Free Republic

Bob Dole didn’t hesitate this weekend out in Russell when asked who the Republican Party should nominate for president next year. Gen. David Petraeus, Dole said, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan who’s about to become CIA director. “We need another Eisenhower,” Dole said. He also fretted that President Obama will build a huge warchest, and the GOP nominee will be essentially starting from scratch after the primaries are over next year. That will give Obama a huge — but not necessarily an insurmountable edge, Dole said. As to the Tea Party? Dole said he thought he was conservative until this...

David Petraeus for President: Run General, Run With many voters yearning for an outsider, and military officers looked up to, General David Petraeus could be a powerful presidential candidate and a potentially accomplished President. Toby Harnden's 03 Apr 2010 Americans have never been so disgusted with their politicians. More than three-quarters of Americans disapprove of Congress. President Barack Obama's favourability ratings have slumped to below 50 per cent and he is no longer trusted or believed by many who voted for him. Republicans are faring little better and the growth of the Tea Party movement reflects the widespread disgust with...

David Petraeus for President: Run General, run With many voters yearning for an outsider, and military officers looked up to, General David Petraeus could be a powerful presidential candidate and a potentially accomplished President. Americans have never been so disgusted with their politicians. More than three-quarters of Americans disapprove of Congress. President Barack Obama's favourability ratings have slumped to below 50 per cent and he is no longer trusted or believed by many who voted for him. Republicans are faring little better and the growth of the Tea Party movement reflects the widespread disgust with Washington and the political class....

There is one towering person- physically, intellectually, and militarily who would make the ideal and unbeatable Republican candidate for US President in 2012. His name David Petraeus. Now of course, he's said that he has ruled out such a role for him in politics. But given the mess and morass in which this nation finds itself, one man can unify the country along the simple themes of being militarily strong, winning the war on terror, putting the mullahs in their place, adherence to Judeo-Christian principles, low taxes, American exceptionalism, fighting for the right to life, conservative judges, and above all...

President Obama has scaled back the scope of the Afghan war, now about to enter its ninth year, to a limited military objective: Deny al Qaeda a safe haven. And since we are now told there are fewer than 100 al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan - the rest are in Pakistan's tribal areas - a three-way deal between the Karzai government, powerful warlords and Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar would seem to be the better part of valor. After Iraq, we cannot afford another trillion-dollar war.

I wish he was wrong. As personalities, the syntax-mangling Ike and the self-consciously intellectual David Petraeus don’t have much in common. But politically, they’re in a parallel position. Today’s GOP has a right-wing base that can damage Obama, but none of its favorites have a prayer of winning the White House. The reason is that just like the Republican right of the early 1950s, which kept insisting that the New Deal constituted socialism (or fascism), today’s conservative activists have not accommodated themselves to some basic shifts in public mood. Over the past couple of decades, the American people have grown...

WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the face of the Iraq troop surge and a favorite of former President George W. Bush, spoke up or was called upon by President Obama “several times” during the big Afghanistan strategy session in the Situation Room last week, one participant says, and will be back for two more meetings this week.

Top Republicans, inspired by President Barack Obama’s recent drop in popularity, are newly optimistic about their chances of challenging him in 2012 and are focusing on some surprising names. Some major donors and GOP strategists have approached Joe Scarborough, the host of MSNBC’s "Morning Joe,” about a national run, according to party sources. Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, the Republican nominee in 1996, told POLITICO that he would like to see Army four-star Gen. David Petraeus — the head of the U.S. Central Command, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan — run for president as a latter-day Ike....