Free Republic

Recently, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library launched a lecture series titled “Time for Choosing,” a name consciously echoing the famous 1964 speech that launched Reagan’s political career and put him on a path to the White House. The concept — marquee names, history-rich backdrop — is a throwback to a time when politics involved ideas and philosophies and wasn’t just about riling “the base” or “owning” the opposition. The program also gives Republicans a chance to paint their visions while wrapping themselves in the mantle of one of the GOP’s most beloved and sainted figures.

Poll: Romney may have the most to gain from Cain scandal Will Rahn October 31-2011 If the sexual harassment allegations against former pizza mogul Herman Cain turn out to be credible — or simply refuse to fade away — polling suggests that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney stands the most to gain, the Washington Post reports. While it’s too early to say what if any damage the allegations reported by Politico on Sunday will do to Cain’s campaign, they have the potential to shake up the race. Cain has been polling in first or second place for more than a...

Gail Collins: David, are you reconciled to the fact that Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican presidential nominee? David Brooks: Oh, I went through that phase a few weeks ago after the debate at the Reagan library. That’s the night I noticed Romney was the best candidate in the field. Since then I’ve noticed that he has given three debate performances that are better than any Barack Obama has given in his life. (Obama’s a better speechmaker, but Romney’s a better debater.) So now I’m settling into the idea that Romney might well be president. This will be...

RUSH: Folks, this is a little Inside Baseball, but it's important because he who controls the language ends up winning the debate, and it might seem like a small thing, but I have learned and I have been given to understand that the "establishment Republicans" hate the term. They don't like being called "establishment Republicans," and they are trying to change the term to "establishment conservatives" and in the process co-opt the definition of "conservative" and conservatism. It's not something that you'll notice if you watch cable news or even read. You have to be able to see the stitches...

PORTLAND — Sen. Susan Collins this morning described for a group of business leaders from across New England her role in repealing the law banning gays in the military. (snip) In a 30-minute presentation, the Republican lawmaker described the 11th-hour maneuvering against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the waning days of 2010, her work to convince key Republican allies to support repeal and the challenge of opposing a close friend, renowned veteran, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. "It was exciting to help lead what I believe to be a historic change for our country, but boy it was not...

By now most of you have heard the recent musings by veteran beltway pundits Charles Krauthammer and George Will. In summary, both don’t want her to run for the nomination because, they assure us, she can’t win. We will all be much better off, evidently, if we nominate the flip-flopping Mitt Romney, the cadaverous Mitch “VAT” Daniels (George Will’s latest flavor of the month), or someone of similar ilk. None of this is surprising, of course, as we were warned two months ago that once the mid-terms were concluded, the GOP establishment and their lap dogs in the “conservative” beltway...

Who has the most to lose from a Tea Party victory this Tuesday? Frank Rich thinks the Tea Partiers themselves might since they will immediately be confronted with the fact they have merely been puppets of the GOP establishment all along, used to “camouflage its corporate patrons and to rebrand itself as a party miraculously antithetical to the despised G.O.P. that gave us George W. Bush and record deficits only yesterday.” All this so-called Tea Party power is merely an illusion, says Rich, and come Wednesday it will simply be politics as usual…at least in the beginning. "But whatever Tuesday’s...

On June 20, 2002, the United States Supreme Court decreed, in the case of Atkins v. Virginia, that the mildly mentally retarded were categorically exempt from capital punishment, reasoning that fully functional adults of diminished mental capacity were as a matter of law not as culpable for their acts. Writing eloquently in dissent, Justice Scalia drew a sharp distinction between the severely mentally retarded (who are truly not responsible for their actions), and the merely stupid (the category into which Mr. Atkins undoubtedly fell). Scalia argued forcefully that, with respect to the merely stupid, at least sometimes they deserve to...

<p>The civil war in the Republican Party takes another turn on Wednesday night when Sarah Palin basher Nicolle Wallace lends her name to a fundraiser for a pro-homosexual group called American Foundation for Equal Rights. Wallace, an adviser to the 2008 McCain for President campaign, figures prominently in Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, as someone determined to get her on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric so that she could be sandbagged by the left-wing anchorwoman.</p>

I'm a conservative Republican on over 9 out of 10 issues. I'm for almost everything conservatives and Republicans are for. However, SB1070 is a terrible bill. We need McCain's comprehensive immigration reform. The immigrants help many companies which in turn help the US economy. The bill does nothing but make people angry at each other. I also support McCain over Hayworth in the AZ senate race. We can't risk losing that seat to a Democrat if we except to pick up both houses in November.

Nuts. Ron Paul says moose hunter Sarah Palin is a typical country-club Republican. In a recent interview with Politico Ron Paul bashed Sarah Palin for being a "conventional, country-club type of Republican": As for soon-to-be departing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Paul dismisses her supporters as "more establishment, conventional Country-Club type of Republicans." "I wonder whether she's energizing the 15-20 year olds," Paul muses. "That would be a question I would have. Because she doesn't talk about the Federal Reserve and some of these issues. She doesn't talk too much about personal liberties, civil liberties, getting rid of drug laws, attacking...

She pulls at the heartstrings of the Republican base, but in addition to all the peculiar problems of her own design, Sarah Palin has one obstacle she cannot overcome. Republicans like to choose the next in line—and she isn't. Sarah Palin is the bright red thread in the dull, grey fabric of the Republican Party. She is charismatic, quirky, melodramatic, and fervently anti-choice, anti-gay, and anti-Obama. But there's one thing she'll never be—the GOP nominee for President in 2012. Palin has the most intense grassroots base of any potential candidate, in the true-believing core of the party. And that's worth...

Sounds far-fetched and, to some, totally implausible. But the Republicans are losing potential candidates at a pace that is downright alarming if you believe in a healthy two-party system. The demise of John Ensign’s political career a few weeks ago and the surreal downfall of Mark Sanford last week is enough to send chills through the even the most optimistic Republican strategist. We know that of the 2008 crop, only Mitt Romney seems likely to stay on as a contender. The old stalwarts like Newt Gingrich may get a lot of press, but it is unlikely they can mount a...

People like John McCain and others who have been part of the self-absorbed, navel-gazing and corrupt Washington environment for a quarter century no doubt resent someone not "of them." But it is indeed odd when Sarah Palin, a bright, shining light for conservatives remains the prime target of the existing machine, while Mark Sanford and other hypocritical liars are serenaded as getting a raw deal by the very public daughter of a defacto leader of the party. For some reason, Meghan McCain, writing in The Daily Beast, seems to think adulterous politicians, like South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, should be...

Is Charlie Crist the new Arlen Specter? No, there’s no indication the Florida governor is looking at a party switch. But much like with Specter, conservative Republicans in Florida are speaking out against Crist and hoping his apostasy on the federal stimulus will open the door for a conservative to take him down. The parallels are striking, both because Crist and Specter were among so few major Republicans to support the stimulus and because both are set to wage big-time Senate campaigns in which they face primary challengers. There isn’t yet a chorus of anti-Crist voices in the Florida Republican...

For many Republicans, including Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, the reaction to Sen. Arlen Specter’s party switch was unequivocal: good riddance. Yet even as his jilted former party slams the door behind him, the GOP is quietly pursuing a 2010 strategy that relies heavily on candidates nearly identical to Specter. The party’s road to winning back a Senate majority, it seems, is paved with moderates whose records are sure to make conservatives blanch. For the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s recruitment list for 2010 reads like a roster of some of the party’s best-known RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and...

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...

Yesterday’s announcement by Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter that he would be permanently ‘reaching across the aisle’ should be considered another wake-up call for the Republican Party. As we all have witnessed, Senator Spectacle has proven to be nothing but a ‘Lib’ in sheep’s clothing throughout most of his Senatorial career. Just recently, Spectacle was one of three ‘moderate’ Republicans that supported President Obama’s ‘Porkulus Package.’ Speaking of pork, we also had another self-proclaimed ‘moderate’ Republican, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, endorse that same spending bill. Governor Crist has also expressed interest in running for the US Senate next year, but Crist...

IT is disheartening and disconcerting, at the very least, that here we are today — almost exactly eight years after Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party — witnessing the departure of my good friend and fellow moderate Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, for the Democratic Party. And the announcement of his switch was all the more painful because I believe it didn’t have to be this way. When Senator Jeffords became an independent in 2001, I said it was a sad day for the Republicans, but it would be even sadder if we failed to confront and learn...

Newly elected Republican Party Chairman Jennifer Nassour has wasted no time making it clear where she wants the party to go. Last week, in a front-page interview with the hardcore homosexual newspaper Bay Windows, she told the homosexual community that they didn't need to worry about the Republican party opposing them on "social issues" or "the culture wars."