Free Republic

This summer brought a significant shift in voter preferences in the Generic Congressional Ballot. As Republican Congressional candidates once again lead Democrats by a 43% to 38% margin this week, this is now the ninth straight ballot the GOP has held a modest advantage. Over the past nine weeks, Republicans have held a two-to-five point advantage over Democrats every week. It is important to note, however, that the recent shift is not only because Republicans have been gaining support, but that Democrats have slipped in support. While support for Republican candidates ranged from 41% to 43%, support for Democrats ranged...

Sarah Palin is calling for Tort Reform to be the hallmark of any kind of health care reform: President Obama's health care "reform" plan has met with significant criticism across the country. Many Americans want change and reform in our current health care system. We recognize that while we have the greatest medical care in the world, there are major problems that we must face, especially in terms of reining in costs and allowing care to be affordable for all. However, as we have seen, current plans being pushed by the Democratic leadership represent change that may not be what...

For the first time in over two years of polling, voters trust Republicans slightly more than Democrats on the handling of the issue of health care. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that voters favor the GOP on the issue 44% to 41%. Democrats held a four-point lead on the issue last month and a 10-point lead in June. For most of the past two years, more than 50% of voters said they trusted Democrats on health care. The latest results mark the lowest level of support measured for the party on the now-contentious issue. Public support for...

Sarah Palin finally came out and made her stance on illegal immigration clear. She is pro amnesty for illegal aliens. In an interview to Univision she stated unequivocally that she is for a pathway to citizenship. In the same interview she says she is against amnesty for illegal aliens. Have your cake and eat it to, I think that is called. Back on the same day that John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential candidate I started investigating Palin's past on illegal immigration. I invited others to send in anything they found. There was nothing on the record. Many...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The percentage of U.S. homeowners who owe more than their house is worth will nearly double to 48 percent in 2011 from 26 percent at the end of March, portending another blow to the housing market, Deutsche Bank said on Wednesday.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of U.S. voters say tax cuts for the middle class are more important than new spending for health care reform, even as President Obama’s top economic advisers signal that tax hikes may be necessary. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, taken Monday and Tuesday nights, finds that 34% disagree and say new spending for health care reform is more important. Twelve percent (12%) are not sure. It is important to note that this question asked about new government spending for health care reform rather than about the overall concept of health care reform itself. The partisan...

The results of the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll are a major warning sign for Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. On some key issues, the gains that Democrats had made on Republicans in the last couple of years have disappeared, and the GOP has begun to reassert itself. In other policy areas, traditional Democratic leads are diminishing. The results are found in the answers to the Journal's questions about whether respondents believe the Democratic or Republican party would do a better job of handling a particular issue. In the past, Democrats have usually led in areas like health...

The National Rifle Association said Thursday it will count the Senate vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as part of its influential legislative score card on how members of Congress stand on gun-rights issues. The NRA opposes her, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, another powerful lobby not prone to siding with the White House on every issue, endorsed Judge Sotomayor Thursday. The politically potent gun-rights group said it is concerned about Judge Sotomayor's stance on Second Amendment rights and her rulings as an appellate judge, including one upholding a New York law that barred a man from...

Democrats ran against Herbert Hoover for decades. Republicans ran against Jimmy Carter for years. Can Democrats make 2010 another referendum on George W. Bush, or at least use the unpopular former president to demonize Republicans in competitive races? Democratic operatives assert that running against the former president next year isn't going to be the focus of their efforts, but they are obviously more than willing to fall back on an anti-Bush message when they think it is effective. Last week, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released a Web video, "Insider," and an accompanying press release hanging the former president around...

RUSH: This is a town meeting in Delaware. An unidentified woman and Representative Mike Castle have the following exchange. It's about Obama's birth certificate. WOMAN: I want to go back to January 20th, and I want to know, why are you people ignoring his birth certificate? (cheers and applause) He is not an American citizen. He is a citizen of Kenya. I am American. My father worked -- fought in World War II with the Greatest Generation in the Pacific theater for this country, and I don't want this flag to change. I want my country back! (cheers and applause)...

WASHINGTON - Republican leaders in Congress plan to zero in on the nation’s economy, weighed down by an unemployment rate approaching 10 percent, as key to building momentum for the 2010 elections. Democrats, who say they and President Obama inherited an economy driven off the rails by President George W. Bush and a GOP Congress, have a simple response: Bring it on. Harkening back to the Democrats’ 1992 campaign adage — “it’s the economy, stupid” — Republicans are seeking to build on public anxiety and drape the weak economy around the necks of President Obama and the Democratic Congress if...

GOP decides ‘It’s the economy’ for 2010 Leaders plan to zero in on anxiety, unemployment as key to momentum By Edward Epstein, CQ Staff WASHINGTON - Republican leaders in Congress plan to zero in on the nation’s economy, weighed down by an unemployment rate approaching 10 percent, as key to building momentum for the 2010 elections. Democrats, who say they and President Obama inherited an economy driven off the rails by President George W. Bush and a GOP Congress, have a simple response: Bring it on. Harkening back to the Democrats’ 1992 campaign adage — “it’s the economy, stupid” —...

Public anxiety over the economy, stocks in decline, rising unemployment and a string of expensive Democratic initiatives are all encouraging high-caliber Republicans to compete in 2010. The GOP is enjoying its best candidate recruitment streak in years. The past week has been chock-full of good news for Republicans on the recruiting front and follows troubling developments for Democrats on their side of the ballot. The GOP has seen candidate recruitment rise as joblessness continues to climb to new highs and Wall Street retreats after a brief respite in March, April and May. Compounding the situation, Republicans say, are Democrats’ recent...

Senate Republicans see a new agreement forged between President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as an opportunity to force Democrats’ hand on a major security issue: missile defense. Sixty-seven senators, or two-thirds of those present, must agree to ratify any deal seeking to reduce nuclear weapons between the two nations, giving Senate Republicans, who only control 40 seats, rare leverage. The high bar for ratifying treaties will put pressure on Obama to finish construction of a missile shield in Eastern Europe. At the very least, it will make it very difficult for the president to limit that shield in...

AP: President Barack Obama says he's never believed that affirmative action is as much of an issue as it's been made out to be. He says it hasn't been as "potent a force for racial progress" as its supporters have said, and that it hasn't been as bad for white students or job applicants as its critics say. In an Associated Press interview Thursday, Obama said affirmative action can be made an "afterthought" when problems such as malnutrition, poverty and substandard schools are dealt with, and "everybody has a level playing field." President Barack Obama said Thursday the Supreme Court...

Republicans believe a handful of junior House Democrats may have taken a career-ending vote by supporting the controversial energy bill last week and are planning to launch an ad campaign in targeted districts to try to seal their fate. The National Republican Congressional Committee is planning to air TV and radio commercials and unleash robocalls against Democrats who hail from districts that could be adversely affected by the narrowly passed legislation or are GOP-leaning... Those likely to find themselves with targets on their back after the 219-212 vote: freshman Reps. Harry Teague of New Mexico, Betsy Markey of Colorado, John...

As Democrats strained to win over crucial holdouts on the way to narrow, party-line approval of global warming legislation, they were dogged by a critical question: Has the political climate changed since 1993? Veteran members of both parties vividly remember when many House Democrats, in the early months of the Clinton administration, reluctantly backed a proposed B.T.U. tax — a new levy on each unit of energy consumed — only to see it ignored by the Senate and seized as a campaign issue by Republicans, who took control of the House the next year. “A lot of Democrat members got...

Republicans say they will question the Supreme Court nominee on the divisive issue at her confirmation hearings in hopes of weakening her support among moderate Democrats. Reporting from Washington — Senate Republicans said Wednesday they would press Judge Sonia Sotomayor on gun rights, a politically divisive issue that they hope could weaken Democratic support for the Supreme Court nominee. Though Republicans are a pronounced minority in both the House and Senate, they have used the gun issue to their advantage to divert the legislative agenda, forcing Democrats from moderate and conservative states to take politically risky votes on gun provisions....

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's admission today that he had an extramarital affair strikes another blow to the GOP's brand as the party of family values, particularly in a region of the country—the Deep South—that has become ever more critical to Republicans, who've lost ground recently in the Northeast and the West. Outside South Carolina, "Sanford is most well known in states like North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, which are growing more competitive for Democrats," says Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who worked for Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee during the 2008 campaign season. "This is devastating for...

WASHINGTON – The revelation that Democratic appropriations kingpins may face a House ethics investigation of their campaign receipts from lobbyists for recipients of government grants and contracts moves Republicans closer to gaining a corruption issue in 2010. ... The Democratic chairman and senior Republican on the House ethics committee dropped their political bomb Thursday night, announcing that the panel is reviewing the practice of lawmakers steering money and contracts to favored companies, and then receiving campaign contributions in return for the "earmarks." The announcement came months after the Justice Department began a criminal investigation of the matter and a repetition...