Free Republic

Republicans running for the seat of Ohio’s retiring senator, Rob Portman, appear determined to bury the soft-spoken country-club bonhomie that was once a hallmark of the party in this state, and replace it with the pugilistic brand of conservatism owned by Donald J. Trump and now amplified by the new band of Buckeye bomb throwers. The race descended into a brutal slugfest as the leading candidates, the author-turned-venture capitalist J.D. Vance, the former state treasurer Josh Mandel and a self-funded businessman, Mike Gibbons, entered the final weekend before Tuesday’s primaries accusing one another of being insufficiently right-wing or disloyal to...

Pollster Frank Luntz for the past decade has issued warnings to his fellow Republicans that they did not want to hear, but never has he been so out of touch with them as he is today. "The Republican message machine is a skeleton of its former self," Luntz told me. "These people have no idea how the American people react to them." Luntz sees a disconnect between Republicans and voters that projects a grim future for the party. That contradicts what House and Senate Republicans are saying to each other in closed party conferences. While Luntz views 2006 election defeats...

WASHINGTON IN BRIEF A federal appeals court agreed to hear new arguments in a case involving an illegally taped telephone call leaked to reporters by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.). In an announcement last evening, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said all nine judges will hear McDermott's appeal of the case, which dates back nearly a decade. Arguments will be heard in September, the court said. A three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled in March that McDermott violated federal law by turning over the recording of a 1996 call involving then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). That...