Free Republic

The Maine Republican Party State Committee decided Saturday against censuring GOP U.S. Sen. Susan Collins over her vote to convict former President Donald Trump at his impeachment trial. The state GOP rejected the motion by a vote of 41 to 19, Collins’ office said. “Today’s decision is a testament to the Republican Party’s ‘big tent’ philosophy that respects different views but unites around core principles,” Collins said in a statement. …

Thirty percent of adults in the United States have a “positive” perception of evangelicals as Americans increasingly view the religious demographic through a political lens, newly released Barna Group research indicates. According to the evangelical polling firm, evangelicals make up about 6 percent of the U.S. population but have assumed a “unique place in national discourse.”“Based on a nationwide study of U.S. adults, we found that, though many people still view evangelicals as a committed group of believers who put their faith first, their political connotation puts the future of American evangelicalism in a precarious spot,” a summary of the...

Kamala Harris attacked critics of “identity politics”. Elizabeth Warren insisted that Democrats could be both the “party of the white working class and the party of Black Lives Matter” while calling the American criminal justice system “racist”. And Cory Booker said it was time “to get folk woke”. At the Netroots Nation conference in New Orleans on Friday, leading Democratic presidential hopefuls embraced the concept of intersectionality, viewing any conflict between economic populism and racial and social justice as a false choice. “I have a problem with that phrase, ‘identity politics,’” said Kamala Harris, the junior Democratic senator from California,...

Link only - https://www.salon.com/2018/07/28/democratic-moderates-fear-the-socialist-left-will-wreck-the-party-they-want-to-keep-that-gig/

SALT LAKE CITY — As presidential candidate Evan McMullin (I) and his team watched the election results come in Tuesday night, they were furiously rewriting his speech. They, like most of the nation, were shocked that Donald Trump was poised as of early Wednesday morning to potentially win the presidency of the United States. But McMullin’s core campaign message, that the Republican party had forsaken its principles and allowed itself to be hijacked by a parasite named Trump, was validated by the incoming results, he told the crowd of supporters here in Utah. As of late Tuesday night, Trump led...

Pro-LGBT Republicans, both gay and straight, say the party is going through a fundamental change. Equality issues are not controversial among younger Republicans, majorities of whom support gay marriage and other measures. Richard Grenell, an openly gay former diplomat, told The Hill he is encouraged by how much progress the party has made, even over the last four years. During the 2012 campaign, Grenell stepped down as Mitt Romney’s national security and foreign policy spokesman after to a conservative backlash over his sexuality. “When I walk through the convention, I see politicians, activists and staffers who swarm me to tell...

House Speaker Paul Ryan concedes the “five-point” Republican legislative agenda he’s pursuing in Congress could be construed as competing with policy points the GOP presidential candidates are pushing in the primary season. But he argues that the party shouldn’t wait until its nominating convention in July to tell the public its priorities, including lowering the national debt, strengthening the military and easing government regulation of business. […] … Ryan adds that the GOP needs “a transition from being an opposition party to being a proposition party.” …

".... Lisa Wagner, Romney's 2012 Midwest fundraising director, said that once voters meet Bush, "they see his head and his heart are connected" and they are "very, very taken" with his "sincerity."During a question-and-answer session after the Detroit speech, Bush said losing his first bid for Florida governor in 1994 taught him that winning campaigns requires building an emotional attachment with voters. When he won the job four years later, he said, he campaigned in places—from black churches to public schools in poor communities—where few expected a Republican to go for votes.That, Bush said, allowed him to "to connect on...

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is less than a month away and the now-annual kerfuffle over the participation of gay conservative group GOProud was in full swing on Twitter this weekend. When GOProud co-sponsored CPAC in 2011, several conservative groups boycotted the conference. Later that year, the American Conservative Union’s board of directors voted to exclude GOProud from formal participation in 2012 and the welcome mat is still rolled up. Naturally, the liberal media presented this as unimpeachable evidence of the Right’s “H8″ and intolerance. But among conservatives on Twitter, there’s little controversy over whether to embrace gay conservatives as...

With the policies of the GOP now in place, anyone could run under the Republican banner. The mentality of the GOP has brought it to this point in history, where the party pushes candidates who sound like Democrats in order to trick the electorate into believing Republicans aren't really "mean" enough to expect them to be responsible for their own lives. But that is not the problem of Ron Paul. The Ron Paul problem of the GOP is that there has never been a real clear interpretation of what he and his followers truly believe because the Republican Party wants...

As newly minted princess Kate Middleton greeted Michelle Obama in the ornate surroundings of Buckingham Palace Tuesday, it was hard to believe she was wearing a $340 dress from British retailer Reiss — a frock any commoner could buy. (snip) While Michelle Obama has also been applauded for wearing clothes from affordable stores such as J.Crew and H&M, she also favors big-name designers such as Jason Wu and Isabel Toledo. The floral Barbara Tfank dress she wore to meet Middleton this week cost at least $2,000.

That’s not quite what Gallup explicitly says in its analysis, but it’s a rather inevitable conclusion when one sees the graphic presentation of the results. Barack Obama lost eleven points in his approval ratings on a state-by-state basis in 2010, and now the floor has Obama in danger of losing the next election. Bear in mind when looking at the legend that the “average” approval rating for Obama was 47% — and that Obama had a 50% or better rating only in the dark-green states: Obama’s overall average approval rating in 2010 was 47%, down 11 percentage points from the...

Once in while we write something on Free Republic upon which we can look back with some satisfaction. Just after the November election of 2008 when everything was as bleak for conservatism as it could be, and the Libs were condescending to instruct us about how to conduct ourselves, I wrote a piece which I think has been borne out in the last election. The Murkowskis and the Castles along with so many other Republicans have been bayoneted along the trail as the party and, more to the point, conservatism has found its soul. The bloodletting was not only necessary...

Former Republican National Committee chairman and Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman has announced publicly that he is gay, CBS News chief political consultant and politics editor for The Atlantic Marc Ambinder reports. "It's taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life," Mehlman said. "Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I've told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they've been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that's made me a happier and better person. It's something I wish I...

This is a long way around to a discussion of gay marriage, something I have been in full support of since initiating this blog in 2003. It is also the subject that, when I write about it, often creates the greatest dissension from those who otherwise applaud what I am saying. So it is with some gratification that I found tonight that the person in public life I have admired tremendously for some time is also a supporter of same-sex marriage – Laura Bush. She proclaimed that support in her characteristic well-mannered, low-keyed fashion on Larry King Live. (Okay, nobody’s...

MARLBOROUGH — After St. Ann’s Catholic Church was closed in 2004, Stacie LaBoissiere and her husband began looking for another spiritual home. But they ruled out joining another Catholic parish. “My sister is a lesbian, married to a woman,” LaBoissiere explained. “I knew that I did not want to remain Catholic as a result of their views on homosexuality. I could not become a member of a church that would condemn my sister. If a church would not accept my sister, then they would not accept me.” The couple joined Marlborough’s St. Stephen Lutheran Church, after its pastor Scott Howard...

Take a stroll through CPAC's exhibition hall this year and between the proffered candy, bumper stickers and key rings you can't help overhearing some heated debates. At the end of the first row of exhibitors, next to the National Rifle Association, is a booth for the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property. “That's a lot of things to be worried about,” I remarked to the booth attendee. “Yes,” he said smiling, “we have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies.” These days, the group is particularly concerned with gays in the military. Beyond opposing...

BURNIN' DOWN THE TENT!!! This is PART II of the RINO FREE AMERICA PROJECT!!! CALLING ALL FREEPERS AND STATE MESSAGE BOARDS TO ACTION!!!(Approved and endorsed by Jim Robinson.) Do we want action? Yes, we do!!! Are we willing to take a giant step forward and create a central action site that allows us to see at a glance every single state’s candidates for national office, House and Senate, to separate the wheat from the chaff? That is our hope. We want to spend our money, our time, and our votes wisely. Our time is JUST as valuable as the money...

"Two of the most influential Republicans in the U.S. Senate these days come from South Carolina, Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham. But Graham’s efforts to work with majority Democrats on some issues has angered many GOP voters in the state, even prompting efforts to censure him."

State Rep. Beth Coulson, one of the most moderate Republican candidates running for Congress, will be meeting with Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele tomorrow in Illinois to discuss her campaign – and the need for Republicans to have a big-tent party so it can compete in Democratic-minded districts.