Free Republic

To hell with the independents. That’s not usually the animating principle of a presidential campaign, but for Ted Cruz’s, it just might be. His strategists aren’t planning to make a big play for so-called independent voters in the general election if Cruz wins the Republican nomination. According to several of the senator’s top advisers, Cruz sees a path to victory that relies instead on increasing conservative turnout; attracting votes from groups — including Jews, Hispanics, and Millennials — that have tended to favor Democrats; and, in the words of one Cruz strategist, “not getting killed with independents.” Twenty-three months from...

On the campaign trail and in media interviews, Mitt Romney is usually very cautious, making bland comments on the issues of the day. In “off the record” chats with major donors, he obviously tells the real unvarnished truth. It is time some of this real truth made its way into his campaign speeches. According to the lame stream media, his presidential campaign is now consumed in another sham controversy. The candidate appeared at a hastily arranged news conference late last night to respond to a leaked video taken at a fundraising dinner May 17 in Boca Raton, Florida.

No candidate has won the GOP nomination for President without winning South Carolina since Ronald Reagan in 1980. But every one of those candidates who won had also won either Iowa or New Hampshire. We’re now confronted with a designated front runner, Mitt Romney, who got less votes in Iowa in 2012 than he got in 2008 and who lost South Carolina. His reason for being somehow remains that he is “electable.” If you read a lot of the Republican commentary coming out of Washington even before the polls closed, suddenly South Carolina is irrelevant and the hick rubes of...

If there was any doubt that John McCain's surprise pick of Sarah Palin has grabbed the attention of many Republicans, Barbara Falk, a retiree born and raised in this quaint small town, put it to rest yesterday: "I came out to see her." So did Falk's friend Pat Mantel, who said, "I do enjoy that vice president that McCain picked." And so did Mantel's sister Carol Eberhardt, a retired lab worker and single mother of three, who said, "She speaks my language." A day after McCain gave what many critics panned as a flat acceptance speech, Palin proved to be...

On Wednesday, I called Kim and invited myself over to watch Palin's acceptance speech. Their living room, after all, seemed like the closest I could get to the conservative base. "We're energized," Scott said as we sat down to dinner before the speech. "Honestly, I might not have voted before this. But now I feel like it's 'game on.' The Democrats had an advantage in that Obama is a gifted speaker and incredibly appealing to his base. That was missing from our side. Now I at least feel like there's an equal playing field." "Exactly," Kim said. "She reminds me...

All week long, you and I have been blasting the bereft Beltway GOP leadership for their empty sloganeering and Obama-esque change obsession. Now, the NRCC is hearing it directly on its website. Reader Fritz e-mails that the comments section in the NRCC blog post by chairman Tom Cole is sizzling hot with aggravated grass-roots conservative feedback. Go check it out. A sample: This is not the message I am looking to support. The message of the Replican Part should be fundumentally different than the Democrats. We don’t need to “fix” the government. We need the Federal Government to do wnat...

With Mike Huckabee's continuing surge, the Republican Party now has an Iowa front-runner whose religious beliefs are virtually identical to those of George Bush. He's anti-choice, born-again, against gay-marriage, and gets political advice directly from God. So why is the Republican establishment suddenly in a state of near-apoplexy about Mike Huckabee? Shouldn't they be happy? They've been cultivating evangelicals and fundamentalists for 30 years. Now they finally have a candidate who's truly part of the movement. So what's the problem? Actually, that is the problem. The evangelical crowd was fine when it was just a resource to be cynically exploited...

Why does the GOP Establishment fear Huck? Juan Cole's got a bad case of left-wing Huckenfreude: I simply can not tell you how much I am enjoying this. The GOP has been pandering to these stupid bastards for years, and every time I pointed it out I was called “anti-Christian” or something or other. Those of us who saw what the party was becoming were told to shut up, that it was good politics. Enjoy your new GOP, folks. And here is something else to think about- are the evangelicals going to support Romney or Giuliani if you do manage...

Lynchburg, VA - He's huge in Iowa, and making headlines everyday. Now a contender for the Republican presidential bid is in the Hill City. Governor Mike Huckabee spoke at Commencement at Liberty University Wednesday morning.

We are all fallen, imperfect beings. The news of the federal indictment of Bernie Kerik is a sad moment, a cautionary tale, and an object lesson. Sad, because Kerik rose from the child of a prostitute to “America’s cop”–and this nation loves such tales of success. Cautionary, because it speaks to the fallibility of anointed heroes and the temptations of power. An object lesson, because it highlights the flaws and vulnerabilities of GOP front-runner Rudy Giuliani’s on the issues of corruption and immigration enforcement. Here’s what I wrote back in December 2004 when Kerik was forced to withdraw from consideration...

There are jewels and then there are diamonds. The conservative movement has its stars and its beauties, but I liked best the comment a Free Republic user made to describe Janet Folger: "She's our new flagship blonde." The Values Voter Presidential Debate, held Monday night and moderated by WND's Joseph Farah, was organized by Folger, and what a credit to the movement it was. This is just a public thanks to Janet and all those who sacrificed to put the event together – well done. It is noteworthy that the candidates who pretend and say that they most wish to...

They heard questions formulated not in the minds of the out-of-touch media elite. They heard questions tugging at the very heart and soul of the quiet Americans who go to work each day and attend religious services every week. It wasn't just what was asked, it was also remarkable who did the asking. Questioners included Monica Ramos, the wife of one of the jailed Border Patrol agents who heard from seven Republican presidential candidates that they would not mishandle her husband's case as the incumbent GOP president has. They also included a young woman who isn't supposed to exist –...

Last night, Gov. Mike Huckabee, Rep. Tom Tancredo, businessman John Cox, Sen. Sam Brownback, Rep. Ron Paul, Rep. Duncan Hunter and Ambassador Alan Keyes (in the order of their random podium placement) faced 53 questions from pro-family leaders at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. I'm writing this on Monday before the event, but I want to be on record with five predictions. 1. I predict the Values Voter Straw Poll will unify the pro-family movement and determine the nominee. Unlike other straw polls that are flawed by design, where candidates have bussed in supporters or paid for their...

An immigration alliance with Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts is damaging Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham among conservative Republicans. The damage to the two Republican senators caused by their support for Mr. Kennedy's immigration bill -- which was blocked by a Senate filibuster last night -- is especially clear in Mr. Graham's home state, scene of an early presidential primary next year. "I'm very wary of a Republican who is talking to Ted Kennedy," Rick Beltram, Republican Party chairman for Spartanburg County, S.C., told The Washington Times yesterday, after it was reported that...

Rudy Giuliani could be the death knell of the Reagan Coalition, that successful alliance of economic, defense, and social conservatives forged in the 1976 Republican primary. In his insurgent campaign against President Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan built the architecture for a durable political coalition of supply-siders, budget hawks, Cold Warriors, law-and-order advocates, welfare reformers, pro-lifers, defenders of the Second Amendment, and others. He integrated these main elements of the post-war conservative intellectual movement into a successful, winning political juggernaut that was, until recently, the Republican Party. In recent years the social component of the coalition has been augmented by pro-family...

It's my sense - and tell me if you disagree - that the wounds of the Miers battle are already close to healed. The expectation is that President Bush will appoint one of a dozen well-qualified conservative nominees who will delight his supporters and prove acceptable to a majority (and maybe more than a majority) of the US Senate.

If there was a single thread that ran through President Bush's two very different picks for the Supreme Court, it was stealth. Neither Roberts nor Miers had committed themselves on Roe v. Wade. Is the president ducking a fight? If so, in this he is not his best self. He hasn't shrunk from confrontations over taxes, or war, or medical research, and his forceful arguments in those areas have amounted to leadership. Seeking a stealth candidate for the most important seat (i.e., the swing vote) on the Supreme Court certainly looks like weakness. And it's borrowed trouble. Despite the accumulating...

Conservative leaders who helped force the withdrawal of Harriet Miers said yesterday that President Bush must now appoint someone whose judicial philosophy matches that of the two most conservative justices on the Supreme Court -- and said they would accept nothing less. "We want Bush to fulfill his campaign commitment to give us a nominee like Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas," said Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly. "Conservatives have this old-fashioned notion that candidates should fulfill the promises they made once they get elected."< /SNIP> Yesterday, Mr. Dobson called Miss Miers' withdrawal "a wise decision" and cited news reports of...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers ran into new trouble Wednesday, and three Republican officials said they were no longer certain it would survive to the Nov. 7 target date for hearings. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a withdrawal was not out of the question but also noted that the administration's official policy remained one of strong continued support for the nominee. Developments on several fronts reflected eroding support for Miers, President Bush's choice to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: • Senators from both parties raised new questions about Miers' former law...

WASHINGTON — In new signs of eroding support for Harriet E. Miers, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman sent her a sharply worded list of questions Wednesday on constitutional law, and one of the nation's leading grass-roots evangelical organizations called for the withdrawal of her Supreme Court nomination. Concerned Women for America, one of the nation's largest Christian advocacy groups, changed its "wait-and-see" position after reading speeches she gave in the early 1990s in which she supported, among other things, "the freedom of the individual woman's right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion." The speeches "indicate a...