Free Republic

As a very political year approaches an end, and a new presidential election cycle looms, it’s a good time for conservatives to step back from partisan politics and reflect on their cause. What do conservatives believe? Here are 10 principles worth pondering. 1. God’s Law Governs Nations as Well as Men. The Ten Commandments should not only be enshrined in our courthouses, they should be engraved in our hearts and minds as guides to all behavior, public and private. As the Founders acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence, laws and policies that violate the natural law are abuses of government...

Massachusetts residents who remain uninsured in 2008 will begin facing monthly fines based on their age and income, according to new regulations unveiled by the Department of Revenue on Monday. Here are how much different people may have to pay: — The highest fines are leveled at those earning three times the annual federal poverty level, or $30,636 for an individual. Individuals aged 27 or older who are over that income threshold will pay the top fine of $76 a month, or $912 a year. — Married couples earning more than $41,076 would each have to pay the top fine...

The Republican Party primary has so far been an exercise in none of the above. In their turns John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney seemed to be or seemed about to be frontrunners — only to fall back as the party's likely voters got a sharper look at each of them. Even my old boss Newt Gingrich, without even announcing, had a handsome surge from 4-5 percent to 18-20 percent in February — before falling back to single digits.

NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE SHAKES UP RACE FOR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION: Nation’s largest pro-life group endorses Fred Thompson WASHINGTON – Marking the first major endorsement by a national grassroots organization in the Republican presidential contest, National Right to Life, the nation’s largest pro-life organization representing pro-lifers in fifty state affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, today announced its endorsement of former Senator Fred Thompson for President of the United States. “As the first major grassroots organization to enter the Republican presidential race, National Right to Life is proud to endorse Fred Thompson,” stated Wanda Franz, Ph.D., president of National...

Ronald Reagan used to tell the story of a boy so optimistic that when he woke up on Christmas morning and was confronted with a huge mound of manure, he gleefully began shoveling. "There's a pony in here someplace!" he exclaimed. For President Bush, when it comes to Iraq, every day is Christmas day. He's been shoveling for more than four years but still fully expects that pony to pop out at any moment. On Capitol Hill, though, even Republicans are starting to suspect that the malodorous pile is that and nothing more. On Thursday, the White House released its...

Startlingly, Fred Thompson has managed to emerge as a top-tier candidate for the Republican Party’s 2008 presidential nomination without either declaring himself a candidate or spending much money. As a result, the former Tennessee senator is now in the process of assembling a campaign team, testing the waters and preparing for what everyone believes will be a formal announcement sometime this summer. If it works, he’ll be able to say, “I seen my opportunity—and I took it,” because he appears to be in the right place at the right time and could benefit from the almost palpable craving among many...

Hell is “h—l.” Damn is “d—n.” Nancy Reagan is “Mommie,” and “my guardian angel.” The vice president is “George B.,” and occasionally “Geo. B.” “The Reagan Diaries,” a 767-page flashback to be published Tuesday, shows the 40th president as few people knew him, jotting with blunt candor and clarity during quiet times on Air Force One and in the privacy of the second-floor study off his White House bedroom. The meticulous handwritten entries in five leather-bound volumes, now condensed to one for publication, provide thought bubbles for the iconic photographs of the Reagan presidency, showing what he was really thinking...

Rudy Giuliani is taking a big gamble. Rather than fundamentally shift his views on abortion, he is banking that Republicans want a leader and a winner more than a pro-life advocate. In a key speech on Friday and an appearance on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace he made clear he believes in a woman’s right to choose but offered some accommodations to pro-life voters. THE SPEECH On Friday he rolled the dice, venturing into potentially hostile territory at Houston’s Baptist University. Like Woody Allen, he apparently hoped his audience would agree that 90% of life is showing up. The...

It was the decisive moment of the South Carolina debate. Hearing Rep. Ron Paul recite the reasons for Arab and Islamic resentment of the United States, including 10 years of bombing and sanctions that brought death to thousands of Iraqis after the Gulf War, Rudy Giuliani broke format and exploded: "That's really an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of 9-11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I have ever heard that before, and I have heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11. "I would ask the congressman to...

"After months of conflicting signals on abortion, Rudolph W. Giuliani is planning to offer a forthright affirmation of his support for abortion rights in public forums, television appearances and interviews in coming days," writes The New York Times. If true, it marks either the beginning of the end of the Giuliani campaign -- or the beginning of the end of the Party of Ronald Reagan. For Reagan's party was a pro-life party. Life defined the man. Life defined the movement he led. It was Reagan who insisted that his speechwriters include mention of the life issue in every State of...

It is more likely than not that Rudy Giuliani will be the Republican candidate in the 2008 United States presidential election. If so, there's at least an outside chance he will win that election. And if that happens, it is almost certain that at some point in the future we will find ourselves wondering how an unstable, nasty, bullying egomaniac -- a man described as "quite literally nuts" in the June issue of Vanity Fair -- became president of the United States. Here's a big part of the answer: In 1989, Rudy Giuliani ran for mayor of New York City....

Although he initially campaigned for office as a pro-choice Republican and was a key player in passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation so hated by conservatives, Fred Thompson is being urged to run for President next year by three of the nation’s top social conservative leaders. At a breakfast in Washington DC this morning hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, Gary Bauer of the Campaign for Working Families, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and Mark Earley of the Prison Fellowship voiced encouragement that the former Tennessee senator and star of TV’s “Law and Order” seek the Republican...

Rudy Giuliani, a contender for the presidency in 2008, is receiving an inordinate amount of positive attention. That's quite understandable since Rudy is charismatic, did a great job on the campaign trail for President Bush in 2004, and his phenomenal performance after 9/11 was much appreciated. However, likeable or not, having Rudy as the GOP's candidate in 2008 would be a big mistake. Here's a short, but sweet primer on some of Rudy's many flaws. Rudy's Strong Pro-Abortion Stance As these comments from a 1989 conversation with Phil Donahue show, Rudy Giuliani is staunchly in favor of abortion: "I've said...

?Albert Gonzales Is Spanish for David Souter? was a laugh-line heard and repeated frequently at meeting of the Federalist Society two years ago. That was a reference to the rumors of the time that President Bush would name Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales to a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Given Gonzales? relatively small ?paper trail? as White House Counsel and a justice of the Texas Supreme Court, members of the conservative legal group feared, a ?Mr. Justice Gonzales? could well turn out to like another member of the high court whose background gave no clue as to how he would...

As America careens from one artificial public controversy to the next, it becomes more and more obvious that politically correct liberalism dominates both parties, albeit in varying degrees of intensity. The Democrats represent full-throttle political correctness while Republicans stand ready to advance political correctness just a little bit more slowly. One of the Democrats' most successful rackets is to label any Republican position, no matter how timid, "extremist." This ensures that skittish Republicans will eventually even step away from that timid position. The "conservative" position, under the pressures of this demagoguery, inevitably becomes the liberal one of yesteryear, and then...

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has entered the presidential race with a head of steam thanks to a remarkably positive public image among most Americans due to his performance in the wake of Sept. 11. But his opponents say Giuliani will eventually be weighed down as GOP voters take a more comprehensive look at his record and character – and operatives for rival campaigns are making plans to give Giuliani a proper introduction to rough-and-tumble national politics Soon, Giuliani opponents say, it will be Rudy’s turn. “On the national stage people know him for two things right now –...

When it comes the Republican presidential primary, one thing is clear: conservatives are restless. There seems to be a consensus (well founded or not) among many conservatives that the "big three" -- McCain, Romney, and Giuliani -- have either questionable conservative credentials, or are blatantly hostile to conservative positions on key policy questions. Social conservatives seem to be having an especially difficult time finding an acceptable candidate to support. In the midst of all the whining and complaining, Rep. Tom Tancredo has rightly observed, "The conservative movement is not supposed to choose a candidate; it's supposed to produce one." He's...

It was a weekend of shameless pandering. In Selma Alabama, the forty-second anniversary of the famous voting rights march was commemorated in a most ignoble manner. Pandering shamelessly, Democrat presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton attempted to relate to largely black church congregations by speaking with what they obviously hoped would be interpreted as convincing southern drawls. In the end, they came off sounding like second-rate impersonations of Foghorn Leghorn and Aunt Jemima respectively. Such transparent posturing proves that the speakers regard their audiences as ignorant and backward chattel, who are easily impressed by a little effort at forced...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A Southern Baptist leader said Tuesday that evangelical voters might tolerate a divorced presidential candidate, but they have deep doubts about GOP hopeful Rudy Giuliani, who has been married three times. Richard Land, head of public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention, told The Associated Press that evangelicals believe the former New York City mayor showed a lack of character during his divorce from his second wife, television personality Donna Hanover. "I mean, this is divorce on steroids," Land said. "To publicly humiliate your wife in that way, and your children. That's rough. I think that's...

The weathervane of conventional wisdom has shifted radically on Rudy Giuliani's presidential prospects. That's why his current surge in the White House futures market is worth taking both seriously, and with a large grain of salt. That's because it is unclear whether the former New York mayor's rise to the top of the polls is based on most voters having enough information about him to make the same decision they will when they cast their ballots next year. There are two key unknowns about Giuliani's numbers: • Is he leading because most Republican voters don't know about his messy personal...