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It was 243 years ago today when the world first read the words of the Declaration of Independence. It was a stunning document, perhaps the most important in all of human history. But to too many Americans, they now ring hollow.While we haven’t always lived up to them, the words in the Declaration hold a special, storied place in world history. None more so than the following: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit...

I'm getting into this debate more and more with people and getting nowhere. They're saying the parties somehow "flipped" and say the Republicans were previously the racist democrat party of KKK, Slavery and Jim Crow. I contest that the Republican principals were the same under Lincoln as they are today. Also, voters from the South let go of their ties to the racist Democrats and starting voting for Republicans. I'm looking for facts starting from Teddy Roosevelt, to WW, Coolidge, FDR and through the late 1960's...A lot of you on here are historians and I value your input. I believe...

It was May 2, 1948, when, according to a Baltimore Sun article from that day, “3,000” looked on as then-Governor William Preston Lane Jr. and Pelosi’s father, the late Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., spoke at the dedication of a monument to honor Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. The article said Lane delivered a speech, and Mayor D’Alesandro “accepted” the memorial. “Today, with our nation beset by subversive groups and propaganda which seeks to destroy our national unity, we can look for inspiration to the lives of Lee and Jackson to remind us to be resolute and determined...

Donald Trump continues his dominance in the southern states by picking up Louisiana handily over Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.  With 46 delegates, Louisiana has many of the same demographics as Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee.   #LousianaPrimary for the GOP with 7% in. #SuperSaturday pic.twitter.com/gG7pZy9hnZ— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 6, 2016

In what is becoming an even stranger election season by the day, Donald Trump is now showing strong leads in states that Republicans have been losing in recently. Specifically he's showing leads of 10 to 20 points in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, states that had been left for dead by GOP leaders. Even Pennsylvania and Virginia, two former GOP states that the party has been struggling in recently, show 10 point edges for Mr. Trump. But most surprisingly, a state that was considered long-gone, New Jersey, shows Trump with a small lead, although it's still within the margin of error....

Jeb Bush on Monday returned to the Florida capital to deliver a speech slamming lobbyists as a corrosive influence on public policy, and railing on the practice of public officials becoming professional influence peddlers. The jeremiad may have come as a shock to Tallahassee's government officials-turned-lobbyists whom Bush enlisted to help him sculpt his gubernatorial agenda, and who are now helping bankroll his Republican presidential campaign. In his speech, the former Florida governor said that as president he will push to ban lawmakers from becoming lobbyists for six years after they leave government. He decried the fact that before he...

Democrats can win in Virginia and North Carolina, and at least be competitive in Georgia, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, and West Virginia. The problem is turnout. November’s election saw the worst turnout since 1942, when millions of Americans were overseas fighting in the Second World War. The typical nonvoter, then, is poor and favors Democrats. So why aren’t they showing up? While nonvoters are skeptical of immigration and gay rights, social issues don’t fire them up, otherwise they’d be voting Republican. That’s why Democrats don’t have to move right on God, guns, or abortion. They need to speak to issues that...

Southern Democrats are joining others in the party who say that a return to advocating to lift people out of economic hardship and emphasizing spending on education and public works will re-energize black voters and attract whites as well. "It's time to draw a line in the sand and not surrender our brand," Rickey Cole, the party chairman in Mississippi, said. He believes candidates have distanced themselves from the past half-century of Democratic principles. "We don't need a New Coke formula," Cole said. "The problem is we've been out there trying to peddle Tab and RC Cola." Cole and other...

It was Nixon who devised and pursued what came to be called the Southern strategy. This was, in the admirably concise wording of Wikipedia, an appeal “to racism against African-Americans.” Nixon was hardly the first Republican to notice that Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights legislation had alienated whites both in the South and elsewhere — Johnson himself had forecast that Southern whites would desert the Democratic Party. But Nixon was the GOP’s leader and, in January 1969, the President of the United States. The White House, it seemed, would not do a damned thing for African-Americans. -snip Even-steven, you might say,...

“For the first time since President Richard M. Nixon’s divisive ‘Southern strategy’ that sent whites to the Republican Party and blacks to the Democrats …” began a New York Times story last week. Thus has one of the big lies of U.S. political history morphed into a cliche — that Richard Nixon used racist politics to steal the South from a Democratic Party battling heroically for civil rights. A brief stroll through Bruce Bartlett’s “Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past” might better enlighten us. Where Teddy Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner, Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the U.S....

The Brody File sat down with Newt Gingrich for a one-on-one interview at CPAC in Washington last week. We discussed the state of the race, from his perspective. Here's what he had to say. Transcription follows the video below. David Brody: “Hey, you know, I like to call you the Yoda of this presidential race, so Yoda, if you will, give me your impression of where we’re at.” Newt Gingrich: “Is this a comment on the fact that I’m a grandfather or what?” David: “It could be partially that. Give me your sense of where we’re at in the race,...

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” Mark Twain (attributed) Recently, Herman Cain made the comment that, “Many African-Americans have been brainwashed into not being open-minded, not even considering a conservative point of view.” For this statement he was vilified, especially by the black liberal establishment. It may have been imprudent for him to say, especially if he wishes to garner a significant portion of the black vote, but it is the truth. Blacks have been brainwashed by the myth of the Southern Strategy. There was a point in our history...

so i'm posting on a forum arguing over how the southern strategy wasn't necessarily racist but that republican policies are race neutral so therefore it was just a consequence that racists would choose the race neutral party over the party of welfare... but then somebody mentions kevin phillips and it seems his comments were pretty intentional...but I also find out he wrote anti-bush books and isn't a real conservative...how should I respong...i'm slystallion26 by the way

Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson played up his Southern roots and his conservative resume Friday during a campaign stop at the Beacon Drive-In. "It's so good to be here among folks who don't think I talk funny," Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, said to a crowd of about 300. He did little campaigning in states where they do think he talks funny - Iowa, New Hampshire and Michigan - and the results were predictable. He was third in Iowa, sixth in New Hampshire and fifth in Michigan. Thompson spent most of the past two weeks traveling across South Carolina, and...

In many ways, South Carolina has the future of the Republican Party in its’ hands. Up until now, the Republican primaries have only flirted with defining what the Republican Party wants. Independents in New Hampshire helped push McCain to victory in a small state with little Republican presence. Michigan rescued Romney and was the most populace stage for a Republican primary yet. However, even that win comes with an asterisk in a largely Democrat state with a fair share of activists who were urged to muddle with the Republican primary by fringe left leaders. But his margin of victory should...

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- South Carolina Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom said he is endorsing Fred Thompson for the Republican presidential nomination. Eckstrom said the former Tennessee senator shows clear leadership on social, fiscal and defense issues and is the only conservative candidate to have momentum going into Saturday's Republican primary in South Carolina. Eckstrom says Thompson can be a leader for the nation like Gov. Mark Sanford is a leader for South Carolina. Eckstrom is a Republican serving his second term as comptroller general.

Welcome to our Phone for Fred online phone bank! Person to person contact is the most effective way to make a difference in an election. We created the Phone for Fred program for all of you Friends of Fred who want to volunteer and do more for Fred! We need your help in the early primary states. Our Phone for Fred online phone bank makes it easy for you to make a difference! Fred only needs a small commitment of time and you will soon see that your phone calls and person to person contact will help Fred win!

Back in 1964 when I was PR director of the GOP Truth Squad in the Goldwater presidential campaign, a film of a Ronald Reagan speech was broadcast on the local station in the city where we were campaigning at the moment. Reagan, then a private citizen, was electrifying. He laid out exactly what was at stake in the campaign while providing an explanation of what America was all about and the philosophy that makes us what we are: a nation operating under a Constitution that spells out exactly the very limited role that government is allowed to play in its...

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Our campaign has had a fantastic month! From dominant debate performances to standing room only crowds, Fred is really hitting his stride just in time for the most important contest of the race so far. As much emphasis as is placed on Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina is the real bellwether in the GOP nominating process. On Saturday, voters in the Palmetto State will go to the polls and make a statement about the direction of our Party and our nation. As Fred pointed out in last Thursday's debate in Myrtle Beach, we are in a battle for the...