Free Republic

The Republican nomination for president is completely up for grabs, but there's a lot of agreement on who the vice presidential pick should be: Marco Rubio, the freshman senator from Florida. My contacts in the Mitt Romney camp are boasting: "Doesn't a Romney-Rubio ticket sound great?" One senior Romney advisor told me: "We think that could be a dream ticket." Operatives from the pack of other wannabes are thinking ahead to the same Rubio marriage with their candidate.

Every year the voting for our Person of the Year Award surprises me for one reason or another. Some years it's a runaway by one candidate while other years it's a neck and neck battle between two worthy people. This year fell into that later category but it was the two people -- well, one actual person -- battling for our honour that surprised me. In a year when Glenn Beck truly became a figure on the American political stage and Barack Obama made his greatest contribution to American conservatism by being Barack Obama, neither won the voting. This year...

Al Gore, on his website, flags this passage in Mitt Romney’s recent book No Apology: “I believe that climate change is occurring — the reduction in the size of global ice caps is hard to ignore. I also believe that human activity is a contributing factor.” Gore writes: “We can have disagreements about the solutions to this crisis, but we need to acknowledge fundamental truths. The science proving the existence of the climate crisis is not in question. That is where our debates about policy need to begin.” Romney, a potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate, and Gore certainly disagree on...

If former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has any 2012 presidential aspirations at all, then it was a mistake to help raise money for the Iowa Family Policy Center, a former Republican Party of Iowa chairman and adviser to Terry Branstad said Wednesday Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Des Moines last year promoting a book. “Maybe Mr. Huckabee shouldn’t be raising money for an organization that says it won’t support the Republican nominee in Iowa,” said David Kochel, a veteran GOP strategist who has done consulting work for Branstad’s campaign for a fifth term as governor. He previously advised former...

Loyal to Liberty Wednesday, January 20, 2010Alan Keyes  I can't help but look at Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts in the context of the larger strategy clearly being implemented by the RINO (Republican-In-Name-Only) clique that currently controls the GOP. Sean Hannity is the clique's bellwether media tool. It was no coincidence that he featured Mitt Romney on his program last night to revel in the Scott Brown victory. Scott Brown in Massachusetts is the advance guard for Mitt Romney in the White House (or vice-versa). He becomes the poster child for the RINO clique's archetypal GOP candidate who: Has no...

The upper echelon of Republican Scott Brown’s Senate campaign in Massachusetts is filled with staffers who once worked in former Gov. Mitt Romney’s employ. But with the eyes of the nation on the state’s Jan. 19 special Senate election — and with other Republican luminaries such as Rudy Giuliani traipsing through Massachusetts for Brown in recent days — Romney himself has been conspicuously absent. Despite his status as one of the GOP’s most prominent national figures and a prospective 2012 presidential candidate, the former Massachusetts governor hasn’t appeared publicly with Brown since late October. Back then, when almost no one...

A poll of GOP insiders suggests that ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has little support among the party's professional class -- and maybe that's just how she wants it. In a survey of 109 party leaders, political professionals and pundits, Palin finished 5th on the list of candidates most likely to win the party's '12 WH nomination. Ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney (R) was the overwhelming choice of the Voters were asked to rank 5 candidates in the order of likeliness to capture the GOP nod. The results: Likely To Win WH'12 Nomination (First place votes) Ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney 81...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will make two stops in Iowa in March as part of his nationwide book tour, following visits by fellow 2012 GOP hopefuls Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty. Romney’s second book, “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness,” is due out March 2, and the promotional tour will take the former GOP presidential candidate to 18 states. Romney will visit first in the nation Iowa on March 29, signing books at the Des Moines Central Library and making a speech at Iowa State University, located in Ames.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani has decided not to run for governor next year - but will run for U.S. Senate instead, sources told the Daily News. A source familiar with Giuliani's thinking said the failed presidential candidate has been telling people he plans to run against Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in 2010 to fill out the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton's term. If elected, the source said, he could use that as a stepping stone to run for President in 2012 - rather than run for re-election to the Senate. A Giuliani spokeswoman downplayed the reports. "Rudy has a...

The book tour starts this week, and I look forward to it! I'm most looking forward to meeting many of you, shaking your hands, and telling you,"Thanks for loving America." I'll give you a scoop here and tell you what's on the book's Dedication Page – it's dedicated to you – Patriots – who love the U.S.A. as much as I do. Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the AP somehow nabbed a copy of the book before it was released. They're now erroneously reporting on the book's contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign...