Free Republic

The establishment is panicked and the former Republican presidential nominee just confirmed it

I’m still in awe of the Trump campaign, and his continued rise in the polls. And I am also loving watching the establishment GOP candidates and political class squirming and flailing about, trying to counter the Trump insurgency, and trying to find some weapon to wield against him. GOP Pundit Rick Wilson called him “a giant, epic douchecanoe” on national television… color me impressed. That’s a term an irate taxi driver might use...

Out of touch, Perpetuation of the Political Elite, Polite and Acceptable Discourse Many on the Right were euphoric that the Republicans thrashed the Democrats in the elections earlier this month, expanding their presence in the House of Representatives while recapturing the Senate with a wide (and still growing) margin. Yet, in a move that seems to have been calculated to burst everyones’ bubbles, John McCain came out last week during an interview with the left-wing web magazine Salon and promised that the incoming GOP senators wouldn’t be “Ted Cruz types.” Of course, the collective response of the majority of Americans...

Mitt Romney on Friday said the Republican threat to shut down the government in an attempt to defund ObamaCare isn’t an “effective” strategy. "We're more effective tactically not to use a shutdown of some kind to pursue the ... anti-Obamacare objective,” Romney said in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. “I don't think that will be as effective.” [snip] "I think there's a better way of getting rid of ObamaCare — my own view — and that is, one, delaying it by at least a year,” Romney said. “That was Senator (Joe) Manchin's idea, the Democrats' idea.”.......

In an announcement on his Twitter account, CNN political director Mark Preston announced former Yahoo News Washington bureau chief David Chalian would be named the supervising producer for the reincarnation of CNN’s “Crossfire.”

Leading Democratic and Republican senators said on Sunday there were encouraging signs in the push to overhaul U.S. immigration laws - a top priority for President Obama's second term - and they would introduce their plan this week. -snip- McCain said the political aspect of immigration reform should sway any Republicans who object to a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. "We are losing dramatically the Hispanic vote, which we think should be ours, for a variety of reasons, and we've got to understand that," he said. McCain said change also was needed because "we can't go on forever with...

Rep. Paul Ryan says Republicans need to stay united and pick their fights during President Barack Obama’s second term. … Ryan defends his vote on the “fiscal cliff” deal. He says that if the measure hadn't passed, every single taxpayer would have paid higher taxes. …

High-level negotiations between the White House and Capitol Hill in times of divided government tend to follow a script. This year’s talks about how to avert the fiscal cliff, for the most part, appear to track a familiar line: The outside message from the top players is often different from what's happening on a parallel track inside the room where the final deal is being crafted. Publicly, both President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner continue to argue their positions on taxes and entitlement reforms, hoping they can win the public relations battle that frames their respective party as...

......The Drudge outburst seems to reflect a growing sense among the conservative opinion commentariat that Gingrich as nominee is a serious liability in a pivotal election year, a fact the GOP base has yet to fully grasp. The pundits apparently view themselves as the sober older sibling warning a starry-eyed sister about the hot guy on the Harley who's been around enough to leave a mark.

There’s been a lot of talk, maybe too much talk, about the struggle between the GOP “Establishment” and “Outsiders,” sometimes – but sometimes not – meaning the Tea Party, however defined. There are many fault lines, wheels within wheels, that divide different groups on the Right, but it’s time to clarify the core issue that has people of perfectly conservative temperament and ideology scratching their heads at their own constituents. After all, we’re conservatives: establishments are a good idea, a necessary intersection of tradition and meritocracy, giving undue weight to neither and co-opting dangerous ideas about revolution and radical change....

Less than two weeks before Iowa Republicans make their crucial caucus choices on the night of Jan. 3, George H.W. Bush offered words of support, if not an official endorsement, to an old friend, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, according to a story today in the Houston Chronicle. “I think Romney is the best choice for us,” former President Bush told the newspaper. “I like Perry, but he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere; he’s not surging forward.” The former president’s choice is a blow to native son Rick Perry, the Texas governor who has had a long-standing feud with...

Herman Cain deserves credit for proposing a tax-reform plan that is specific, promotes economic growth, and has captured the imagination of conservatives nationwide. His 9-9-9 plan builds on the insight that one of the chief defects of the current tax code is its bias toward consumption over savings. But his plan’s peculiarities of design, substantive weaknesses, and political naïveté render it unworthy of conservative support.

In November 1963, the conservative political establishment including Dwight Eisenhower, Gen. Lucius D. Clay, Bill Robinson of the Herald Tribune, Augusta’s Cliff Roberts and Slats Slater met at New York's Waldorf-Astoria, concerned about the bandwagon developing for Barry Goldwater. They were anxious to discuss “moderate alternatives,” including Pennsylvania's Gov. William Scranton, Henry Cabot Lodge and Michigan Gov. George Romney. This last week, a new political establishment made up of hedge-fund managers, Republican donors, industrialists, a personal investment guru and other billionaires, mostly based in New York and former Bush employees and family members, including Barbara Bush, gathered or spoke together...

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...

...publishing a series about Massachusetts’ groundbreaking health care reform law. This first piece explains how the idea was hatched — Romney was inspired by Staples founder Thomas G. Stemberg — made its way through the Democratically controlled legislature, was embraced by business groups, and eventually signed into law by Romney on April 12, 2006. Mooney reports that Romney’s political advisers weren’t too keen on Romney — who was even then expected to just serve one term as governor before making a run for the presidency — embracing a traditionally liberal issue, but ultimately settled on what they and Romney saw...

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...

Wow! I must be causing some people quite a concern as a candidate for the Republican nomination for president. The establishment skeptics are still stuck in the traditional campaign paradigm of immediate name ID, lots of money, and having held a worthy elective office before. The critics are pounding on what they perceive as my weaknesses. And the Democratic National Committee now has me on its radar and is sharpening its blades for a Cain attack. No one is more emblematic of the Republican establishment than Karl Rove. He has an unmatched political record from his tenure with former president...

*snip* Ben Domenech, writing Wednesday on the influential conservative blog RedState, summed up Rove's criticism of the insurgent tea party candidate as "an instructive moment about how the old guard is failing to adapt to this new environment." Rove's critique also raised questions about whether he's still serving as a behind-the-scenes political operative for races he analyzes on Fox News. Malkin linked to an item *snip* that alleges Rove tried to strike a deal with Delaware Tea Party activists in December to withhold support for O'Donnell. Thanks to Malkin's reach, Freedomist's claim is already bouncing around the blogosphere. Dan Riehl,...