Free Republic

WASHINGTON— Newt Gingrich is calling Republican presidential campaign rival Mitt Romney "a Nelson Rockefeller Republican" who will have a hard time appealing to the GOP's base.

Ari Fleischer says there's no "way, shape or form" Sarah Palin can lock the Republican nomination. "I cannot see any way, shape or form that she can win the Republican primary," Fleischer, the former press secretary to President George W. Bush, said as reported by the Idaho Mountain Express. Fleischer, who was in Ketchum, Idaho to speak as part of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts' Lecture Series, said he'd never seen such a wide open Republican field, but that the former Alaska governor was not among the serious contenders....

After many feints in this direction dating back to 1996, Newt Gingrich seems to be finally preparing a run for president. Generally, he is not being taken as seriously as potential candidates like Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee—or even D.C. insider heartthrobs such as Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, and Chris Christie. I agree with this assessment of Gingrich’s potential, to an extent; he’s the opposite of a fresh new face, and the guy’s baggage rivals Charlie Sheen’s. Yet having carefully watched Gingrich up close since he was a Rockefeller Republican in the 1970s, I also know that he...

There's a better chance of seeing Governor Christie mingling with President Obama at the private dinner reception in Cresskill on Wednesday than finding him on stage with Sarah Palin or any other Tea Party gathering, for that matter. The pugnacious, rant-and-ramble governor may sound like a Tea Party activist from time to time, and Glen Beck may be smitten with a severe case of political man-love, but in reality Christie wants as little to do with them as possible. He prefers the high ground of the GOP establishment, perched at a safe distance from the roiling Tea Party tide. That...

So, Barack Obama’s approval rating is falling so quickly that it may soon be journeying to the center of the earth. So, the economy is in such terrible shape that those supposedly untouchable middle class tax cuts may expire. So, Florida happens to have three of the most corrupt politicians in the country running for one of its United States Senate seats. So, what? Instead of my usual weekly analysis of political happenings across the United States, I have decided to take a different approach with today’s article. A few nights ago, I stumbled across a very interesting study conducted...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Rudy Giuliani assured a conservative legal group Friday that if elected president he would appoint federal judges who adhere to their principles. He also praised a judge who declared the capital city's gun ban unconstitutional and ridiculed efforts to eliminate the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. In a speech marking the 25th anniversary of the Federalist Society, Giuliani spelled out a conservative legal agenda in which he cited Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts as models for the judges he would appoint to the federal...

As Rudolph W. Giuliani campaigns for president, he rarely misses a chance to warn about the threat from terrorists. "They hate you," he told a woman at an Atlanta college. They "want to kill us," he told guests at a Virginia luncheon. The former New York City mayor exhorts America to fight back in what he calls the "terrorists' war on us" and accuses Democrats of reverting to their "denial" in the 1990s, when, he said, President Bill Clinton erred by treating terrorism as a law enforcement matter, not a war. Democrats, he said in July, have "the same bad...

GLENN BECK PROGRAM BEGIN TRANSCRIPT GLENN: Welcome to the program. Mayor Giuliani, how are you? GIULIANI: Nice to talk to you. GLENN: Rudy, first of all, loved you in the debate. I saw the polls and people disagree with me. They thought you were talking about New York too much. I personally thought you won the night the other night. I thought you were very clear. The reason why you were talking about New York is you're not hanging your hat on September 11th. You're hanging your hat on all kinds of things. You have vast amounts of experience and...

Fred Thompson still hasn't officially entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but he's already a strong contender. Thompson, the "Law & Order" actor and former Tennessee senator, is tied with Arizona Sen. John McCain for second place, behind former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, in the latest CBS News poll. With Thompson in the mix, Giuliani leads among Republican primary voters with 34 percent. He's followed by Thompson and McCain, at 22 percent and 21 percent, respectively; and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 6 percent. Without Thompson in the field, Giuliani jumps up to 42 percent, trailed...

Lawmakers in Canada appear to be paving the way for "deep integration" with the U.S. and Mexico with a proposed measure that advances the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America promoted by the Bush administration, notes WND columnist Jerome Corsi. It's an issue Corsi has fully investigated for his newest book, "The Late Great USA." The conservative minority government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is pressing for "The Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement", which would enable a Canadian company to challenge laws in provinces that block the North American Free Trade Agreement. Murray Dobbin, a Vancouver author...

How did Sen. John McCain, the onetime front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, come to this? New polls this week showed support for him plummeting in two key early-voting states. Tied for fifth place in Iowa, with 6 percent. Falling to fourth place in South Carolina, with 7 percent. Mason-Dixon Polling & Research conducted both polls of likely Republican voters, which had error margins of plus or minus 5 percentage points. This after an ongoing Senate debate on immigration that highlights McCain's opposition to his party's base on a hot-button issue, and the informal entry into the race of former...

The Senate's Republican leader says he is unsure whether he will vote for the immigration bill President Bush strongly supports, underscoring the measure's precarious status. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has long called for an immigration overhaul, saying the current situation is deeply flawed. And as the Senate minority leader, McConnell is central to shepherding legislation the president wants. But in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, McConnell said he would not decide how to vote on the measure until a long series of amendments are disposed of next week. "The bill on the merits is a mixed bag,"...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Mayor Bloomberg is decrying the state of the 2008 presidential race, faulting the major party candidates for offering shallow, simplistic prescriptions, and scolding the press for failing to demand more from those seeking the White House. During an appearance at Google's headquarters in Silicon Valley yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg said the televised debates among the presidential candidates have been, in essence, a waste of time. "They have absolutely nothing to do with the job and the qualifications. And they don't tell you anything about whether or not any of those candidates would be good or bad presidents....

Over 1,000 New York Republicans crowded into the ballroom of a Times Square Sheraton Thursday night to hear from presidential contenders Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, but the real elephant in the room was immigration reform. Neither candidate addressed the issue in their speeches, even though rank-and-file conservatives spent Thursday talking about little else. McCain, of course, helped shape the immigration compromise that has so many conservatives in open revolt. For his part, Giuliani issued a statement in which he didn't really take a position on the bill, which would provide amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants living in the...

Four days after the first Republican presidential debate and amid media buzz of Rudy Giuliani’s falling poll numbers, Giuliani’s campaign manager and communications director held a conference call for political bloggers on the state of the GOP presidential race. They took the opportunity to respond to concerns raised in traditional and new media about Giuliani’s shrinking lead in the polls, his pro-choice stance, his debate performance and his view of social conservatives. They also tried to drive home a simple message: voters should look at Giuliani’s overall record and his electability in the general election. Throughout the call the Giuliani...

Some of the most interesting and energetic Republicans in New York won't be in Madison Square Garden this week. They're young party outsiders who have been running spirited campaigns in politically hostile districts for the last few years, only to be thwarted at every turn - primarily by leaders of their own party. The dispute appears to be based on ideology. The young, self-styled urban Republicans call themselves conservative in the tradition of Ronald Reagan: devoted to low taxes, less government, school vouchers and a no-nonsense approach to crime and national security. The chieftains of the New York GOP often...