Free Republic

As I write this, the news has just reported that a Tea Party Conservative, Jack Kimball, who has previously pledged to support a strong conservative for President has won the Chairmanship upsetting the choice of the GOP Establishment and outgoing Chairman John Sununu,Julia Bergeron by a vote of 222-199. By all accounts, Kimball is a tough, no nonsense conservative who worries many in the Establishment, including Sununu, that he is not "inclusive" enough. That this is catastrophic news for Mitt Romney is an understatement. Kimball has pledged neutrality in the 2012 GOP Presidential primary, but is is a fair bet...

For the first time, as of today, private citizen and putative GOP Presidential Candiate Sarah Palin has eclipsed the sitting President of the United States, Barack Obama, in google hits. Entering the names "Sarah Palin" and "Barack Obama" generates the following results: "Sarah Palin": 78,100,000 LINK"Barack Obama": 65,700,000 LINKThis is a stunning development that is unprecedented. Google hits are indicative of public interest in a person and what they have to say. No one should command more public attention that a sitting President of the United States. Yet a private citizen, who holds no office and has not even DECLARED,...

The Republican Party, at least since the administration of William McKinley, has been perceived as the party of privilege...the party of the elites. While not always fair, the GOP Establishment seems to have an almost endemic hostility to the kind of grassroots, populist movements typified by the TEA Party and Sarah Palin. The GOP Establishment has sought, with almost complete success, to quash such movements over the past century. A small government populist conservative has only crept into the GOP hierarchy twice in the last century, both times in completely unanticipated fashion and both times beyond the control of the...

More than a century ago, Lord Acton delivered the now well worn and quite correct maxim of human affairs, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely". If I might be permitted to paraphrase Acton, "Fame, or celebrity, tends to corrupt and great celebrity tends to corrupt absolutely." Both maxims admit of exception, but both are, alas, more often true than untrue. The early votes of the GOP Congress, which contains 63 freshly minted GOP Congressman, provide an interesting case study of power and its first cousin, fame. Every Congressman (aside from the leadership and the Committee...

As 2012 approaches, the State of the Union is grave indeed. Our economy is principally threatened by an explosion of federal spending which, if left unchecked, will bury us all in a red inked sea of hyper-inflation, chronic double digit unemployment and shortages. The America we grew up in will cease to exist. Two things seem to me to be essential: 1) A leader with a steel spine who is both principled and fearless in attacking the Leviathan and all its shibboleths; and 2) A platform, a mandate and policies that will both starve and neuter the federal government. In...