Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A straw poll of US conservative activists saw Texas congressman Ron Paul emerge as the preferred Republican presidential candidate to run against President Barack Obama in 2012. Some 31 percent of the more than 2,000 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) attendees who participated in the poll voted for the outspoken libertarian. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, John McCain's running mate in 2008, came in third with 7.0 percent, some way behind former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (22 percent), who had won the CPAC poll for the last three years. There were boos among the crowd as the...

HOUSTON — Republican gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina, reeling from her remarks that questioned whether the U.S. government was involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, on Friday blamed the ensuing firestorm on a “coordinated attack” that she speculated came from the campaigns of her better-known GOP rivals.

Debra Medina (TX Gov. Candidate) On Glenn Beck Tomorrow * Posted by Jared Law on February 10, 2010 at 9:14am in 9.12 Project Candidates Glenn Beck just announced that Debra Medina (R-TX) is within a few points of Kay Bailey Hutchison, and what I took from the way he worded it was that he is suggesting that she MAY be the real deal, and that she MAY be the candidate that the Tea Party Movement (9.12 Project Included, one must assume) has been looking for. There has been so much discussion of Debra Medina here on The 9.12 Project Network,...

An unexpected feature of this year's gubernatorial race is the revival of certain political notions identified with early American history. Republican candidate Debra Medina in particular has made nullification a major aspect of her campaign, both in her two debates with U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Gov. Rick Perry and on her Web site, which includes, under the label "Restore Sovereignty," the message that the U.S. Constitution "divides power between the federal and state governments and ultimately reserves final authority for the people themselves. Texas must stop the over reaching federal government and nullify federal mandates in agriculture, energy,...

(CNN) - The newest member of the Senate will soon hit the 2010 campaign trail for Arizona Sen. John McCain. A McCain source confirms Sen. Scott Brown, R-Massachusetts, will campaign with the 2008 Republican presidential nominee in early March. McCain is facing a primary challenge from former Rep. J.D. Hayworth. (snip) Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin will also hit the campaign trail for McCain at the end of March.

The head weasel at the RNC tells that I have a choice to make. To whit: 'Will Barack Obama continue to have Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid majorities in Concress to ram through his radical leftist agenda of curtailed freedoms and government expansion, or... ...will our Party's commonsense conservative candidates prevail next November and roll back the left-wing gains that are threatening our prosperity and liberty?' Well, you have to admire their sheer nerve and effrontery in making this sort of play for my wallet. The letter mentions New Jersey and Virginia as signal victories, but they somehow forgot to mention their...

With their third straight loss of a House seat in a special election, Republicans are discovering that they’re in crisis. Well, duh! After all, here you have a political party that preaches the old libertarian mantra of “free enterprise, private property, and limited government” while embracing and supporting such socialist, interventionist, and imperial programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, income taxation, the drug war, paper money, the Federal Reserve, the war on immigrants, the war on poverty, torture, wars of aggression, military occupations, kidnapping and rendition, suspension of habeas corpus, and denial of due process of law, right to counsel,...

RENO, Nevada (AP) — Outmaneuvered by raucous Ron Paul supporters, Nevada Republican Party leaders abruptly shut down their state convention and now must resume the event to complete a list of 31 delegates to the GOP national convention. Outnumbered supporters of expected Republican presidential nominee John McCain faced off Saturday against well-organized Paul supporters. A large share of the more than 1,300 state convention delegates enabled Paul supporters to get a rule change positioning them for more national convention delegate slots than expected. "I've seen factions walk out. I've never seen a party walk out," said Jeff Greenspan, regional coordinator...

There has been a lot of talk in the news recently about the Federal Reserve and the actions it has taken over the past few months. Many media pundits have been bending over backwards to praise the Fed for supposedly restoring stability to the market. This interpretation of the Fed's actions couldn't be further from the truth. The current market crisis began because of Federal Reserve monetary policy during the early 2000s in which the Fed lowered the interest rate to a below-market rate. The artificially low rates led to overinvestment in housing and other malinvestments. When the first indications...

BLAINE, Minn. – Ron Paul supporters shook things up in at least three of Minnesota's congressional district conventions yesterday when they captured nearly all of the national delegates and alternates for the Republican National Convention this fall. There was controversy at Minnesota's 6th Congressional District Convention. The district covers part of the Twin Cities metro area and extends to the west and into nearby St. Cloud, Minn. Paul supporters were accused of dirty tricks. "They hijacked the convention," said Jeff Johnson who serves as Minnesota's Senate District 15 co-chairman. Two out of three national delegates elected were Ron Paul supporters...

Paul backers won control of GOP confabs in Austin, Victoria. Want a fresh political surprise? How about supporters of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul for president staking a lasting claim in the Republican Party of Texas? As Democrats tussled over their presidential candidates at recent regional conventions, Paul backers unexpectedly took control of a GOP convention in Austin and the Victoria County convention. The results at Travis County's state Senate District 25 convention left old-guard Republicans wondering who lost the party's car keys — and worse. Gail Suttle, active in GOP circles since the 1980s, watched the takeover in horror. Suttle...

In a message to supporters sent just before 11 p.m. Friday night, Representative Ron Paul, a long-shot G.O.P. candidate from Texas, basically conceded that he’s not going to win the party’s nomination. That said, he’s scaling back his campaign — but not entirely. He said: With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do...

I just received a strange polling call. Without any announcement of who or what prompted the call, a robopoll looking for my presidential preference asked me to select from the slate of Republican candidates. After answering the single question, it disconnected me. No demographic questions were asked, and no explanation of the poll's sponsor was given even at the end. I checked out my caller-ID, which gave the following phone number: 877-766-7285. That takes callers to the Ron Paul for President Campaign call center. I guess we know what Paul does with the donations he received. It's curious, though, that...

After the Republican debate on Tuesday evening in Dearborn, Mich., a reporter from the Arab-American News asked Ron Paul what he thought of the term “Islamic fascism.” “It’s a false term to make people think we’re fighting Hitler,” Paul responded. “It’s war propaganda designed to generate fear so that the war has to be spread.” The call has gone out to all the Muslim Americans to hurry up and register to vote Republican so that they can vote in the Republican Primary to support Ron Paul, the anti-interventionist, non-isolationist candidate for President of the United States. Muslims are opening their...

Second-tier presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) pulled off a first-rate fundraising coup, netting $4.3 million in online contributions from 38,000 donors in a single day, bringing his total haul to $7.3 million in 4Q 2007. No other Republican comes close to Paul’s 24-hour feat, but Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has him beat at $6.2 million. Paul supporters flashed their cash in honor of Guy Fawkes Day, which commemorates the would-be assassin of England’s King James I on Nov. 5, 1605. Guy Fawkes was also the inspiration the novel-turned-movie "V for Vendetta," in which the lead character takes on a...

Ron Paul clearly won the Republican presidential debate last night held in New Hampshire. Viewers were asked to text in their thoughts on who won the debate, Ron Paul received 34%, Giuliani 17%, all others lower. Fred Thompson who did not appear at the debate was clearly the largest loser as his pro-war stance and republican hard line talking points seem to be not what the people are looking for. Sean Hannity, Fox News pundit, was clearly upset with the results and deliberately ridiculed Congressman Ron Paul. Although outpacing all other candidates by a 2-1 margin, it was clear that...

Lately, there has been a growing movement on Free Republic to support the Presidential candidacy of Ron Paul. His supporters claim that he is the only true conservative candidate, and that Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, Fred Thompson, etc. are not conservatives. While Paul may have some good ideas regarding domestic issues, his foreign policy ideas are downright dangerous. Here are ten questions for him that I would like to see answered. 1. AFGHANISTAN We all know your position on Iraq. But what is your position on the war in Afghanistan? Do you demand an immediate withdrawal of all troops there?...