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Doug Hoffman's insurgent campaign in New York's special House race, which had already split national Republican leaders, is now turning into a litmus test for other Republican congressional candidates running in 2010 to prove their conservative credentials. Liz Lauber, running in the Republican primary for a House seat in Missouri, this week made support for Mr. Hoffman a campaign issue, calling on five-term Republican incumbent Rep. Todd Akin to endorse and donate money to the Conservative Party nominee who is running in a special election Nov. 3. Mr. Akin did endorse Mr. Hoffman, though his office said it was not...

Conservative Republican Marco Rubio says $1 million in donations to his Senate campaign is a 'strong statement' about the direction of the GOP. BY BETH REINHARD U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio said Tuesday he raised nearly $1 million in the past three months to challenge Charlie Crist for the Republican nomination, turning what looked like a cakewalk for the popular incumbent governor into a potentially competitive race. In the previous fundraising quarter, Crist's $4.3 million dwarfed the $340,000 raised by Rubio. But the former leader of the Florida House from Miami gained momentum, winning 11 small, unofficial polls of county...

Conservative radio commentator and former Scottsdale congressman J.D. Hayworth is consider a run against U.S. Sen. John McCain in next year’s Republican primary. A source in Arizona who asked not to be identified said Hayworth is pondering the move. The possible challenge also was reported Monday in the Washington Post.

Free RepublicBrowse · Search Pings · Mail News/ActivismTopics · Post Article Skip to comments.Purge the RINOs and the RINO Apologists 4/28/09 | Natural law Posted on 04/28/2009 7:57:14 PM PDT by Natural Law I am as sick to death of RINO apologists as I am the RINOs themselves. Too many real conservatives took a lot of flack here on FR during the last mid term and presidential election cycles for expecting Republicans to actually legislate like Republicans rather voting for every Obama-lite candidate with an “R” after their names who just might be electable. To too many, elections are...

After we broke through the 218 cosponsor threshold on H.R. 1207, I didn't think today could get any better. However, we have even more news. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) today became the first cosponsor of S 604, H.R. 1207's companion legislation. We still have a long way to go before we pass real legislation to Audit the Fed, but this is yet another major step toward our ultimate goal. Sen. DeMint is highly respected and one of the most principled conservatives in Washington. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), 604's lead sponsor, is a firebrand Independent progressive. To see these two guys on...

An interncecine war between the professional political consultants who run the Washington GOP establishment and insurgent conservatives beyond the Washington Beltway, who are fed up with seeing their money go to anti-life, big-spending, tax-hiking people like Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chafee. The attempts in recent weeks by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) to recruit a liberal GOPer to oppose former congressman Pat Toomey - a solid and articulate conservative with support from such party moderates as former Lt. Gov Bill Scranton - in the race to succeed Specter. Specter switched to the Democrats last month when it became clear...

Open for discussion/comment. Here is the link to the results.

The Republican Party certainly does require a "Big Tent" -- the kind of tent we sometimes see covering a house infested with termites. Unless conservatives can rid the GOP of Democrats hiding out in their midst, the Republican Party can never recover. Liberals are sapping the GOP's strength from within. It now seems that a looming divorce within the GOP has grown inevitable. Unless the Republican Party returns to its conservative principles, a number of conservatives will go on strike. They feel it is no longer acceptable for conservatives to do most of the hard work of winning elections, while...

Republican stalwarts are fond of recalling the 1992 Democrat National Convention, and the manner in which Bob Casey Sr., the Governor of Pennsylvania, was prevented from giving a speech on account of his strident pro-life views. Here was the incontrovertible proof that Democrats censor and oppress those who do not toe the party line. What is rarely recalled is that, four years later in the Republican National Convention, the official party policy was to avoid any mention whatsoever of the entire abortion issue. GOP candidate Bob Dole sought to sidestep controversy that party insiders feared might be overly "divisive," since...

(snip) With regard to Sen. Jim DeMint's comment that it's better to lose with 30 committed conservatives than it is to win with 60 unprincipled opportunists (or, what the media refer to as a "big-tent coalition of moderates"), he correctly reads the tax-day protest tea leaves. The Republican Party can't outspend or be perceived as more moderate than Democrats. Many conservatives and libertarians are prepared to bolt from the Republican Party at a grassroots level unless the GOP recommits to the limited government principles that Mr. Specter embraced only when politically expedient. The Journal's editors liken a 30-vote minority party...

Wondering how all the anti-Republican "I'm not gonna vote for McCain" folks think about about what they got? What do these same . . . true believers . . . believe is in store for us during the mid-term elections?

I am as sick to death of RINO apologists as I am the RINOs themselves. Too many real conservatives took a lot of flack here on FR during the last mid term and presidential election cycles for expecting Republicans to actually legislate like Republicans rather voting for every Obama-lite candidate with an “R” after their names who just might be electable. To too many, elections are about partisan score keeping and not about the direction and future of the country. Many conservatives received a lot of undeserved criticism because they refused to vote straight party line or choose the lesser...

The return of Sen. Arlen Specter to the Democratic Party (he flipped in 1965 from “Kennedy Democrat” to Republican) is something that should be celebrated by Republicans, at least those who are proud to call themselves conservatives. Specter is a career politician whose first priority is himself. Specter, whose predictable lament that the GOP is not the “big tent” he had been led to believe it was, now embraces a Democratic Party that is an even smaller tent. How many pro-life Democrats exercise any influence in that party? How many opponents to same-sex marriage are in the Democratic leadership? Smaller...

The party needs a healthy debate, but not because he's left. BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL Arlen Specter's decision to go Democrat has sent the GOP into a new round of infighting over what the party is, and where it goes now. Mr. Specter is a very unhealthy basis on which to be having what might otherwise be a healthy debate. Not that anything could stop the bitter winds now blowing through the Republican fields. Within hours of Mr. Specter's bombshell, the sides were formed up. Team Good Riddance featured the Club for Growth's Andy Roth: "Arlen Specter is the epitome...

Over a year ago, Mitt Romney was losing primaries to John McCain, and conservative pundits from Ann Coulter to Rush Limbaugh predicted the end of the GOP – Coulter went as far as promising she would campaign for Hillary Rodham Clinton if McCain became the party's nominee. By November 2008, the GOP had embraced a nominee who had considered switching parties twice, had opposed tax cuts, and had failed to advance an aggressive shift in a foreign policy that left the GOP discredited in an area it had always trumped in. It's not that McCain's willingness to reach across the...

WASHINGTON — A fundamental debate broke out among Republicans on Wednesday over how to rebuild the party in the wake of Senator Arlen Specter’s departure: Should it purge moderate voices like Mr. Specter and embrace its conservative roots or seek to broaden its appeal to regain a competitive position against Democrats? With consensus growing among Republicans that the party is in its worst political position in recent memory, some conservatives applauded Mr. Specter’s departure. They said it cleared the way for the party to distance itself from its record of expanding government during the Bush years and to re-emphasize the...

FOXWIRE: House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio could draw a primary next May from popular Butler County, Ohio Sheriff Rick Jones. Jones has taken out petitions to potentially challenge Boehner. Boehner has cruised to re-election in his southwest Ohio district since 1990. But Jones, known to locals as “Spotlight Jones,” for his penchant for drawing press, could prove to be a significant challenger to Boehner. “This is going to be first real race this district has seen in a long, long time,” said Miami University (OH) political science department chairman Ryan Barilleaux. “Rick Jones has the advantage of publicity. He...

79 year old five term Pennsylvania traitor Arlen Specter is the first casualty of the 2010 house cleaning. Never in US history, has the anti-incumbent sentiment been so broad and deep among frustrated American patriots who still believe in Life, Liberty and the Right to individually define and pursue Happiness. Ninety-nine days of the second most unpopular administration in US history, was all the people were willing to endure. The clarion call for real patriotic "change" has come from Main Street America, and the Tax Day Tea Parties have forced the first faux Republican out of their party. After years...

Polls show bailout madness serious threat to GOP incumbents. BY DREW ZAHN Crowds have long protested Congress with rally cries of "Throw the bums out," and if recent polls tabulating tea party furor over government spending translate to votes in 2010, angry Americans may make good on their mantra. Polls released by Rasmussen Reports this week demonstrate that – at least within the Republican Party – sitting incumbents who vote for increased government, taxes and federal bailouts risk voter backlash in the next election. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., for example, is one of only three Republicans in Congress to vote...