Free Republic

Donald Trump is expected to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan R-Wis., Friday, two highly placed Republican sources tell Fox News -- just days after the Republican presidential nominee declined to back Ryan when asked in an interview. ADVERTISEMENT Ryan will face primary challenger Paul Nehlen in next Tuesday’s primary election for his congressional seat. Trump is expected to endorse the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee at an event in Green Bay. While Ryan picked up the endorsement of Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Trump declined to endorse Ryan when asked in an interview Tuesday with The Washington Post....

In 2008, several Republicans endorsed Democratic then-Sen. Barack Obama over the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain. But heading into 2012, many of the “Obamacons,” as The Economist dubbed them four years ago, have become disenchanted with the president, actively unwilling to vote for him or uncommited.

(Reuters) - In contrast to 2008, Democratic President Barack Obama cannot count on a wave of support for his re-election bid next year from well-known moderate Republicans. Unhappy with Obama's handling of the economy, conservative backers from three years ago are either sitting on the fence or have thrown their lot in with Republican presidential hopefuls like Mitt Romney. Known as "Obamacons," moderate Republicans helped make the Democrat's case in 2008 that he was a new breed of "post-partisan" politician who would work with both parties. Obama's youth and the narrative of electing the first black president also attracted Republicans...

They are starting to eat their own. Polls show that Democrat Barack Obama is leading in battleground states, including some -- such as Ohio -- carried by George W. Bush not once but twice. But even before the election is over -- and despite the fact that some polls show a tightening race -- Republicans are piling on their own presidential candidate, John McCain, accusing him of deserting principle. Some moderate Republicans think McCain has sold his soul to the right, abandoning the bipartisan record he built on immigration and other issues. "He has lost his brand as a maverick,"...

It may be something of a surprise that, as a long time conservative, I now support Barack Obama. In 1968, I was a speechwriter first for Ronald Reagan, when Governor of California, then, as Richard Nixon became the presidential nominee, a speechwriter for Nixon, working at his home office at 450 Park Avenue. I became a senior editor at National Review in 1969, a position I held until recently. Republican President George W. Bush has not been a conservative at all, either in domestic policy or in foreign policy. He invaded Iraq on the basis of abstract theory, the very...

Here's a recap of Republicans, Republicans-turned-independents and conservatives who supported who supported Obama for President in 2008. They supported an Undeniable Disaster & a Historic Failure. Shame on them. --------- Elected Officials: Jim Leach, Former Congressman from Iowa "For me, the national interest comes before party concerns, particularly internationally. We do need a new direction in American policy, and Obama has a sense of that."Lincoln Chafee, Former United States Senator from Rhode Island "As I look at the candidates in order who to vote for, certainly my kind of conservatism was reflected with Senator Obama, and those points are that...

(CNN) — John McCain’s general election campaign began as “the strategic equivalent of throwing a football through a tire at 50 yards” – and was doomed weeks before Election Day, his former chief strategist said Thursday. “We were running a campaign under extra difficult circumstances — the state of the Republican Party, the president’s unpopularity, the economy — a lot of issues that were not John McCain’s fault, but were John McCain’s problem in this race,” Schmidt told an audience at the University of Delaware, according to Politico. “When Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall I knew pretty much right...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) said Wednesday that Republicans shouldn’t oppose President Obama as a reflex and should praise him when he succeeds. Speaking at the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s (NRSC) spring dinner, Romney was thick on criticism of Obama, but also said Republicans shouldn’t root against the man Romney might well face in the 2012 presidential election. After offering a few choice words for Obama’s early conduct in office, Romney suggested it’s OK to hope things go well under the new president. “I also think its important for us to nod to the president when he’s right,” Romney...

"I do know libertarians who think Obama is the Antichrist, that he's farther left than John Kerry, much farther left than Bill Clinton, and you'd clearly have to be insane to vote for this guy," said David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "But there are libertarians who say, 'Oh yeah? Do you think Obama will increase spending by $1 trillion, because that's what Republicans did over the past two presidential terms. So really, how much worse can he be?' And there are certainly libertarians who think Obama will be better on the war...

Mr Powell is now a four-star general in America’s most surprising new army: the Obamacons. The army includes other big names such as Susan Eisenhower, Dwight’s granddaughter, who introduced Mr Obama at the Democratic National Convention and Christopher Buckley, the son of the conservative icon William Buckley, who complains that he has not left the Republican Party: the Republican Party has left him. Chuck Hagel, a Republican senator from Nebraska and one-time bosom buddy of Mr McCain has also flirted heavily with the movement, though he has refrained from issuing an official endorsement.The biggest brigade in the Obamacon army consists...

After reading all these stories about republicans and "conservatives" who are jumping off the ship, I thought of a new name for them. How about Vichy Republicans? Sounds like these commentators who are dissing Sara Palin, the administration and "mean" republicans are looking for an accomodation with the new Obamaocracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy_France

To the degree that they are engaged in this election, conservatives are motivated entirely by fear of Obama and what he will do as president when backed by a solidly liberal Democratic House and Senate. They are not driven by love of the Republican candidate, and it shows in the anger present at McCain campaign rallies. Most conservatives will probably vote for McCain, but they also realize they are far less likely to persuade others, and they feel a disaster coming. The enthusiasm the Right felt during the 2004 election, which had been framed as a true ideological clash between...

My party has slipped its moorings. It’s time for a true pragmatist to lead the country. THE MORE I LISTEN TO AND READ ABOUT “the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate,” the more I like him. Barack Obama strikes a chord with me like no political figure since Ronald Reagan. To explain why, I need to explain why I am a conservative and what it means to me. In 1964, at the age of 16, I organized the Dallas County Youth for Goldwater. My senior thesis at the University of Texas was on the conservative intellectual revival in America....

THE MORE I LISTEN TO AND READ ABOUT “the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate,” the more I like him. Barack Obama strikes a chord with me like no political figure since Ronald Reagan. To explain why, I need to explain why I am a conservative and what it means to me. In 1964, at the age of 16, I organized the Dallas County Youth for Goldwater. My senior thesis at the University of Texas was on the conservative intellectual revival in America. Twenty years later, I was invited by William F. Buckley Jr. to join the board of...

Why this lifelong Republican may vote for Obama The party of Bush and McCain outsourced the hunt for bin Laden, failing to accomplish a vital mission since 9/11. By Michael SmerconishSep. 11, 2008 | Where the hell are Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri? And why does virtually no one ask anymore? What's changed since the days when any suburban soccer mom would have strangled either of them with her bare hands if given the chance? And what happened to President Bush's declaration to a joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11 that "any nation that continues to harbor...

The state headquarters of Barack Obama’s campaign sent out a list Thursday of nearly 50 Virginians, including three from Lynchburg, who it said were Republi-cans supporting the Democratic presidential candidate. The Obama staffers failed to check closely enough with Steve Bozeman, whose name was on the list. Bozeman said he plans to vote for John McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent. “No one got my permission” to list his name among Obama supporters, said Bozeman, a retired Marine and Vietnam veteran who led the Pledge of Allegiance at Obama’s Lynchburg rally Aug. 20. “I was honored to do that,” Bozeman said. “Unfortunately,...

CNN) -- Armstrong Williams is an African-American conservative commentator who is thinking about making a decision that he says is so agonizing it gives him heartburn. This fall, he may vote for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee. The nationally-known radio talk show host is a proud, third-generation Republican who chuckles when African-American friends tell him it's time to "return home" to the Democratic Party. Though he is still hasn't decided for whom he'll cast his ballot, there's something about Obama's presidential candidacy that excites him. "History, brother," Williams said. "It cannot be anything else." "There's very little...

I saw a Republicans for Obama bumper sticker the other day and couldn't help laughing out loud. Republicans for Obama is an oxymoron. Oil and water, fire and ice. Impossible. Then I stumbled across a news article about this craze that featured two "Republicans" who are supporting the O Man. Former GOP Senator Lincoln Chaffee, who put down the bong long enough to vote for John Kerry in 2004, and Jim Leach, former Iowa Congressman who always looks concerned, have jumped on the Obama bandwagon. Neither man is a conservative, and both were voted out of office, so this isn't...

Mr Obama is making a big pitch to Republicans. He has spoken glowingly of Ronald Reagan, is friendly to religious voters and has invested heavily in advertising and staffing not just in the swing states of the Midwest but also in such Republican strongholds as Texas. Yet there are a number of myths about "Obamacans" (as Mr Obama calls them) or "Obamacons" (as pundits do). Their numbers are overestimated and their import is misunderstood. It is neither on foreign policy nor on economics but on religious values that Mr Obama has made his big pitch to party-switchers. There has been...

Wednesday, August 13, 2008 Obama creates the illusion of Republicans for Obama: scrapes barrel with 2 unknown GOP discards & a NY lib with dodgy friends Democrats for McCain including many of the millions who form part of the Just Say No Deal/ PUMA/ and NoBama coalitions are providing a solid block of support for John McCain. Not to be outdone Obama today, with great media fanfare, announced his Republicans for Obama group. This is another desperate attempt to reassure Democrat super-delegates that Obama is commanding broad support across the country, especially from Republicans who Obama argues would never rally...