Free Republic

. . . . . Elected Republicans should govern by the principles they profess in campaign rallies and advertisements. Those principles were once the difference between the parties. . . . . . The Republican Party, at its best, is a party of broad ideas and principles. For example, those who tend to vote Republican believe in limiting the size and scope of government and respect the guarantees of individual freedom and liberty of our Constitution. They respect life and its diversity; and they understand that free market capitalism, the glue that holds the Republican Party, and our nation, together,...

<p>So, you say you want to win elections? No problem. Just be more like the Democrats.</p> <p>1) Quit talking about abortion. Go along with the flow. A woman's body is hers to control. If a growing baby is in the way, who cares? Kill him!</p>

The next time you take your family to visit the American Museum of Natural History, be sure to make time to see their collection of fossil remains of extinct creatures. These include the dodo bird, the Tasmanian tiger, the Caspian tiger … and the Northeast American Republican. Laymen tend to think the mass extinctions surrounding the last ice age happened fairly rapidly, but some animals such as the short faced bear lingered on in small numbers for thousands of years. By comparison, the once robust herds of United States Republicans roaming the territories north of Virginia and east of Ohio...

Many Arizona conservatives would like nothing more than to see Sen. John McCain knocked off in a Republican primary. But few of them think Chris Simcox, the controversial founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps who recently announced he would challenge McCain, is a serious threat to do it. Despite Simcox’s high-profile leadership on illegal immigration on the state’s southern border — a potent issue in the state’s Republican primary — party insiders say the 48-year-old former grade school teacher carries a heavy load of personal baggage and faces ample skepticism from rank-and-file Republican voters. “I’m very unhappy with Sen....

(snip) With regard to Sen. Jim DeMint's comment that it's better to lose with 30 committed conservatives than it is to win with 60 unprincipled opportunists (or, what the media refer to as a "big-tent coalition of moderates"), he correctly reads the tax-day protest tea leaves. The Republican Party can't outspend or be perceived as more moderate than Democrats. Many conservatives and libertarians are prepared to bolt from the Republican Party at a grassroots level unless the GOP recommits to the limited government principles that Mr. Specter embraced only when politically expedient. The Journal's editors liken a 30-vote minority party...

On this week's ABC News Shuffle Podcast, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, talks candidly about the party-switch of Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Penn., her worries about her party and why she shouldn't be attacked for helping to remove money to combat the flu from the stimulus package. . . . . . "I was really stunned by his decision and it took me completely by surprise," the Maine senator says of Specter's announcement. "I would not have been surprised had he announced that he was retiring and I would've been less surprised if he'd announced he was going to become an independent...

Wondering how all the anti-Republican "I'm not gonna vote for McCain" folks think about about what they got? What do these same . . . true believers . . . believe is in store for us during the mid-term elections?

Sen. Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party means Democrats may need another moderate Republican to help them move a Supreme Court nominee out of the Judiciary Committee. At first glance, with Democrats a hair away from a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, one would expect President Obama to have no trouble hand-picking a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. But in an ironic twist, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party this week could give Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee the upper hand in rejecting a nominee they find unacceptable. That's because the Judiciary...

The return of Sen. Arlen Specter to the Democratic Party (he flipped in 1965 from “Kennedy Democrat” to Republican) is something that should be celebrated by Republicans, at least those who are proud to call themselves conservatives. Specter is a career politician whose first priority is himself. Specter, whose predictable lament that the GOP is not the “big tent” he had been led to believe it was, now embraces a Democratic Party that is an even smaller tent. How many pro-life Democrats exercise any influence in that party? How many opponents to same-sex marriage are in the Democratic leadership? Smaller...

The party needs a healthy debate, but not because he's left. BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL Arlen Specter's decision to go Democrat has sent the GOP into a new round of infighting over what the party is, and where it goes now. Mr. Specter is a very unhealthy basis on which to be having what might otherwise be a healthy debate. Not that anything could stop the bitter winds now blowing through the Republican fields. Within hours of Mr. Specter's bombshell, the sides were formed up. Team Good Riddance featured the Club for Growth's Andy Roth: "Arlen Specter is the epitome...

Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has some advice for Senator Arlen Specter, who bolted the GOP to become a Democrat: Take John McCain with You! Maybe some Republicans are missing former GOP senator Arlen Specter, but not so for Rush Limbaugh, the controversial conservative radio talk show host an err apparent to the elephant kingdom. “It's ultimately good.” the acerbic radio talk show host quipped to his audience on Tuesday. “You're weeding out people who aren't really Republicans," he added. "A lot of people say, 'Well, Specter, take McCain with you. And his daughter“, referring to Megan McCain,...

Washington.IT is disheartening and disconcerting, at the very least, that here we are today — almost exactly eight years after Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party — witnessing the departure of my good friend and fellow moderate Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, for the Democratic Party. And the announcement of his switch was all the more painful because I believe it didn’t have to be this way. When Senator Jeffords became an independent in 2001, I said it was a sad day for the Republicans, but it would be even sadder if we failed to confront and learn...

79 year old five term Pennsylvania traitor Arlen Specter is the first casualty of the 2010 house cleaning. Never in US history, has the anti-incumbent sentiment been so broad and deep among frustrated American patriots who still believe in Life, Liberty and the Right to individually define and pursue Happiness. Ninety-nine days of the second most unpopular administration in US history, was all the people were willing to endure. The clarion call for real patriotic "change" has come from Main Street America, and the Tax Day Tea Parties have forced the first faux Republican out of their party. After years...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Arlen Specter's abrupt move to switch allegiance to President Barack Obama's Democratic Party was a sharp blow to Republicans and will likely generate more soul-searching for the minority party. His decision to seek re-election as a Democrat next year was a nakedly political move to hang on to power.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Sen. Olympia Snowe — one of the three moderate Republicans including Arlen Specter who supported President Obama's stimulus package — told CNN Tuesday that she has also been approached many times about becoming a Democrat, but that it hasn't happened for a while. "I've been asked, but not recently," she said. Snowe said the Republican Party never learned its lesson from the "painful" party switch of Sen. Jim Jeffords in 2001.

Polls show bailout madness serious threat to GOP incumbents. BY DREW ZAHN Crowds have long protested Congress with rally cries of "Throw the bums out," and if recent polls tabulating tea party furor over government spending translate to votes in 2010, angry Americans may make good on their mantra. Polls released by Rasmussen Reports this week demonstrate that – at least within the Republican Party – sitting incumbents who vote for increased government, taxes and federal bailouts risk voter backlash in the next election. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., for example, is one of only three Republicans in Congress to vote...

Chris Simcox, the co-founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps in Arizona announced Wednesday he is stepping down from his position with the Minutemen to challenge Sen. John McCain in the 2010 Republican primary. In an earlier blog post, we asked who you would be more likely to vote for. As of 11 p.m. April 23, roughly 58 percent of the 36 respondents said they would vote for Chris Simcox over John McCain. Do you agree? You can still take our poll.

Meet "Juan" McCain. You already know him as John McCain, however you can expect McCain to get much more in touch with his inner illegal alien. McCain will finally get a serious primary challenge for his Senate seat from Chris Simcox, a founder of the Minutemen organization. How better to draw attention to ineffectual RINOs like McCain, than to take one out, and deservedly so. McCain's has been pandering to illegal aliens for the sake of votes. Because the fact of the matter is that no country in the world sanctions illegal immigration. (Except now, apparently, the United States.) I...

"We just have a difference here, and I’m president,” said Obama after his first meeting with the Republican leadership on the stimulus package. Rahm Emanuel said Obama was being lighthearted in his comment and that lawmakers of both parties had laughed. But on the inside Republicans weren’t laughing. After crushing defeats in two election cycles it will be almost impossible to get a conservative agenda through on any level. They are at very low numbers and hanging on by a thread in the Senate. With all the respect I can muster, I understand the situation but Republicans cannot continue to...