Free Republic

I believe that the ruling class politicians see Palin as a real threat to their status quo, and her postponement of announcing her candidacy as a hindrance to their stopping her. One way to force her hand earlier than she intends is to move up the primaries. Anybody else see a pattern here?

WASHINGTON - Representative Michele Bachmann has rapidly gained ground in a new poll of New Hampshire voters, tapping her popularity with Tea Party activists and potentially causing problems for Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor, who has long dominated polls in the Granite State, had his lead cut to single-digits in a new survey done by Public Policy Polling. Although polls taken six months before voters head to the polls can be unreliable, they can also provide a window into a volatile Republican electorate. Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican, would get 18 percent of the vote, according to the...

While Rep. Michele Bachmann has forcefully denounced the Medicaid program for swelling the "welfare rolls," the mental health clinic run by her husband has been collecting annual Medicaid payments totaling over $137,000 for the treatment of patients since 2005, according to new figures obtained by NBC News. The previously unreported payments are on top of the $24,000 in federal and state funds that Bachmann & Associates, the clinic founded by Marcus Bachmann, a clinical therapist, received in recent years under a state grant to train its employees, state records show. The figures were provided to NBC News in response to...

...Bachmann and her staff declined to talk to about the government assistance for the L.A. Times article. But asked about the issue on "Fox News Sunday," she insisted that she and her husband had not benefited at the expense of federal and state taxpayers. "First of all," she said, "the money that went to the clinic was actually training money for employees. The clinic did not get the money. And my husband and I did not get the money either. That's mental health training money that went to employees." As for the farm, she said it belonged to her father-in-law....

Washington (CNN) - With the Republican base largely unified in its contempt for President Obama's health care law, Sen. Jim DeMint, an icon of the tea party movement, has been forced to explain his early support for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's health care plan, which was a model for reform on the federal level. The South Carolinian cited the "innovative" Massachusetts health care plan when he endorsed Romney's 2008 presidential bid, saying the plan leveraged "good conservative ideas" like bringing private insurance companies into the process. DeMint told CNN over the weekend at the Republican Leadership Conference in New...

The Republican Party, at least since the administration of William McKinley, has been perceived as the party of privilege...the party of the elites. While not always fair, the GOP Establishment seems to have an almost endemic hostility to the kind of grassroots, populist movements typified by the TEA Party and Sarah Palin. The GOP Establishment has sought, with almost complete success, to quash such movements over the past century. A small government populist conservative has only crept into the GOP hierarchy twice in the last century, both times in completely unanticipated fashion and both times beyond the control of the...

Sarah and Jerry Groff, aka Bones SARAH PALIN wrote on FaceBook: Quads, Bogs, and Bones Life is so unpredictable, and like my dad always says, it’s “too short to be stuck in a rut!” One way to get out of a rut is to find inspiration in the great outdoors. Activity and fresh air are energizing! Sunday at 9pm ET/8c on “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” we show you a few things that we find more fulfilling than staying indoors and sitting on the couch. Plato said, “You learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a...

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that Sarah Palin is considering a run for president in 2012. "She's obviously toying with the idea," Graham said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Sarah Palin may be a popular pick for Republicans in 2012, but the former Alaska Gov. is staying cagey on her presidential plans. "I've never committed to running for president," Palin said on Fox News Sunday. "That's not where my focus is." Instead, Palin says she is devoting her attention to getting Republicans back in office this fall.

Though the post-election infighting between Sarah Palin and the McCain team has largely died down, the former Alaska governor took one more shot at her former running mate’s campaign on Thursday. In an interview with the Daily Caller, Palin said Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) camp didn’t do enough to defend her record when it came under attack. “To not have had the McCain campaign staff defend my record was an insurmountable challenge, because once a bell is rung, it’s impossible to un-ring,” Palin told the website.

To understand why Democrats ever picked Mondale, you have to understand where the party — and where the country — was in 1982 and 1983, when the nation’s verdict on Reagan and his policies was far less positive. In those days, with unemployment surging over 10 percent and the president’s popularity slipping to sub-Carter levels, Democrats mistakenly assumed that the ‘80 election had been a mirage. The electorate, they figured, had acted in haste and was rapidly returning to its senses. The results of the 1982 midterms, when Republicans (who had begun the cycle with claims that they’d win...

She was FORCED out for financial reasons. If anyone tells you she quit let them know otherwise. Her legal fee had accumulated higher than 500K. Her personal income was JUST OVER 100K a year. Financially her family was going under quickly. And they were filing another ethics complaint everytime she left the state. She was afraid to give interviews in the governors office. She was afraid to allow anyone other than staff in the Governors office after the TaserGate ordeal. They were destroying her. So, what were her options ? She tried to set up a legal defense fund. At...

I have lost THREE real life friends now in trying to defend Sarah Palin. On one hand I tend to think the people who call her stupid are not the kind of people I even want as friends anyhow. However, I wonder if im being too harsh and going too far. I know our country was divided on President Bush. But the division and the hatred for Sarah Palin has been able to top anything. Before Palin, I had a much more positive outlook on people (especially women, mothers, ect) and life in general. Now I find myself seeing people...

Sarah Palin, 55 percent unfavorable poll ratings notwithstanding, is a political phenomenon the likes of which American public life rarely has seen. There's something distinctive, something deeply personal, about the way her legions of strong supporters rush not just to defend her but to counter-attack any and all of her critics. Palin has a way of establishing a sense of connectedness with her backers -- such a strong, attitudinal sense that she is not just like them but one of them -- that she has created what amounts to a one-woman, conservative "identity politics" writ very, very large. Yet if...

PHOENIX (AP) — John McCain and Sarah Palin are scheduled to campaign together in Arizona next week for the first time since they conceded the presidential election in Phoenix in 2008. Palin and McCain will be at a rally and picnic in Tucson on March 26, followed the next day by a rally in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.