Free Republic

Five years after the controversial 2000 presidential election, ex-President Jimmy Carter now says he's certain Al Gore defeated George W. Bush. "Well I would say that in the year 2000, the country failed abysmally in the presidential election process," Carter told a panel Monday at American University in Washington, D.C. "There's no doubt in my mind that Al Gore was elected president."

Much was at stake in the 2004 elections. Informed voters, across party lines, understood that if Sen. John Kerry won, he would shape the judiciary by nominating liberals to the lower federal courts and, of course, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Similarly, President Bush would nominate conservatives. It's idealistic and naive to pretend that judicial appointments should be above politics and ideology. It just doesn't work that way anymore, if it ever did. To the victors, go the spoils. If Kerry had won, I'd have been resigned - with no joy - to more liberal justices of the Ruth Bader...

Have you ever heard the phrases “you gotta strike while the iron is hot,” or “make hay while the sun shines”? They are simple terms intended to remind us of some simple facts of life. We have to take advantage of the opportunities before us, while we have them before us. It appears that conservatives need to be reminded that these opportunities won’t wait around. As republicans sink in the quicksand of Washington compromise, mired in circus stunt false bi-partisanship, seemingly forgetful that the group across the aisle will stab them in the back at every chance, they squander opportunities...

[Cue the Darth Vader theme] ACW II isn’t over. 48% of the U.S. did not have an epiphany and conversion experience after President Bush’s election. The Liberals will strike back. Their front ranks will be filled with clerical collars. ‘Blue’ churches like Blue states will be the base for counter-attacks on ‘value voters’ on many fronts. The blue churches are the Religious Left – mainline Protestant churches with declining membership, lapsed, cafeteria Catholics and secular Jews. And all the other Pagan faithful who are ‘spiritual not religious’, Wiccan, Vegan, etc. The Liberals will come back hard, because they’re infuriated that...

Liberals are talking about the Blue States seceding from the Union. There’s a map on the Internet of the Blue States joining Canada. This is too serious for idle talk from the chattering class. Secession, if followed by invasion, conquest, occupation and ultimately cultural cleansing, is a terrible thing. Trust me, Southerners know about this. We need to help these Liberal hotheads cool down. First, are the root causes worthy of sundering the Great Experiment – Democracy in America? Apparently, the two most important reasons for secession are partial-birth abortion and homosexual marriage. The Liberals are kidding, right? They can’t...

DETROIT (AP) - David Livingstone says the idea behind the economic boycott he's organizing is simple: If people don't show up at work or buy things, companies lose money. As he sees it, that's money the Bush administration can't tax, and can't use to run the war in Iraq, protect polluters or chip away at the Constitution. So the Detroit Democrat and a handful of other anti-Bush groups across the country are urging others of like mind to withhold their cash and labor on Inauguration Day - from all businesses. They don't think they'll inflict a huge economic pain, but...

I was asked many times throughout the campaign season, why I rarely criticized the Bush administration in my writings. Like everyone else in America, I had to take a side in the race, and unlike O’Reilly or Savage, who also voted for Bush, I saw no benefit in shooting at my own guy…My answer is just that simple and self-serving. Like everyone else, I had an agenda. Not so much the re-election of the Bush administration, as the defeat of socialist anti-America minded Democrats who in my opinion threaten America’s future more than any outside enemy today. The sad part...

Political operatives on both sides of the aisle are discussing the 2008 election as if it is only days away. But hardly a dismissal of the important issues facing President Bush in his second term, this talk of the next presidential race is representative of the pivotal changes in the political landscape that occurred last November. Unfortunately, the forces of “moderation” are still at work within the GOP, threatening to undermine the tremendous gains made by conservatives in the elections. Arnold Schwarzenegger contends that the Republican Party should move “to the center” (which means to the left) on social issues....

SANTA FE— The state Supreme Court has denied an application by two candidates for a recount of the presidential election. The court's order, filed late Wednesday, did not give a reason for the denial. Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and Libertarian Michael Badnarik had asked the state for a full recount. Cobb has said the recount request was made in order to verify the credibility and accuracy of New Mexico voting technology. Justices Pamela B. Minzner, Patricio M. Serna, Richard C. Bosson and Judge James J. Wechsler concurred, while Judge Michael D. Bustamante dissented. Bustamante and Wechsler, who are...

The election has been over for weeks, but experts and observers are still pondering the results. Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, the president of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, comments that "Big media tried some very big lies late in the campaign in blatant attempts to defeat the President before these lies could be countered. For the most part, these efforts did not work. They were countered by the truth¯on the Internet¯in remarkably timely fashion."

"........ the best time for a presidential hopeful to position herself for the next presidential election is during the current one. . . . By 2008, her makeover should be complete. From Lady Macbeth to Mrs. Miniver. . . . It's been a long strange trip: Over the years she's gone from suburban Goldwater Girl to Radical Professor to Stepford Wife to Wronged Woman to Her Own Woman and next to -- Commander in Chief? The lady molts with the political seasons, shucking old personas and adopting new ones as she goes up the political ladder. . . . Don't...

Though Election Day was almost one month ago and Sen. John Kerry conceded the presidential race, his campaign is still not giving up in Ohio, the state which gave President Bush enough electoral votes for re-election.

Two third-party presidential candidates say they've raised enough money to file for an official recount of the vote in Ohio, which President Bush won on Nov. 2 and where some observers claim there were irregularities and fraud in the election. Green Party candidate David Cobb announced today that the $113,600 needed to file for a recount had been raised, "with the vast majority in the $10-$50 range," said his media director, Blair Bobier. The fund-raising effort began on Thursday.

The Democratic Party lost big in this election. The trend that began with the Republican Revolution continued, ensuring that Democrats will remain out of power for at least a generation. Should Democrats continue to follow the strategies and philosophies that have reduced their numbers, their party will soon be irrelevant. Should the Democratic Party continue to degrade, it will soon cease to be a force in our political system. Defecting Democrats will likely join other parties more in line with their beliefs. This could result in the Democratic Party, Green Party, Communist Party, Nazi Party and various other parties based...

As amazing as it might seem, a retired correspondent for CBS News recently wrote an op-ed for his previous employer wherein he suggested that the worst news coverage of an election in history was likely performed by America’s bloggers this past November 2. ''As a retired mainstream media ('MSM') journalist--and thus a double-dinosaur--I don’t begrudge these knights of the blog-table their grandiose dreams. But I worked on a school paper when I was a kid and I owned a CB radio when I lived in Texas. And what I saw in the blogosphere on Nov. 2 was more reminiscent of...

NEW YORK Leave it to syndicated columnist/cartoonist Ted Rall. While others on the left wonder if, and how, they should reach out to those in the "red states" to try to win more elections, the acerbic Rall is sticking to his guns as a proud blue stater. In his latest column, "Confessions of a Cultural Elitist," Rall declared, among much else, that "living in the sticks doesn't make you more American" and "by any objective standard, you had to be spectacularly stupid to support Bush." Rall, who grew up in what he calls "flyover" Ohio, adds, "if militant Christianist Republicans...

It’s company policy at The New York Times that opinion columnists may not officially endorse presidential candidates. Still, there was no doubt during the past year which man most of the page’s writers were backing. A trio of hysterical pieces published Nov. 4 confirmed that, each claiming that a nationwide outbreak of religious zealotry had led to Sen. John Kerry’s defeat. “The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule,” wailed Maureen Dowd. Not to be outdone, Tom Friedman chipped in, “We don’t just disagree on what America should be doing;...

While liberals complain about the religious vote that went for George W. Bush, they refuse to discuss—and perhaps happily accept—the non-religious vote that went for John F. Kerry. Which ought to be considered a greater liability for an American president: to receive the overwhelming support of devout Protestants and Catholics or to be backed by atheists? Which speaks worse? Don’t we have this backward? We’re hearing plenty about President Bush’s huge advantage in the 2004 election from evangelicals, and (less so) about the extremely significant fact that Catholics who attend Mass weekly voted for Bush by 55% to 44%, which...

We won an historic victory. President Bush received 59,651,290 votes, more than any president in history. He received 51% of the vote, while Sen. Kerry received only 48% (Bill Clinton was re-elected with only 49%). He received 286 electoral votes and carried 30 states. President Bush became the first president to increase his majority in both the House and the Senate since 1936. In the face of four years of constant smear attacks by Democrats and their front groups, labeling President Bush everything but a child of God, he gained support across the board and won big! Republicans are likely...

Both sides in the presidential contest are eager to declare this election the most momentous event since the discovery of fire, and we won't know how true that is until we see how badly we've been burned. But I think it's already apparent that the campaign will be considered a milestone in the history of the U.S. media. Here's what has changed: The mainstream media no longer play a key role in setting the national news agenda. A robust new conversation conducted on the Internet, talk radio and cable TV has assumed historic prominence. Still, despite an unparalleled richness of...