Free Republic

Perhaps no Republican has had a better 2013 than Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator who drew attention and praise for his talking filibuster against the C.I.A. director nominee John Brennan, then last week won the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. Then, on Tuesday, as my colleague Ashley Parker reports, Mr. Paul gave a speech to the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, outlining his plan for immigration reform. Mr. Paul has been fairly explicit about his potential interest in running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, so it is safe to assume that at...

Marco Rubio takes second place - Sen. Rand Paul won the 2013 Washington Times-CPAC presidential preference straw poll Saturday, and Sen. Marco Rubio was a close second, easily outdistancing the rest of the field and signaling the rise of a new generation of conservative leaders who will take the Republican Party into the 2016 election. Mr. Paul won 25 percent of the vote, and Mr. Rubio collected 23 percent. Former Sen. Rick Santorum was third with just 8 percent, New JerseyGov. Chris Christie — who was not invited to speak at the three-day Conservative Political Action Conference — was next...

After polling 190,000 conservatives, Contract From America found that Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is the favored GOP presidential pick for 2016, as The Daily Caller reports. While Paul leads the pack, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio are two other popular choices for 2016. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are running last in a pool of 32 candidates.

The Republican Party is at an impetus. Reflecting upon the 2012 primaries, it is easy for us to see how split the party has become. There was Rick Santorum, running almost entirely on social issues like abortion and family values, who drew a great deal of controversy by talking about bans on pornography and contraception. There was Ron Paul, an unwavering constitutional libertarian who championed Austrian economics and an end to wars abroad. He stood alongside Governor Rick Perry of Texas, who offered up a plan to go to war with Turkey and Venezuela. Eventually the party was left with...

Rand Paul is the hottest commodity in Republican Party politics right now. But how high can he rise? We put that question to a wide cross section of veteran Republican hands in the wake of the Kentucky Republican’s filibuster of John Brennan’s confirmation as CIA director last week and got a nearly unanimous response: Paul is already a national leader within the party and will be a major factor if (but really when) he runs for president in 2016. “The filibuster is the single largest leap I can recall from one act,” said Dave Carney, a New Hampshire-based GOP strategist...