Free Republic

Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), told Breitbart News Daily there is “no way” the RNC will allow establishment media figures to moderate the 2024 Republican primary debates — if she believes the journalist wants the candidates to fail. She warned that the RNC may encourage the eventual 2024 GOP nominee to refrain from working with the Commission on Presidential Debates if it does not make “significant changes.” Breitbart News Daily host Alex Marlow asked McDaniel about how the RNC plans to deal with the establishment media’s anti-conservative bias, particularly in the context of the 2024 presidential...

Former Senate Majority Leader — and 1996 GOP Presidential nominee – Bob Dole just tore into Newt Gingrich with an open letter that violates Reagan’s 11th Commandment so many times, Bob Dole will be in the confessional until Easter. ... .. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway. ... Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall. He loved picking a fight with Bill Clinton because he knew...

@ 5:50 min.: Greta: "...If you were running for office, which would you prefer..which would you think would be strategically valuable for you tonight: an endorsement by Donald Trump or an endorsement by Governor Sarah Palin, and why? Rove: "Governor Sarah Palin. Look, Donald Trump is an interesting guy. He could have brought a lot to the Republican presidential sweepstakes had he been a serious candidate, but you're not a serious candidate if the first issue you chose to emphasize is the "birther" issue that Barack Obama is somehow not qualified to be president because he was somehow not born...

Pundits seem hell bent on singling out a dismal performance by Governor Rick Perry on Thursday night’s FOX/Google debate, which was the most watched debate in history—proving voters are paying attention in record numbers as the economics tighten. Nine Republican candidates took the stage, but only one took the hearts of Florida’s Straw Poll participants on Saturday:  Herman Cain.  Pulling a whopping 37% in a field of nine was no small accomplishment.  But wait a minute.  Mitt Romney “won” that debate handily, didn’t he?  At least that’s what pundits are declaring.  He gave the right answers…spoke with confidence…demeaned Perry cunningly…railed...

From the bottom of the polls to the top of the pack, businessman Herman Cain won the Republican Party of Florida’s nationally watched presidential straw poll Saturday in a sign that frontrunner Rick Perry is in deep trouble. Cain’s victory with 37 percent of the vote was a major defeat for Perry, the frontrunner in Florida and national polls, who garnered only 15 percent after wooing the nearly 3,000 party faithful with a free breakfast and mailers. The vote also showed how soft Republican support is for Mitt Romney, who came in third with 14 percent. Unlike Perry, though, he...

Bachman bests Paul. Pawlenty third. Romney fourth. Works for me!

Yesterday, Mitt Romney announced he is a candidate for President. As I have never been a fan of Mr. Romney I had low expectations and as a result thought he did well. Mine was clearly a minority view as other reviews were underwhelming. Mitt Romney has been correctly identified as a political opportunist. Frankly,that doesn't bother me as a healthy dose of cynicism requires me to believe all political figures are opportunistic. It's a matter of degrees. If Mitt Romney were to succeed in his effort to face Barack Obama there is no doubt how I would vote. I'd rather...

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) - Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney broke with Republican orthodoxy on Friday by saying he believes that humans are responsible, at least to some extent, for climate change. "I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that," he told a crowd of about 200 at a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire. "It's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors."

Bachmann raised $1.7 million for her congressional committee, and another $500,000 for her leadership PAC, Bachmann adviser Andy Parrish said.

Headline on Drudge with link to article on Politico. Somebody is finally saying it even if it is Romney.

I get asked all the time why people are so cynical about politics. Here’s a great example: Andrea Saul, who was Charlie Crist’s communications director. Here’s one of her attacks on Marco Rubio: “As the truth begins to surface about Speaker Rubio’s double billing of taxpayers, lavish spending of Republican money, and, just today, excessive pork spending, no ad will be able to stop voters from seeing he is not who he claims to be. A Miami lobbyist, Speaker Rubio has proved he is just another typical politician who uses his public office for personal gain and only comes clean...

The "straw poll" was open only to the 426 registered members of the Republican committee, and 65 percent of those commitee members participated. The take away: Romney's still the solid frontrunner here, but there's plenty of room for another Republican to break through here. Pawlenty's showing was also impressive, given how new he is to the scene. He has, however, been working New Hampshire, as have his suporters. The Republican committee members were also asked to pick the issue that was the "most important for the Republican nominee to focus upon": Reducing the size of the federal government: 49 percent...

You might expect that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, one of the top likely candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, would cozy up to tea party followers anytime he can. But he’s actually steering clear of the movement, The Boston Globe reports. “Romney for the most part is inaccessible,’’ says Andrew Hemingway, chairman of New Hampshire’s Republican Liberty Caucus. “[Minnesota Gov. Tom] Pawlenty, I could call him right now and say, ‘Let’s have coffee.’” Romney has kept his distance from tea party activists in key primary states, including the state viewed as a must win for him – New...

Somewhere along the line, the notion was adopted, mostly among liberal media but more recently among fellow conservatives, that Mitt Romney represents solely the moderate, ‘establishment’ core of the Republican party: the Bush loyalists; the staunch GOPers. I won’t deny that Gov. Romney’s appeal is wide, and it certainly may spread to the more moderate branch of our party, but I refudiate the absurd conception that his base of support exists only in that branch. I see obnoxious headlines all the time now that predict Romney’s demise, tracing it all back to how he’s the GOP’s supposed ‘next in line’,...

When Sen. Bob Bennett faces delegates at his party's convention in less than three weeks, the embattled Republican will step on stage with Utah's most revered politician, Mitt Romney. The former presidential candidate, who won 89.5 percent of Utah's GOP presidential primary in 2008, has already appeared in television ads and campaign literature for Bennett, and appears to be the senator's trump card as he heads into his most difficult re-election bid. Bennett, who is vying against seven fellow party members for a fourth term, has turned to Romney on several occasions and is hoping a last-minute appearance by the...

And Romney was nowhere to be seen. BY BRENDAN MINITER Amidst the stunning events in New York's 23rd congressional district -- with Republican-turned-independent Doug Hoffman suddenly surging to the front and likely to win today's race -- collateral damage has been suffered by some of the GOP's presidential hopefuls who misread the race and the mood of the Republican electorate. Mitt Romney -- formerly a man who seemed willing to show up and plug for any Republican anywhere to pick up a few chits -- was nowhere to be seen in the district. Mike Huckabee, a favorite for religious conservatives...

The @RNC just made "6-figure" transfer to @nrcc for radical leftist Scozzafava, endorsed by @newtgingrich. Call 'em out.

HONG KONG, China (CNN) — Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will be in Hong Kong Wednesday to address about 1,000 investors from around the globe in what is billed as her first speech outside North America. Palin, who recently stepped down as Alaska's governor, will make the keynote speech on Wednesday to the 16th CLSA Investors' Forum. She will cover governance, economics and current events in the United States and Asia, said Simone Wheeler, head of communications for CLSA. "What we look to do is invite our keynote speakers who we feel are opinion makers, who are newsworthy...

Who knows how the Sarah Palin story will play out? It seems as if every political pundit in America has a take on PalinÂ’s resignation as AlaskaÂ’s governor. They can be mean-spirited (SheÂ’s hiding a scandal!), or cynical (Since she can rake in $60 grand and up for a simple speaking engagement, sheÂ’s taking the money and running like hell.) Some wonder whether this is her way of tuning up for a presidential run in 2012, or is the resignation a case of a hometown girl unable to stand the heat in her kitchen? We will get more information, but...

For folks increasingly leery of President Obama’s plan to radically overhaul America’s health-care system, or 17 percent of the nation’s economy, all this could hardly have come at a better time — that is, fiscal troubles aplenty within Repubican Mitt Romney’s brainchild, Massachusetts’ “grand experiment” in “universal” health care. Initiated on Mr. Romney’s gubernatorial watch in 2006, this “experiment” has fallen on hard times, and predictably so. Even though the Bay State commenced its program with a far smaller percentage of uninsured residents than exists nationwide, “RomneyCare” is threatening to bankrupt the state. Budgeted for Fiscal Year 2010 at $880...