Free Republic

For more than a generation, James Carville's campaign maxim, "It's the economy, stupid," has been held up as an essential truth of American politics. There's no denying that a strong economy is an incumbent president's best friend. Seventy-three percent of voters currently rate the economy as a very important issue. As a result, if the economy remains strong for another 1 1/2 years, many analysts believe President Donald Trump will be favored to win reelection. On the other hand, if a recession hits next year, we will almost certainly have a new president in 2021. However, recent data about the...

Dear 2016 GOP hopefuls: First of all, best of luck. If you are successful, it will be your job to dig the United States out of the eight-year abyss of the Obama presidency. This will take courage, vision, hard work and resiliency. If you have these things, great, but before we get to evaluating your worthiness to fight terror or shrink the government, we’d best see if you have the skills to navigate a couple of annoying questions from reporters. Many of you in the field may be tempted to take all of the questions about evolution and Barack...

[snip]The official merchandise Web site for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign has sold clothing made in Burma, whose goods were banned by Bush from the U.S. last year to punish its military dictatorship. [snip]

You have to hand it to them. Leftists are nothing if not tenacious. Monday’s New York Times reported that a couple of rich Chicago Democrats are trying to put together a liberal radio network to counterbalance Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talkers. The fat cats have selected a CEO with a mission: "The object of the programming is to be progressive and make a statement that counters this din from the right." Listening to that din chatter might make one think that conservatives tightly control the entire media. That’s preposterous. As has been persuasively and repeatedly documented, much of the...