Free Republic

The furor over the cyberattacks injecting turmoil into Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign obscures a more pervasive danger to the U.S. political process: Much of it has only lax security against hackers, with few if any federal cops on the beat. No one regulator is responsible for requiring campaigns, political operations and state and local agencies to protect the sanctity of the voter rolls, voters’ personal data, donors’ financial information or even the election outcomes themselves. And as the Democrats saw in Philadelphia this past week, the result can be chaos.

That cheery, DIY effort masks a different campaign, one that is slowly expiring in all the usual ways of terminal campaigns at the end-stage: cash is running low, supporters are griping about not getting paid and aides are valiantly trying to convince themselves as much as the press that, really, there is a path forward.......To a degree rarely seen in presidential politics, Gingrich is his own strategist, scheduler and press secretary.“He makes the decisions about 99.9 percent of the campaign,”.........“They never build any structure to live past the next state,” complained one GOP strategist who advised Gingrich in one key...

KNOXVILLE, Iowa – Even before votes are cast here, movement conservatives across the country are beginning to fear that 2012 will be a replay of the last GOP presidential primary: conservatives divided between candidates, enabling a center-right contender to march up the middle and claim the nomination. Time is running short on activist Republicans who have long yearned for a unifying Mitt Romney alternative in the race – leading some to worry that if they don’t stop him in Iowa on Tuesday, they may not be able to stop him at all. Rick Santorum’s late surge in Iowa, coupled with...

A drastic departure from his usual image as a stoic, policy-drive candidate, Gingrich cried more than once in recalling how even today he still cries when he sings Christmas carols. GOP pollster Frank Luntz asked the tear-evoking question. "I get teary-eyed everytime we sing Christmas carols," he said, starting to choke up. "My mother sang in the choir and loved singing in the choir. And I don't know if I should admit this, but when I was very young she made me sing in the choir and we had pictures of me at a very young age singing in the...

With not one Republican primary vote cast yet, we're getting way ahead of ourselves by speculating about whom Mitt Romney might pick as his vice-presidential running mate. But Willie Geist did invite Politico's Mike Allen to make his "bold predictions" for 2012. And Allen delivered, prognosticating that Romney would pick Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman as his ticket-mate. Mark Halperin strongly seconded Allen's assertion. View the video here.

Evangelicals are more aware of Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion than they were at the beginning of the summer, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute. The PRRI poll showed that a majority of white evangelicals — 53 percent — now know that Romney is a member of the LDS Church. That’s a 9-point increase since July. White evangelicals were the only religious subgroup in the poll to show a growing awareness of Romney’s faith. They’re also the only respondents among whom a majority knew Romney was a Mormon. The 9-point increase is not a dramatic leap,...

At least five times on the campaign trail reporters have had physical confrontations with members of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's staff, Politico reports. The story calls the instances "unusually hostile encounters with the traveling media marked by pushing, shoving and, in one instance, the allegation of a threat of violence to a reporter." There's often no love lost between reporters and campaign staffers, the story says, but "the number and intensity of incidents is unusual, particularly in Iowa, where reporters and the public are accustomed to almost unlimited access as an early state presidential ritual." Campaign spokeswoman Alice Stewart said: “The...

Tim Pawlenty manager Nick Ayers sent a blast email today to supporters making the case why Iowans will rally to the former Minnesota governor and Michele Bachmann will fade. After reiterating Pawlenty's accomplishments in St. Paul, Ayers wrote: "This doesn't make great fodder for cable news but as more Republican primary voters start to tune in to the race, they are finding out that the Governor’s record and message will stand the test a brutal campaign. Other candidates’ records (or lack thereof), and plans for the future (or lack thereof) won't." The manager also claimed they "had a record week...

Sarah Palin may have been making the case for herself with a Facebook post last night arguing that a president must be "a strong chief executive [who] has been entrusted with real authority in the past and has achieved a proven track record of positive measurable accomplishments." But she also sounds an awful lot like Tim Pawlenty, whose indictment against Michele Bachmann is that three-term member of Congress gives a good speech but hasn't actually accomplished anything. Wrote Palin: "Leaders are expected to give good speeches, but leadership is so much more than oratory. Real leadership requires deeds even more...

MANCHESTER, N.H. - As it played out on TV this week, Sarah Palin’s “One Nation” road trip of U.S. historical sites was a masterpiece of political mischief-making – a wild dash up the East Coast that delighted her fans and cornered the market on 2012 coverage for days on end. That’s not how the bus tour looked to Republicans on the ground, many of whom are more convinced than ever that the former Alaska governor is simply not serious about running for president. While Palin has reveled in giving an extended one-fingered salute to the national press, refusing to give...

Day 2 of Sarah Palin’s bus tour, and the former vice presidential nominee has prompted little more than confusion at exactly what she is up to. Palin started Memorial Day at the National Archives in Washington, but the only reporters who made it to her brief media availability there were those who happened to see tourists posting on Twitter that they had spotted her. SNIP Indeed, Twitter is about the only way to follow the former Alaska governor – unless you’re either Fox News host Greta Van Susteren or her husband, John Coale. The Fox News host is traveling around...

It's a fool's errand to use traditional indicators as definitive evidence that Sarah Palin is or is not running for president. If nothing else, she's made clear since her national debut two-and-a-half years ago that she plays by her own set of rules. But her pugnacious speech over the weekend in Wisconsin, promotion thereof and re-launch of her PAC's website today, suggests that she very much wants to stay in the political conversation. As has been well-documented, Palin reads most everything written about her. So she surely didn't miss recent stories about her declining poll numbers and relative quiet. For...

And so it finally happened. Obviously troubled by the fact that Donald Trump’s questions surrounding Barack Obama’s birth certificate are starting to gain some real traction, Ben Smith at the left-wing Politico finally panicked and fired off the Race Card. Hilariously, Smith did so using my favorite brand of agendized journOlism, what I call the “Some Say” tactic. How it works is very simple. In order for Smith to hide behind his dishonest and arrogant veil of objectivity, he simply finds others saying what he wants to say and abuses his position to amplify the charges directly

Here's a part of his post at CNN, where he is apparently a regular contributor, which makes the point: "Ben Smith in Politico reports that the trip was booked through a Christian tour operator. But the real news is who did not book the trip: the Republican Jewish Coalition, the group that brought George W. Bush to Israel in 1998, Mitt Romney in 2007, Haley Barbour in 2011, and many other presidential hopefuls beside. "Very likely you have never heard of the Republican Jewish Coalition. But then again, you probably are not seeking the Republican presidential nomination. If you were...

Sarah Palin used to pronounce Mitt Romney's name "M-I-L-T." In one of the many embarrassing anecdotes about the former Alaska governor, former aide Frank Bailey writes in a leaked manuscript that Palin actually argued with some of her staffers about how to correctly pronounce Romney's name. During her own 2006 campaign for governor, when Romney was chairman of the Republican Governors Association, Bailey writes that Palin didn't seem to know much about the then-Massachusetts governor. “During the campaign for governor, when Romney was in the background of our Republican Governors’ mess, Sarah didn’t even have a clear idea who he...

Oprah called on President Obama's critics on Friday to “show some level of respect.” "I feel that everybody has a learning curve, and I feel that the reason why I was willing to step out for him was because I believed in his integrity and I believed in his heart," the influential TV host said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in Chicago. Of the negative mood of the country, Oprah added, “I think everybody complaining ought to try it for once.” She said the presidency is a position that “holds a sense of authority and governance over us all,” and that...

Americans responded with overwhelming positivity to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech, two polls conducted after the Tuesday night speech found...

And Politico effectively joins Barack Obama's re-election campaign. Politico's increasingly leftward lean has finally caused it to fall over entirely. The sheer volume of anti-Palin stories over the last week was breathtaking. It's clear that they have targeted Palin. To wit: First they were critical of Palin for not saying anything: Tucson shooting presents 2012 test Their widely divergent reactions — from Tim Pawlenty’s subtle distancing from his beleaguered rival, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin; to her virtual disappearance; to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s feeding of the right-wing base — are telling for what they show about the...

In the span of a single news cycle, Republicans got a jarring reminder of two forces that could prevent them from retaking the presidency in next year. At sunrise in the East on Wednesday, Sarah Palin demonstrated that she has little interest — or capacity — in moving beyond her brand of grievance-based politics. And at sundown in the West, Barack Obama reminded even his critics of his ability to rally disparate Americans around a message of reconciliation. Palin was defiant, making the case in a taped speech she posted online why the nation’s heated political debate should continue unabated...

On a day that political leaders in Washington and Arizona devoted to honoring Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and other victims of Saturday’s mass shooting in Tucson, Sarah Palin proved once again that her bully pulpit is second to none in commanding the attention and passions of the political world. As Democratic and Republican lawmakers filed into the well of the House to offer prayers for the severely wounded Giffords and the six people who were killed, Palin’s eight-minute Facebook video — in which she accuses her opponents of “blood libel” — dominated the national political conversation. The video, released shortly after...