Free Republic

BOONE, IOWA – Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 79% privately defended the National Security Agency’s (NSA) spying on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even as he publicly condemned the practice. Rubio and his ally Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) 86% discussed the matter privately in a room away from reporters early Wednesday morning at the Royal Amsterdam Hotel in Pella, Iowa. The two men talked before they set out on a three-stop Iowa campaign tour to showcase Gowdy’s endorsement of Rubio. This reporter heard the conversation while picking up a laptop computer and other materials left in a back...

If there is, is there any way to explain it apart from pure spite? Huckabee and Santorum combined are averaging less than three percent in Iowa. Rubio is nearly 20 points behind Cruz in the state. Denying Cruz some extra social-con votes won’t do much to help Rubio but it might be enough to help Donald Trump, the least socially conservative candidate in the race, top Cruz if the caucuses are close. That’s a natural thing to do if you’re angry at Cruz for dislodging your hero as the GOP’s premier evangelical and want to punish him, but as a...

Some who mistrust the Texas senator may tactically support Rubio over their first-choice candidates. To a concerned and angry bunch of Iowa Republicans, their mission heading into next month’s caucuses is as simple as ABC: Anybody But Cruz. As the Texas senator solidifies his front-runner status with just over a month to go before the February 1 caucuses, a loose network of social-conservative activists has undertaken a quiet effort to defeat him by any means necessary — even if that means rallying together behind a more electable rival to their own preferred candidates. Many supporters of Mike Huckabee and Rick...

Yes, yes, Rubio fans, I know — it’s a national poll and national polls don’t really mean anything, especially with big endorsements like Trey Gowdy’s only now just starting to trickle in. Fair enough, but this is the most interesting before-and-after comparison I’ve seen regarding the big immigration brawl between Rubio and Cruz. That began, you may remember, with the spat between them onstage at the debate on December 15th and continued all the way through Christmas, with Cruz being grilled repeatedly by the media about his views on legalizing illegals in 2013. Didn’t he introduce an amendment to Rubio’s...

It is no secret that the mainstream media might as well be on the DNC’s payroll. Major scandals involving Democrats go unremarked. When they are remarked upon, often the political affiliation is buried deep in the story if mentioned at all. I’m not talking only about the editorial pages, the devotion of the media to Democrats infests the actual news gathering function of newspapers, magazines, and online media. One of the most pernicious things to be contrived by the media is the “fact checking” charade. It started out with a simple premise: the media would check statements made by various...

Shocker! Gallup finds that 69 percent of Americans view big government as the biggest threat in the future. The figure is slightly down from 2013, where it stood at 72 percent. For those “Feeling the Bern,” we regret to inform you that only 25 percent feel that big business is a threat, followed by big labor at six percent. Another interesting aspect is the number of Democrats and Independent voters who also feel big government is a problem. Of course, almost every Republican–88 percent–agrees that big government poses the biggest threat to the country. But 53 percent of Democrats feel...

The endorsement by South Carolina Republican Representative Trey Gowdy of Florida Senator Marco Rubio in the GOP presidential nomination contest offers a contrast in opposing positions. Gowdy has espoused positions that have been repudiated by Rubio and it will be interesting to see how the two men reconcile their differences as they campaign together. In Iowa, the Rubio campaign has been attacking his rival for the nomination, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, as weak on national security. This attack is based on Cruz’s support for the USA Freedom Act which curtailed the ability of the NSA to collect phone call meta...

One of the negatives that has been hung on Ted Cruz is that he is too abrasive to win. Over and over you read about his “likability” problem with no greater definition ever put forward much larger than “I don’t like him.” An for the record, I call bull**** on “likability” as anything more substantial than one of the many old wives’s tales put forward by failed political consultants to shift blame onto the candidate they recently schlonged (I believe that is the technical term). It could conceivably be a factor in very close elections with a very stupid electorate...

I know there are people out there who think Hillary Clinton is a formidable candidate. I am not one of them. Hillary Clinton has exactly the same problem Jeb Bush had… you can’t identify any measurable slice of the party who wants to vote for him… but Hillary has the bovine Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) 9% running interference for her and blocking all possible competitors. Against her, the GOP is fielding the strongest array of candidates we’ve had since I started following politics. Earlier I posted on the Quinnipiac poll. In head to head matchups, there is more interesting...

I’ve never quite understood either the appeal of Mike Huckabee as a national candidate or why Mike Huckabee thinks of himself as a national candidate but, for the second time Governor Huckabee has made a bid to become the GOP’s nominee for president. In 2008, he made a creditable run in the early states but dropped out in March when it became apparent that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 48% would win Texas and the nomination. Huckabee had hoped to reprise his 2008 campaign this year but has been frustrated by one man: Ted Cruz. Cruz won the endorsement of Iowa...

I want to first wish everyone a Merry Christmas (God Bless Us EVERYONE!). But really my question in this thread is: If you are a Cruz or Trump supporter (this is especially aimed at those who CONSTANTLY post irrelevant opinions as facts), and other snarky things that tear down EITHER Trump or Cruz.. What will YOU do if the other candidate that you support wins the nomination?? Will you vote for and enthusiastically support "the other guy" or will you take your ball and go home? Would you dare saddle us with a Hillary President? Just curious.. I'll answer that...

It is time for conservatives to rally around Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 97% . By now, the reasons should be clear. There are a number of quality conservatives running for president. Senator Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 79% offers some good things but he’s running as moderate to get the Chamber of Commerce support and money. We don’t need Bush Lite. Ben Carson is a good man, but his campaign has run its course. Senator Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) 93% has been a strong fighter for conservative causes, but the numbers just aren’t there for him. Ditto Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee...

Last week I posted on a POLITICO story in which Marco Rubio’s senior advisors were reported as crowing about how they were going to depict Ted Cruz as a “craven insider who lacks authenticity.” The first step in that attack was Cruz’s position on the Gang of Eight amnesty bill pushed by Marco Rubio. This has been argued to the point of exhaustion and I’m not going to revisit it other than to say that the media seem convinced that they carried the day for Rubio and GOP voters disagree with that assessment. Now we see another planted attack in...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee–An exuberant crowd of more than 1,000 supporters greeted GOP presidential contender Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 97% at the Rocketown entertainment center in downtown Nashville. Buoyed by a recent Quinnipiac Poll that shows Cruz has narrowed the gap behind front runner Donald Trump to just four points (28 percent to 24 percent), the junior Senator from Texas brimmed with confidence in his speech to voters in this important March 1 SEC primary state. Cruz told reporters that Donald Trump “may well be right” that it’s becoming a two man race between the two of them: I did think it...

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough railed against presidential candidate and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) after Scarborough's name appeared in a Rubio campaign fundraising email. Scarborough was mentioned in the email after remarks last week that were critical of the Rubio campaign's ads, which he described as "nativist." In the ad, Rubio said the election revolved around people who "feel out of touch in their own country." "Elitist members of the media, like MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, are claiming Marco's remarks are 'nativist,' saying he's trying to pander," Rubio campaign manager Terry Sullivan wrote in an email to supporters on Monday. Scarborough charged...

President Obama’s reactions to ISIS attacks have become predictable and thin. His words seem to lack an appreciation of the grave conflict underway. Obama’s language betrays his adherence to progressive dogma: that the horrific assaults against the West are a nuisance to be managed, minimized, and explained through a value-free deconstruction of history where America sometimes stokes grievances across the Middle East. Although the role and responsibilities of a young government lawyer named Ted Cruz are very different from a sitting president, the accounts of how Cruz responded to the attacks of September 11, 2001 provide some insight into who...

To truly understand why so many people are angry at Marco Rubio about his Gang-of-Eight amnesty bill, you have to go all the way back to his race against Charlie Crist. Rubio was a Jeb Bush acolyte who embraced the Tea Party and ran for senator in Florida against Charlie Crist. Crist was the popular sitting governor in the state and Rubio was thought to be a huge underdog. However, the grassroots embraced Rubio. Just to give you an example, very early on I organized a coalition that endorsed Rubio and encouraged people not to give money to the NRSC...

Earlier this evening, we reported on the woofing the Rubio campaign was doing to everyone within earshot of how they were going to demolish Ted Cruz by developing the narrative that he was some sort of unprincipled opportunist who would say whatever it took to win votes. According to the Washington Post, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 94% has a much bigger problem. His supporters don’t know what he believes. From the story Marco Rubio wants to unite later by staying vague now. It is a habit with Rubio, a candidate aiming at moderate and conservative voters who often seems to...

I’ve never formally endorsed a candidate in any presidential primary. This time the stakes are too high not to. Look around. The world is on fire and the party of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, not to mention the GOP’s Obama-enabling RINO establishment, are playing with gasoline. And so, while he’s been among my top picks all along, I am now proud to publicly endorse for president of the United States Sen. Ted Cruz, the man who best personifies the anti-establishment, principle over perceived pragmatism, survival over political correctness mood of the American electorate. I believe, God willing, that Sen....

Political analysis of the Las Vegas debate immigration dust-up between Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio is missing a key ingredient: the money factor. You can read the lips of the candidates till the cows come home. But you'll get to the truth much faster when you learn where pro-amnesty power brokers have placed their bets and hitched their wagons. Rubio's brazenly fraudulent campaign to paint Cruz as soft on illegal immigration is a flabbergasting attempt to distract from the Florida junior senator's faithful allegiance to the open-borders donor class. Here's what you need to know: Facebook, Microsoft and Silicon...