Free Republic

With the Republican Party slowly but surely coalescing around Mitt Romney, Jon Stewart began his show today looking for some semblance of enthusiasm for the frontrunner among Republicans, and finding not all that much– from former President George H.W. Bush to Sen. Marco Rubio to his wife, Ann. He found so little, he rewrote a few previous Republican campaign slogans to reflect this level of enthusiasm. (Video at link)

BRUNSWICK, Mo. — Mitt Romney and his campaign advisers pride themselves on vigorously pursuing every delegate in every corner of the country in their quest to secure the Republican presidential nomination. That was not the case here Thursday evening at the Chariton County caucus inside the Railyard Steakhouse, where Republicans voted to send their full share of delegates to the district and state conventions in support of Rick Santorum.

Newt Gingrich in the wake of two losses in deep South States is seeking a justification for remaining in the race. When challenged by Brett Baier, Gingrich was unable to name a single state that he could win. Indeed, after playing hard as a "Southern Candidate" Gingrich has lost three straight Southern States including two deep South States near his home state of Georgia, so it's hard to imagine Gingrich winning elsewhere. Still Gingrich claimed a role in the race. His argument for continuing is that he and Senator Rick Santorum are playing a "tag team" that is denying Romney...

There is no way to spin this. Rick Santorum has won both Mississippi and Alabama despite the presence of a southerner like Newt Gingrich and the money spent by Mitt Romney. That is clearly indicative conservatives are not going to rally behind Gingrich again in this campaign and instead prefer Santorum as the conservative alternative to Romney. If the situation were reversed, my fellow Newt supporters would clearly be making the case Santorum is simply an obstructionist for Romney at this point, so we can’t have it both ways. Gingrich may be wise to do for Santorum what Rick Perry...

Just as candidate Rick Santorum was obviously building up to a compelling "grand finale" today in a speech at the Pavilion of the Battleship USS Alabama in Mobile this morning, there was a commotion in front of him and to his left. A middle-aged black woman had fainted dead-out, flat onto the concrete floor (it was a bit muggy; raining outside). A lot of candidates would have looked out, stopped talking, asked people to go see if she were okay, and then perhaps continued speaking once it was clear that responsible people were seeing to her well-being. Not Santorum. He...

I learned a few tricks and tactics while I was a lieutenant governor and governor for over 13 1/2 years. And one thing is that when someone is in a hurry to pass legislation, you'd better slow it down because the reason to hurry a law is rarely urgency to help the citizens, but urgency to get it passed before people find out what the heck it really is. A lot of legislation is like garbage and it's garbage the first day in the can, but if it sits there long enough, it really starts smelling. Congress knows that the...

The office of Senator Tom Coburn (R-Ok.) released a report of outrageous pork and wasteful programs. The Government spent $15,000 to provide voicemail to the homeless in Ohio and $6,000 for a Mermaid Mural in Racine. The report is ironic, as if it was from another time that seems long ago, when the petty nickle and dime conniving politicians matter or when Tom Coburn was a paragon of fiscal conservatism. I try not to be harsh, and I can't advocate throwing Coburn under the bus, but I find myself unable to view him in the same light as I once...

Here’s the story about something shady Of some guys from Wall Street who were in a jam Their companies were losing lots of money So they got a big handout from Uncle Sam Here’s the story of some auto makers Who were making products people wouldn’t buy So they flew in on expensive jets And they begged for a handout from you and I And the day that we started giving money To rich guys who were in a crunch Lots of others learned from their example And that’s how we wound up with the Bailout Bunch The Bailout Bunch...

#1) The Republican Party can get back into power without the conservative media. There are two big problems with this. First off, popular members of the conservative media tend to be popular because they do a good job of representing the views of the people who watch, listen, or read them. So if Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, or Mark Steyn think you're doing a lousy job, then there's a very high chance that their fans, who should be a Republican's biggest supporters, think you're doing a lousy job, too. Secondly, because the mainstream media is so biased, the American people...

I didn't think I could like Sarah Palin more than I do, but the nancy boys at MSNBC bleating all over the screen about the Great Turkey Carnage is hilarious. This is a great caption: TURKEYS DIE AS GOVERNOR PALIN TAKES QUESTIONS FROM MEDIA Or was it: MEDIA DIE AS GOVERNOR PALIN TAKES QUESTIONS FROM TURKEYS. After she's sworn in in 2013, I hope President Palin arranges for a ritual turkey slaughter to be going on behind her at every press conference, if only during David Shuster's questions.

In the wake of conservative losses at the polls last week, veteran columnist Cal Thomas wrote a column (Religious Right R.I.P.) in which he urges evangelicals to unconditionally surrender in the battle for the political soul of our culture. Any attempts by evangelicals to change public policy, he says, will only "lead ... to more futility and ineffective attempts to reform culture." This column is bizarrely self-contradictory. After all, Thomas is an evangelical who writes several times a week with each column designed to influence some aspect of public policy. Just today, for instance, he urges President-elect Obama to pursue...

Just "one and done" for Barack Obama's presidency? Recall an ominous passage in his otherwise joyous election-night speech: "The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term." Maybe the tone was suggested by one of Obama's economic advisers like Jason Furman or Austan Goolsbee. It's the battered economy, after all, that will be President Obama's greatest domestic policy challenge.  As such, it will also be his greatest political challenge, too -- but one where failure may already be baked into the cake. That's right, the...

One of the statements coming out of Washington from both sides of the aisle is that Barack Obama will govern from the Center. Centrist governance will be the order of the day according to none other than Speaker Pelosi. The appointment of Congressman Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff is cited as proof of centrism. The media is saying that President-Elect Obama will have to bravely stand against the left wing and hold them in line. And yet it seems to be political nonsense. None of these commentators tell us what Congress will want that Barack Obama will...

After the crushing defeat, Republicans face a tough road back. How do we get there? I'll be addressing this in the next few columns. The first thing is to learn from the lessons of the past sixteen years. Under George W. Bush, the left has been unglued ever since Bush won Florida with the Supreme Court foreclosing the option of a "keep recounting until the Democrats win" approach that would later be used in Washington state in 2004. For eight years, what columnist Michelle Malkin calls Bush Derangement Syndrome has reigned in disturbing detail. Books written about assassinating the President,...

John McCain ran an honorable campaign, but still came up short. Any Republican would have trouble in this environment, with the state of the economy, the President's approval rating, the inter-party battle for the nomination, and the lack of major domestic achievements in President Bush's second term all were millstones around McCain's neck. Were this 2000 or 2004, Senator McCain arguably could have won, but in 2008, what was required of McCain was absolute perfection. He missed the mark, and there are some lessons for Republicans to take away from his loss: Not every election is about national security: The...

A few readers have asked whether I think Sarah Palin will run for the Senate in the future. I think that would be a mistake, for several reasons, not the least of which is that, if successful, the decision would take an unique and popular outside-the-beltway executive and put her inside the Beltway as one of 100 legislators voting on every bill that comes down the pike. For now, I hope Sarah Palin gets to take a vacation and spend some much-deserved time with that beautiful family. Her experience these past four months must have been simultaneously exhilarating, supremely frustrating,...

OK. I need you folks to do something for me. First off, I need you to trust me.Second, I need you to center yourselves, get your mental equilibrium level, balance your chi, let the Love that surpasseth all understanding fill your heart... all of you have some reliable way to find inner peace, so at least make an effort to get there. Got it? If no, keep trying: I can wait.Third, once you've gotten into the right mindset I'd like you to read this article about Donnell Stewart. Do not stop when you see the second and third words in...

Walt Minnick is running for Congress in Idaho as a conservative Democrat. The problem it's that it's not true, and Idaho needs the facts. They won't get them from the local news media which is in the tank for Minnick. Why should voters choose to re-elect Congressman Bill Sali instead of his Democratic rival? I have 10 reasons. 10. Supported by Planned Parenthood: Congressman Bill Sali (R-Id.) believes Planned Parenthood should not be funded by your tax dollars. Planned Parenthood bills itself as the Lenscrafters of Family Planning. Great, but we don't give tax subsidies to LensCrafters. LensCrafters also hasn't...

Imagine that tens of thousands of mailers were sent out to potential identity thieves with your social security number on it, as well as your wife's. If you're Republican Congressman Bill Sali (R-Id.) you needn't imagine. The Idaho Democratic Party, desperate to knock off the Conservative stalwart, sent out a copy of a tax lien that Sali had against him twenty years ago with his social, as well as his wife's, exposed on the mailer. According to the Spokesman Review, State Democratic Executive Director Jim Hansen defended the ad saying, "He's a public figure, it's a public document. If he...

Sen. John McCain's campaign must have learned playground rules in a federal prison yard. Because theirs is no way to treat a new friend, running mate Sarah Palin. From the time she was so poorly unveiled at the Republican National Convention to her muzzling to "fashion-gate" and now to an anonymous McCain staffer's charge that Palin's a "diva," theirs was a bungled effort that Palin probably realized just a few days into the campaign. How would I know? From my interview with Palin and hubby Todd yesterday, they explained how they size people up on outdoor expeditions in Alaska: "It's...