Free Republic

David Yepsen has a horrifically bad column in the Sunday Des Moines Register. In it, he distills each candidate down to the usual cliches of the leftist/"centrist" newspaper agenda: Mike Huckabee The former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister has soared in the GOP race following his second-place finish in the Iowa Republican straw poll in August. He has rallied party social and religious conservatives as well as supporters of a big national sales tax to replace the income tax. He's a witty speaker and an affable politician whose criticisms of the nation's economic policies sound a lot like the populist...

Fred Thompson survived the first big test of his bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday when he turned in a strong performance during a debate among GOP presidential candidates. The former Tennessee senator and actor recently launched his campaign in a fumbling manner to poor reviews, but he came back Tuesday by offering some specific answers in a cool, commanding style as he debuted in the first debate with his opponents. He cemented his good grade by correctly answering the trick question of the day - who is the prime minister of Canada? (It's Stephen Harper.) The...