first raised gun owners' hackles in March, 2013, when he blithely told Glenn Beck that the right to own semi-automatic firearms is contingent on where one lives. From Mediate: But when asked whether people should be allowed to own “semi-automatic weapons,” the...

Clearly immigration was why we lost in 2012. It had nothing to do with a milquetoast Republican candidate who had been on both sides of so many issues that a good portion of Republican voters just stayed home. No, forget the moderate candidate. It was the Hispanic vote that killed us! Also, I’ve got some unicorns in my back yard I’ll be glad to sell you on the cheap.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has strongly supported Republican candidates and priorities in recent years. So it was notable when its leader on Monday said the GOP shouldn't even bother to field a presidential nominee in 2016 if it doesn't pass immigration reform. "If the Republicans don't do it they shouldn't bother to run a candidate in 2016. I mean, think about that. Think about who the voters are," Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue said at a Washington, D.C. panel about the economy and infrastructure. Donohue said he believes immigration reform is still doable in 2014 even though it's...

It is "appropriate" for Republicans to use investigations, such as those into Benghazi and the IRS, for election campaigns, two-time presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Friday. Romney stressed that the investigations would not be taking place if Republicans did not have a majority in the House. "There would not be an investigation into Benghazi, there would not be an investigation into the IRS, were there not a Republican House. And, so to say, 'Look, elect Republicans so that we can have these kinds of investigations' is appropriate," the former Massachusetts governor told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." The issue of using the...

If Jeb Bush decides to run for president, he’ll have to defend his family’s controversial political name. But more immediate family concerns might keep him from running at all. Republican donors and operatives are chattering about Bush’s publicity-shy wife, so worried she isn’t on board with a 2016 White House run that they’re urging people in the family’s orbit to make the case. Columba Bush has long been deeply averse to the spotlight, especially after an embarrassing encounter with U.S. Customs while her husband was still in office. Donors also wonder whether Bush is willing to subject his family and...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said he was “emphatically opposed” to federal Common Core standards after he keynoted an event for Iowa's influential homeschoolers in which he said that school choice "is the civil rights issue of the 21st century." “I don’t think the federal government has any role dictating the content of curricula. I think education is a state issue and a local issue, and ideally at the local level, because that way parents can have direct input and control of what’s being taught to their kids,” Cruz said on Tuesday after he addressed the Network of Iowa Christian Home...

WASHINGTON — Bernie Sanders has been calling activists and traveling the country with a question: Could he vault from his US Senate seat representing what is fondly called the People’s Republic of Vermont to the White House? His next stop in search of an answer is the first presidential primary state of New Hampshire, where this weekend he plans to bring his campaign complaint about America becoming an “oligarchic society.’’ The lawmaker, who is possibly the most liberal of all members of Congress — and the only one to call himself a democratic socialist — said in an interview this...

VIDEO AT LINK On Fox News Channel's "America's Newsroom" on Tuesday, former adviser to President George W. Bush Karl Rove reacted to remarks from former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) that called certain types of illegal immigration an "act of love"...

It’s now officially sexist to hold someone accountable for her legacy of failure – as long as she is a liberal. Nonsense. Rand Paul was absolutely right to declare open season on Hillary’s track record of actively enabling Bubba’s grotesque satyrism. Naturally, her mainstream media cover-up crew swung into action, decreeing that examining her record is verboten. It’s adorable how, in the age of the internet, these has-beens still think they get to decide what we can and can’t discuss. Give it another year or so until these dinosaur hacks are at the bottom of off-ramps with signs reading, “Will...

Two for the price of one. Remember that? That was the phrase Bill & Hill used when Bill Clinton, then the governor of Arkansas, with Hillary at his side, ran for president in 1992. Some people laughed, some people scoffed. Some people thought the idea of a co-presidency was a joke. But the vast majority of people who voted in 1992 bought into it, and Bill Clinton was elected president over incumbent George H.W. Bush, and then he was re-elected in 1996.

MILWAUKEE — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has been eyeing a 2016 presidential run since his battles with labor unions made him a Republican star, is in the midst of dealing with the fallout of two criminal investigations at home that could complicate his move to the national stage. One is ongoing, and while the other is now closed with no allegations of wrongdoing by Walker, it has the lingering potential to embarrass him. That could begin as early as Wednesday with the release of more than 25,000 pages of e-mails from an ex-staffer that were gathered as part of...

The merger of Team Obama and Team Clinton could prove too much to handle for Republicans in 2016, warns Van Jones. “Whoever gets your nomination will have to run against four of us: Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, [President] Obama, and Michelle Obama,” he said on This Week. Fellow panelists Cokie Roberts and Greta Van Susteren both expressed uncertainty whether Clinton would ultimately run, and Matt Bai of Yahoo! News said “she cannot clear the field.” “Everything we know about modern politics and the modern presidential process flies in the face of that — we don’t live in that world anymore,”...

My Post colleague Dan Balz has some very interesting reporting from Democratic and Republican strategists. Both groups seem somewhat pessimistic about the GOP’s chances in 2016: A recent conversation with a veteran of GOP presidential campaigns raised this question: Which, if any, of the recent battleground states are likely to become more Republican by 2016? The consensus: very few. That reality highlights one problem Republicans face as they seek to regain the White House after six years under President Obama. Lots of factors affect elections: The quality of the candidates, the state of the economy, the effectiveness of the campaigns....

A recent conversation with a veteran of GOP presidential campaigns raised this question: Which, if any, of the recent battleground states are likely to become more Republican by 2016? The consensus: very few. That reality highlights one problem Republicans face as they seek to regain the White House after six years under President Obama. Lots of factors affect elections: the quality of the candidates, the state of the economy, the effectiveness of the campaigns. But in a country whose demographics continue to change, Republicans will begin this campaign with one significant disadvantage. Over the past three decades, the political leanings...

A threat to Hillary Clinton’s much anticipated 2016 presidential campaign appears to be developing in Egypt where that nation’s government is taking steps to criminalize the Muslim Brotherhood. Specifically, a new criminal complaint has been filed with Egypt’s attorney general, Hisham Barakat, alleging then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton collaborated with Naglaa Mahmoud, the wife of ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, in seeking to incite domestic insurrections to topple Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Egyptian general who has been commander in chief of the Egyptian armed forces, as well as minister of defense, since Aug. 12, 2012. Researcher Walid Shoebat, a...