Free Republic

University of Virginia political guru Larry Sabato thinks that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's potential BFF in the race for the GOP presidential nomination could be no other than Rep. Michele Bachmann, the hard-charging conservative from Minnesota. The reasoning is that Mrs. Bachmann's possible entrance into the race could throw a serious roadblock on former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's perceived path to victory, which starts with a win or — at the very least — a strong showing in Iowa. Mrs. Bachmann "could torpedo Pawlenty's chances," Mr. Sabato writes in his latest rundown of the GOP field. "Bachmann has a...

An adviser to Rep. Michele Bachmann sends over this fairly ruffles-smoothing statement:   “The Congresswoman has nothing but admiration and respect for Governor Palin. The two enjoy a good friendship, and Rep. Bachmann looks forward to working with the Governor for the common goal of making sure President Obama is a one-term President.”

[snip beginning of article] ... Ed Rollins, dismissed Palin as “not serious” in a radio interview. He suggested in an interview with POLITICO that Bachmann would profit from the contrast. Bachmann will “be so much more substantive,” Rollins said. “People are going to say, ‘I gotta make a choice and go with the intelligent woman who’s every bit as attractive.’” “I’m not afraid of Palin,” he said, adding the strategy would have been the same for Mike Huckabee. Bachmann has been laying the groundwork for this argument for months, stepping away from some of the more dramatic rhetoric that brought...

Ann Coulter was being interviewed by Sean Hannity last night and she succinctly laid out the case against Trump and this resurgent interest in an Obama birth certificate. I've always thought this story was crap from day one. First, as Ann Coulter points out there is fundamentally no difference between the long form birth certificate and short form. They are both certified. Personally, I think the Obama team is loving the attention being given to it because it gives them an opportunity to force each prospective GOP candidate for President to answer the question and take away vital time from...

Some conservative commentators have applauded Donald Trump for challenging President Barack Obama on his birth certificate. Conservative author Ann Coulter isn’t one of them. On Monday night’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel, Coulter said the “birther” conspiracy has been long debunked by other conservative outlets. “Well, I think maybe I’ve been watching too much Charlie Sheen because Donald Trump seems perfectly sane to me,” Coulter said. “I don’t know where he gets this $2 million Obama has spent to keep his birth certificate — he posted his birth certificate on his web page. I am glad that Donald Trump...

Despite all the words spilled in evaluating Glenn Beck's tent-less revival last weekend, the real meaning may have been hiding in plain sight. Beck's "Restoring Honor" gathering was right out of the Alcoholics Anonymous playbook. It was a 12-step program distilled to a few key words, all lifted from a prayer delivered from the Lincoln Memorial: healing, recovery and restoration. Saturday's Beckapalooza was yet another step in Beck's own personal journey of recovery. Beck's history of alcoholism and addiction is familiar to any who follow him. For Beck, it has been a defining part of his life, and recovery is...

The RINO hunt is back on, and the coveted trophy is Scott Brown.Inevitably and predictably, the new senator from Massachusetts -- Mr. 41, Mr. I-Drive-A-Truck, tea party poster dude -- has disappointed his base by, alas, representing his constituents. It's the purity test all over again; only this time, the stakes are high and the weird are turning seriously pro. Not that the tea partiers are weird, not most of them, anyway. But some are at risk of flying off into the blood-red zone of wing-nuttery. One of the sessions at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) questioned whether...

Alas, the befuddled Ms. Parker considers Mrs. Palin bedazzling, but not "rightful heir to the presidency," and will resort to literary lunacy to punish McCain for not choosing Romney and Mrs. Palin for being bedazzling and not being Romney (or at least dropping out, purportedly to do more for Trig, in favor of Romney).Full disclosure: I wanted Mitt Romney to be the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, not John McCain. Nevertheless, I believed that McCain, despite his significant failings, was much better for America than the radical "Senator from ACORN" nominated by the Democrats. (Glenn Beck's terrifying assertion that McCain would...

It's no surprise that elitism and a pretentious point of view have a place on The Washington Post editorial page, but even this is a little much. Pseudo-conservative columnist Kathleen Parker asserted that Trig Palin, the Down syndrome son of the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin might one day find his mother's abortions comments "hurtful." A Feb 14 column published in the Post focused on the delicate art of criticizing Palin's recent political and personal defense of the special-needs community, stemming from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's controversial comments involving the word "retarded."...