Free Republic

1. Wither Beto?: Beto O'Rourke came into the 2020 presidential race as the hottest thing in Democratic politics. He (almost) shocked the world by beating Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) and was immediately installed as a top-tier candidate. But the race hasn't turned out the way the former Texas congressman had hoped. Buttigieg has surged past him -- in polling and buzz -- and Beto seems at a bit of a loss as to how to (re)position himself in the race. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post have noted his struggles of late. And optics like this...

Jim Nabors, who gave popular culture its most enduring image of a wide-eyed, good-natured if none too bright hayseed in a character whose very name – Gomer Pyle – would become synonymous with lovable rube, died Thursday in Hawaii. He was 87. Nabors’ husband, Stan Cadwallader... With catchphrases “Shazam!” and “Gollllly!” (the latter drawn out to four or five lilting syllables), Nabors debuted his downhome, gas station attendant character in 1962 on The Andy Griffith Show, where the slow-going, dim-witted Gomer was a constant irritation to Don Knotts’ officious, high-strung Deputy Barney Fife. The Gomer character, and Nabors’ odd-couple chemistry...

Jim Nabors, a longtime actor best known for playing Gomer Pyle on the Andy Griffith show, died Thursday at the age of 87. More on this as it develops.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he still has differences with President-elect Donald Trump, but is prepared to work with him and be a check on him when necessary. "There will be areas where I don't agree, and my job then will be to represent a coequal branch of government and speak my mind," Graham told reporters in the Senate Tuesday. In the wide-ranging session Tuesday afternoon, Graham – a vocal opponent of Trump's tone and positions on immigration and foreign policy – said that he believes Trump is not an ideologue and instead will still be evolving on public policy...

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., recommended on Friday that President-elect Trump nominate fellow former GOP presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat. . . . Trump has said he may consider nominating Cruz's Tea Party ally, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who said he was not interested in the position. Goldberg said the same may be the case for Cruz, adding, "I don't think Cruz" wants the lifetime post.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Wednesday blasted Ted Cruz after a POLITICO report quoted the Texas senator telling a donor that fighting gay marriage wouldn't be a "top-three priority" for his administration. "Conservatives are being asked to 'coalesce' around yet another corporately-funded candidate that says something very different at a big donor fundraiser in Manhattan than at a church in Marshalltown," Huckabee said in a statement released by his campaign Wednesday afternoon. "Shouldn't a candidate be expected to have authenticity and consistency, instead of having to look at a map to decide what to believe and what to say?"...

“Gomer Pyle, USMC” star Jim Nabors married his longtime male partner at Seattle’s Fairmont Olympic Hotel earlier this month, according to Hawaii News Now. Nabors, a Hawaii resident, had never publicly come out. But his relationship with Stan Cadwallader wasn’t a secret before they decided to take advantage of Washington’s new same-sex marriage law, he told the news station. “I’m 82, and he’s in his 60s, and so we’ve been together for 38 years, and I’m not ashamed of people knowing, it’s just that it was such a personal thing, I didn’t tell anybody,” Nabors he told the station.

Todd Akin hasn't had many high-profile supporters with him in the trenches this week, but Mike Huckabee became an important and emphatic exception Thursday afternoon, sending a message to his own supporters accusing Republican elites of trying to drum a good man out of a winnable Senate race. Here's what Huckabee said in an email to his list this afternoon: Party’s leaders have for reasons that aren't rational, left [Akin] behind on the political battlefield, wounded and bleeding, a casualty of his self-inflicted, but not intentional wound.

Durham, N.C. — The former director of a North Carolina Central University program designed to help minority students used an unauthorized bank account to divert more than $1 million from the program over six years, according to a state audit. The audit released Tuesday also criticized N.C. Central for its lack of oversight for the Historically Minority Colleges and Universities Consortium. Chancellor Charlie Nelms said in his formal response to the audit that he was "saddened and outraged by the findings of wrongdoing." "I cannot allow the misguided actions of a few to overshadow the intrinsic benefits of the tutoring,...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says in a forthcoming article that the tea party movement is “unsustainable” and will “die out” because it lacks vision. Graham made the comments to The New York Times as part of a profile in Sunday’s magazine written by Robert Draper. Graham argues throughout the story that the Republican Party will eventually move away from the fringe and join him closer to the political middle but that, for now, it has shifted too far to the right. “Everything I’m doing now in terms of talking about climate, talking about immigration, talking about Gitmo is completely opposite...

TV legend and Hawaii's own Jim Nabors was honored Friday night. The actor, best known as Gomer Pyle from the TV series of the same name, will receive the American Patriot award, given by the Navy League of Honolulu. Nabors has been in show business for nearly 50 years. He's had a successful career in acting as well as singing, and created friendships with celebrities like former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, his wife Nancy, and Carol Burnett. Bcause of his portrayal of Gomer Pyle, he's developed a close relationship with the military, especially the Marine Corps. "The general asked me...

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, flanked by Chuck Norris, Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist and U.S. Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, stood beneath Laredo's railroad bridge near the riverbank Saturday morning advocating stronger border security, including constructing a border fence, having more law enforcement and eliminating carrizo."I come away from this with a better understanding of this," Huckabee said after touring Border Patrol facilities and later hiking to the edge of the Rio Grande to get a personal view of the terrain. "But also a sense of urgency that as a country we need to put our resources on border...

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee vowed Tuesday to continue his campaign for the White House despite another loss to presumptive nominee Arizona Sen. John McCain in the Wisconsin GOP primary. "It's not about ego," Huckabee told reporters at the Peabody Hotel after he telephoned McCain to congratulate him on winning the Wisconsin primary. "Let me assure you that my ego doesn't enjoy these kind of evenings where we don't win the primary election," he said, adding there are several issues, such as pro-life and taxes, he wants to continue to speak out on and hopes to do so at the...

By far, the most significant story of the 2008 Republican primaries has been the unlikely candidacy of Mike Huckabee and his_single-handed_resuscitation of Christian conservatives as a force to be reckoned with in the Republican_Party. Yet, regardless of how he fares on Super_Tuesday_and_beyond, Mr. Huckabee will perhaps be best remembered as the man who, however unintentionally, helped persuade evangelicals to vote a Democrat into the White House in 2008 – and possibly in future races, as well. Since the 1970s, conventional_wisdom has held that evangelicals are driven by a single-minded_concern with defending "moral values," while mainline Protestants focus on issues of...

A broad coalition of black conservatives from across the country are holding a press conference to urge former Governor Mike Huckabee to stay in the presidential race for the Republican nomination until the convention. "Governor Huckabee should not be intimidated to stop his bid for the Republican nomination," states Don Scoggins, veteran GOP activist and ... president of Republicans for Black Empowerment, a DC-based national grassroots organization. The concern of the group is the pressure that is mounting by Republican talking heads to push Governor Huckabee out of the race. The consensus is that Huckabee's campaign was deliberately sabotaged by...

WOODSTOCK, GA – Will John McCain lock up the nomination on Super Tuesday? Not according to Mike Huckabee. “I think he's being a little bit optimistic about what Tuesday's going to bring," Huckabee said. "We plan on staying in until the last bell. When I hear people say that, I don't know if it’s to great this mood out there that its presumptively over. Our voters don't feel that way.” That’s as far as he would go in differing with McCain at this morning’s press conference. Asked why he was more critical of Romney than McCain, Huckabee said he “appreciated”...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Mike Huckabee brushed off predictions Thursday that he would drop out of the Republican presidential nominating contest, but dropped new hints that he'd prefer John McCain to Mitt Romney as the party's eventual pick. Huckabee, who hasn't won a caucus or primary since Iowa, emphatically dismissed the suggestion that the GOP race was a two-man contest, with Rudy Giuliani out of it and questions about whether he was sticking it out to angle for a running mate spot. "I'm staying in the race because I still think I can win," he told an enthusiastic audience of about...

I am disappointed in the tactics and statements of almost all the presidential candidates, both Democrats and Republicans. My grandmother used to say that you can tell just as big a lie with a half-truth and sometimes a bigger one. Take the half-truths said about Mike Huckabee and taxes. I lived in Arkansas when he was the governor. He did away with the marriage tax penalty and the capital gains tax on the sale homes. He doubled Arkansas' standard deduction and the child care tax credit. He slashed the capital gains tax for both individuals and businesses. In 2001, Mike...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee skipped out of campaigning in Florida a day before its primary in hopes of laying claim to Fred Thompson's backers in Tennessee. He also squeezed in some time in a Music Row recording studio, playing bass guitar with a group of country music stars and session musicians. Huckabee said those who backed the former Tennessee senator's presidential run should now turn to him because he's consistently shown he's a conservative — supporting anti-abortion measures and tax cuts while governor of Arkansas. Thompson withdrew from the presidential race last week after a disappointing...