Free Republic

At one of the most important events on the GOP calendar, Scott Walker showed his crash course in foreign policy is paying off. OKLAHOMA CITY — Like most other recent GOP presidential forums and meetings, the Southern Republican Leadership Conference this week teemed with 2016 candidates aiming for a breakthrough moment. Nothing like that happened here. But in attending one of the most important events on pre-primary season calendar — one that drew roughly 2,000 conservative activists, mainly from the Republican Party’s Southern heartland — the White House hopefuls revealed a little more about themselves and the paths they see...

OKLAHOMA CITY — Ben Carson won the straw poll at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference Saturday, demonstrating his popularity among conservative activists at one of the party’s traditional presidential cattle call events. Carson, a former surgeon who formally launched his underdog campaign this month with an appeal to the GOP’s tea party wing, finished first with 25 percent. He was followed by Scott Walker, who received 20 percent, and Ted Cruz at 16 percent. Chris Christie and Rick Perry tied at 5 percent, with Jeb Bush narrowly behind. Marco Rubio tied with Bobby Jindal and Rand Paul at 4 percent....

Presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) will keynote the Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC) in May, where he’ll appear alongside a number of his potential opponents."Sen. Cruz's recent announcement for president has created quite a buzz among Republican voters. We're excited he'll be joining us for the SRLC, as I know primary voters will want to hear what he has to say,” SRLC Chairman Dave Weston said in a statement.“With the future of Obamacare increasingly in doubt, many have looked to Cruz as the point of the spear in Republican efforts to defeat the president's signature policy."Cruz kicked off...

Republican Leadership Conference kicks off C.J. Ciaramella Top Republicans will flock to New Orleans today for the Republican Leadership Conference, where presidential hopefuls and GOP leaders will try to woo the party faithful during the three-day event. The annual conference, formerly the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, has become a bellwether for the Republican Party, especially because of its audience straw polls. Presidential candidates speaking this year include Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman. (DNC chair looking forward to working...

A brutal beating in New Orleans following the Southern Republican Leadership Conference — held in that city from April 8-11 — has challenged the myth regarding the preferred residence of political thuggery. Circumstantial evidence is piling up that far-left anarchists viciously attacked a staffer to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, putting Allee Bautsch and her boyfriend Joe Brown in the hospital with broken bones. The story has been, unsurprisingly, ignored. Bautsch, a rising star in Republican politics and just 25 years old, helped organize a $10,000-a-plate GOP fundraiser at the legendary Brennan’s Restaurant in New Orleans. Jindal attended the affair, as...

Over at Pajama's Media, Scott McKay, whose Hayride blog has been tirelessly cataloging the story of a brutal assault on a young Republican operative and her boyfriend outside a New Orleans fund-raising dinner earlier this month, summarizes his findings. Though initially reported as a straight fight, there is increasing evidence that the attack was political, perpetrated by a group of (get this) anarcho-communist agitators who had broken away from a larger protest at the nearby SRLC. The victim, Allee Bautsch, tentatively identified a member of a group called thee Iron Rail Book Collective, as the chief perpetrator of an attack...

UPDATE, 10:55 p.m.: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Allee Bautsch’s boss, gave WWL-TV in New Orleans a no-comment comment this evening… Gov. Bobby Jindal said Monday he isn’t going to comment further on the investigation into the recent French Quarter attack that left his chief fundraiser and her boyfriend injured. Allee Bautsch, 25, suffered a broken leg, and her boyfriend suffered a broken jaw, nose and concussion. When asked about the incident on Monday, Jindal said the couple is now recovering at home after receiving “serious” injuries. “We’re going to refrain from commenting on it. We certainly keep her in our...

Radical anarchists and Leftwing extremists, spreading a message of violence and hate, marched directly to the scene of the crime. Their target: Gov. Bobby Jindal, his “rich” friends, and Republicans. Is it just mere coincidence, then, that the victims of this assault were Republican employees of Gov. Jindal attending an expensive fundraiser, at the exact location, and at the exact time, that the protest took place? Is it just mere coincidence that the perpetrators purposely targeted the victims and shouted insults at them concerning “money,” as Allee’s mother claims, and their being “nicely dressed,” as the police report states? I...

A "dark horse" candidate may emerge for the 2012 presidential race, Cain told Republicans in New Orleans. After giving one of the most energetic and inspiring speeches of the conference, the former Godfather's Pizza CEO returned to the podium for a moment to encourage those in the audience to focus on 2010. But in 2011, he said, a new face may emerge in the presidential race. I will not rehash Herman Cain's biography here, but you can read about his amazing career here. Please take a look, because it is an amazing story, deserving of attention and slightly more impressive...

As you all know, we don't do opposition research. If we did, it would probably look something like this: I'm sure you'll have seen the media rumors about Romney supporters rigging the SRLC straw poll: I spoke to a young female delegate who said she planned to vote for Romney in the poll. I asked her how she had ended up at the conference. She said "Evangelicals for Mitt" had contacted her and offered to pay for her to have a limited-access ticket -- so long as she agreed to vote for Romney in the straw poll. Asked how "Evangelicals...

The Southern Republican Leadership Conference wrapped up on Saturday afternoon after three days of speeches dripping with red-meat criticisms of Democrats and President Obama. This is par for the course for any party gathering, especially one where the party holding the shindig is on the outs. But there was also something most unusual about the conference: an uncommon amount of talk and discussion of the United States Constitution. Ordinary people from all walks of life, not a constitutional scholar or lawyer among them, are actually trying to come to grips with the fundamental meaning and purpose of our founding document....

Mitt Romney, the once and likely future presidential candidate, didn’t show up to address the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, but that didn’t stop him from walking away with the big prize from the gathering. The former Massachusetts governor bested the competition in a straw poll conducted here over the past two days. Romney received 24 percent of a total of 1,806 ballots cast when voters were asked to name the candidate they would support if the Republican primary for president were held today. [snip] A group whipping votes for Romney, Evangelicals for Mitt, spent the day handing out plastic pink...

NEW ORLEANS -- A more soft-spoken and humble Michael Steele assured his party faithful Saturday that he has learned his lesson from the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) recent troubles. “In life, you realize that you can’t please everyone, but you can certainly make them mad at you the same time, and that’s a lesson well-learned,” Steele said at the outset of his speech to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Steele then offered a quasi-apology for the distractions that have plagued the RNC and led two members of the committee to call for his resignation. “Folks have been mad at us...

The Drudge Report made it the headline story Saturday night: ROMNEY WINS STRAW POLL RESULTS. At the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, the former governor of Massachusetts, who, incidentally, signed into law the state health care system upon which Obamacare is based, narrowly edged Ron Paul in the informal poll of potential GOP candidates for 2012. Sarah Palin was third in the polling, with Newt Gingrich finishing out the top four. Some of the big guns in the conservative movement and the Republican Party will make a big story out of this, as they have been pulling for Romney since the...

Mitt Romney: 439 votes Ron Paul: 438 votes Sarah Palin: 330 votes Newt Gingrich: 321

NEW ORLEANS -- The grassroots group Evangelicals for Romney has made a decent-sized splash here at the SRLC, with massive signs in the hall across from the ballroom, piggy banks with their slogans carved on the side ("Elect a president who won't break the bank!"), and a key banner placement in the background of the bar where Sean Hannity will film his show. But while the group isn't talking about where its money came from, founder Nancy French told me that it bought "a couple hundred" tickets for supporters to come in and support Romney in the straw poll. I...

He has been called the Anti-Christ by fanatics and “the most radical president ever” by major conservative leaders. President Barack Obama was the poster boy for a new era of politics and made a great case to “change” Washington. However, today a new Rasmussen Reports reveals that the love spell the nation has been under for 14-months may be coming to a screeching halt. According to the poll, 29% of American voters strongly approve of the way the president is acting as Commander-in-Chief; whereas, 43% strongly disapprove of Obama’s presidential actions. His approval rating has declined since the passage of...

New Orleans (CNN) - Will Americans start to hear more policy speeches from Sarah Palin in the future? "Absolutely," Palin told CNN in a brief interview outside her New Orleans hotel on Friday. "The more of that, the better." The former Alaska governor chatted for a few moments after wrapping up her speech to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, a showing that was closely scrutinized by political insiders looking for clues as to whether she's serious about a presidential bid in 2012.(No Peter, she was responding to Obama's feign attempt to triangulate domestic oil production)She devoted much of her remarks...

This was an incredible speech and very moving, so not a whole lot I can add but my sincere feelings that we are seeing the 45th President of the United States in action....see video of the speech

The Southern Republican Leadership Conference Straw Poll doesn't carry a whole lot of weight, since it's skewed — like most of these things — by the makeup of the crowd, the intensity of Ron Paul's supporters and the ease of gaming the vote. That doesn't mean, however, that the various camps aren't trying to game it. One of the organizers told me that two groups, Paul's Campaign for Liberty and Evangelicals for Mitt (which denies ties to Romney) have purchased blocks of tickets to the event, typically given to supporters.