Free Republic

Yes, I’m still struggling. Like many of you, I am still carefully weighing all the costs and benefits of each declared GOP candidate. As the candidates continue highlighting each other’s unsavory left-wing alliances, I thought it might be helpful to compile a Hold Your Nose Tracker of the current top four front-runners. I’m just giving it to you straight. One way or the other, the plugs will come in handy. This is the hand we’ve been dealt, alas. Same as it ever was. (Flashback February 2008: The John McCain Nose Plugs.)

Former Congressman and current Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is turning up the heat on the issue of man-made global warming, calling it "patently absurd," a stance putting him at odds with perceived frontrunner Mitt Romney.

2012 Republican Presidential Candidates Latest Polls Gallup PPP CNN NBC/WSJ Donald Trump 16% 26% 19% 17% Mike Huckabee 16% 17% 19% 17% Mitt Romney 13% 15% 11% 21% Sarah Palin 10% 8% 12% 10% Newt Gingrich 6% 11% 11% 11% Ron Paul 6% 5% 7% Michele Bachmann 4% 5% 5% Tim Pawlenty 3% 4% 2% 6% Mitch Daniels 3% 3% Rick Santorum 2% 2% 3% Haley Barbour 2% 1% Jon Hunstman 1% Herman Cain Chris Christie Gary Johnson

Hillary Clinton would make a formidable 2012 presidential opponent running against any of the current crop of likely GOP candidates. Maybe that's why so many of them are keeping their powder dry, so far. They're waiting to see what she does. Political intelligence can be, like military intelligence, an oxymoron. (This I learned in both venues.) The two crafts are not dissimilar. Each collects and examines shards of possible evidence; rates the veracity of each piece; searches for connections; tests each against an unfiltered range of suppositions; sprinkles in magic dust made from the ground-up intuitive glands of a dozen...

We are slightly more than 21 months away from the 2012 presidential election. The election in 2012 will be not a simple referendum on Barack Obama (for which an approval score is a proxy), but a choice between two candidates. While many potential GOP candidates are exploring a run, it is not possible at this point to even select a favorite from the bunch, since the field is so uncertain, and some candidates designated by some pundits as second-tier would diminish the prospects of others considered as first-tier if they ran. An example of this would be if Michele Bachmann...

Two names have surfaced regarding the 2012 Presidential campaign that perhaps deserve a close look by conservative voters--Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. The two have not been on anyone's short list or even long list of top contenders for the GOP nomination for President. That could be about to change. National columnist and ABC News commentator George Will has suggested Governor Daniels and Congressman Ryan as serious possibilities if conservatives indeed wish to beat Obama and company in the marketplace of ideas. And ideas they have a-plenty.

January 26, 2010 Breazeale Urges Help To Haitians, Break To Taxpayers On Tuesday, Will Breazeale, candidate for United States Congress in North Carolina's 7th Congressional District, urged the Obama Administration to aid struggling Haitians, while saving the taxpayer a bundle. The three-time Iraq War veteran backs this humanitarian aid and fiscal responsibility through the donation of unused FEMA trailers that are currently costing the taxpayer millions of dollars in storage fees. "Currently there are over 92,000 unused FEMA trailers that are sitting around, collecting dust. In order to sell these trailers to the public, they will need retrofitting to bring...

The Republican road to redemption may well begin in Frog Jump, Tenn., where a gospel-singing farmer with no political experience is running for Congress. Without any staff, Stephen Fincher raised $300,000 in September and delighted GOP leaders, who believed they had finally found a credible challenger to Rep. John Tanner (D). Then things took an even better turn for the party: On Dec. 1, Tanner announced he would not run for reelection in 2010. Two weeks later, Fincher, 37, visited Washington for the first time in his life, to get together with GOP leaders eager to meet the newcomer who...

California's 33rd Congressional District is hard-core Democrat. Ethnically diverse, cutting a swath from Hollywood through the city's historic black heartland, it's so thick with Democrats that John Kerry won 83 percent of the vote during the 2004 presidential election. Republicans didn't even bother to field a candidate in the last U.S. House race. So why would Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney be interested in voters here? In a twist on political logic, heavily Democratic patches in California are being fiercely contested by some Republican presidential candidates because of a change in state election rules. For the first time in a...

Republican presidential hopefuls are seeking the blessing of the woman called conservatism’s "last remaining great icon” – former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Fred Thompson, said to be on the verge of announcing his candidacy, visited Thatcher in London last month, saying he wanted to "remind her of America’s affection for her and pay our respects,” the New York Sun reported. Mitt Romney had an audience with Thatcher last fall. Now Rudy Giuliani has made plans to travel to London in September and deliver the inaugural Margaret Thatcher memorial lecture to the Atlantic Bridge think tank. He too will meet...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Terri Schiavo's brother and the final attorney for her family are criticizing some of the leading Republican contenders for president. They say the candidates are ill-informed about the facts surrounding the debate over Terri's life and the reasons behind the legislation Congress approved trying to help prevent her euthanasia death.During the first GOP primary debate, Schindler family attorney David Gibbs says they demonstrated that they do not understand the important disability issues involved in the 2005 Terri Schiavo case.In comments on the case, Gov. Mitt Romney said he thought it "was a mistake" for Congress to...

Speculation rages as to who will run for president in 2008. It takes only a few minutes of conversation with Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia to understand why top-level Republicans are encouraging him to run. His easy charm, straight talk, quick wit, mental acuity and experience separate him from the pack of would-be candidates. Formerly the governor of Virginia, Sen. Allen also served as a U.S. representative and in the Virginia House of Delegates. Now serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he's putting his experience to work around the globe. While on a recent trip to the Middle...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney met both support and opposition during a California trip aimed at rallying for Republican congressional candidates. At a Riverside hotel Tuesday, Cheney cheered on U.S. Senate candidate Bill Jones, who is challenging Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer. He said Jones was in lockstep with President Bush on issues of national security, the economy and tax reform, and portrayed Boxer as being out of touch with Californians. Outside the $1,000 per plate dinner that attracted about 200 people to the Mission Inn, several hundred protesters and Bush supporters faced off on opposite street corners....