Free Republic

If my heart is with Paul Broun, my head is with Karen Handel. Whoever the nominee is will face Michelle Nunn, the great white hope of the Georgia Democratic Party. A unified front — the Democrats don’t even have a gubernatorial candidate — and a bankrupt party will throw its full weight behind her family name with a helping hand of Barack Obama’s organizational skills. Her early reviews have captured the imagination of the geriatric press corps (those still with a pulse) who swooned over her father in his day as well as the younger, liberal reporter cubs on the...

REDWOOD FALLS, MINN. -- Wearing rolled-up sleeves and blue jeans, Gov. Mark Dayton stood in an echo-filled shed at Farmfest last week and offered a first glimpse at his case for a second term. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us and much more progress needs to be made,” the DFL governor told the crowd. “Clearly, we are doing many things right and we need to stay on this course.” The election is still more than a year away, but there are already ample signs of an intensifying campaign as a diverse and potentially growing pool of Republicans...

In his first formal interview since launching his campaign, McFadden told MinnPost where he stands on a handful of matters the Senate’s considered this year, what type of campaign he wants to run, and which senators he’d try to model himself after if he's elected to the Senate next November. MP: Would you have supported the Senate immigration bill? MM: First of all, the status quo is not acceptable, having 11 million illegal immigrants in this country is de facto amnesty, and that doesn’t work, so we need to find a solution. I applaud members of the Senate for trying...

Republican Senate candidate Matt Bevin launched a Facebook petition Tuesday to demand that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sign a letter by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) vowing to block legislation to keep the federal government open unless it defunds the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. “Over the past couple of days, Sen. McConnell has been asked repeatedly whether he will support Sen. Mike Lee’s effort to defund Obamacare before its implementation on October 1st, and each time, Sen. McConnell has refused to answer," Bevin said. "It is truly sad to see the minority leader of the U.S. Senate so...

Downers Grove business owner and West Point graduate Doug Truax (True-axe) will announce Monday morning he is seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for Illinois’ senate seat currently held by Dick Durbin. “Dick Durbin and his crew have been in charge in Illinois and the United States for years. Their policies are not working, yet they continue to pursue them again and again as we sink deeper into economic stagnation,” Truax says in an announcement video posted to Youtube.

This wasn't the revolution the Tea Party had in mind. Four years ago, the movement and its potent mix of anger and populism persuaded thousands of costumed and sign-waving conservatives to protest the ballooning deficit and President Obama's health care law. It swept a crop of no-compromise lawmakers into Congress and governor's offices and transformed political up-and-comers, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, into household names. But as many Tea Party stars seek re-election next year and Rubio considers a 2016 presidential run, conservative activists are finding themselves at a crossroads. Many of their standard-bearers have embraced more moderate positions on...

Newcomer Nancy Mace and libertarian-leaning state Sen. Lee Bright are set to become the second and third GOP candidates to announce their intentions to run against the second-term senator, and political watchers in the Palmetto State believe the field may expand even further in the coming weeks. At first glance, when gaming out Graham’s chances of surviving a multi-candidate primary and going on to win re-election, the logic seems simple: the more competitors, the merrier. For a lawmaker who has long raised the ire of some rank-and-file conservatives with his deal-brokering and occasional breeches from Republican orthodoxy, there is a...

The governor expected to release more details about his personal finances this week. Florida Gov. Rick Scott says he has less money now than he did when he first ran for governor. A multi-millionaire who bankrolled most of his campaign, Scott has reported that his net worth has tumbled from more than $200 million to nearly $84 million. But Floridians don't have a clear picture about his family finances. Scott accepts only a $1 a year in salary. He has taken steps that keep his assets shielded from public view. He also has not disclosed the finances of his wife...

There is a divide in the tea party movement over Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's re-election efforts, as two national tea party groups have already endorsed the Kentucky senator and local groups push for a potential primary challenger. The United Kentucky Tea Party group condemned the move of TheTeaParty.net and Tea Party Nation who have already endorsed McConnell, and said that United Kentucky will support Louisville businessman Matthew Bevin, who is expected to announce his candidacy Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reports. "We see him a lot in the same vein as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz," said Scott Hofstra, spokesman...

Check out the trailer for COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey, a 13-part docu-series debuting in 2014 on FOX!

Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., announced Tuesday that she raised $1.7 million for her re-election campaign during the second quarter. Her haul is half a million more than the likely GOP nominee, Rep. Bill Cassidy, who brought in nearly $1.1 million in the same time period. Landrieu has $4.9 million in cash on hand as she heads into what is expected to be one of the most competitive Senate contests of the cycle. Cassidy will report having $3.2 million in the bank at the end of June. Cassidy announced his candidacy for Senate on April 3. Both candidates outpaced their...

A new poll shows Sen. Michael B. Enzi, R-Wyo., with a considerable lead over his primary opponent, just days after Liz Cheney announced she would challenge him. Enzi led Cheney, 55 percent to 21 percent, in a survey from Harper Polling, a Republican firm. Earlier this week Cheney, who is daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, announced she would challenge the three-term Republican.

Republicans might be close to winning control of the Senate after next year's elections, according to New York Times statistician Nate Silver. Writing in his "FiveThirtyEight" blog on Monday, Silver said this weekend's announcement by former Montana Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer that he would not run for the Senate "represents the latest in a series of favorable developments for Republicans as they seek control of the chamber." The GOP, which holds 46 seats in the Senate, likely will lose New Jersey's special election in October to replace the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg, according to Silver. The loss will leave Republicans...

Popular former Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Saturday morning that he will not run for Montana's open U.S. Senate seat in 2014, an announcement that complicates Democratic efforts to retain their majority in next year's elections. Schweitzer told The Associated Press that he doesn't want to leave Montana and go to Washington, D.C. He had been considered the Democrats best candidate for holding onto the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Max Baucus next year. Schweitzer said he felt compelled to consider the race only because many in his party said they needed him to run.

And so it begins: Sarah Palin suggested she would run for the U.S. Senate seat in Alaska, and 72 hours later has fired the first volley against her potential opponent, one Sen. Mark Begich — a Democrat, former Anchorage mayor and spirited Palin-basher. He’s already questioned whether the former governor was even a resident of Alaska, then dismissed her as a viable candidate. Naturally, Mrs. Palin was charmed by the challenge, immediately deeming Mr. Begich the “Alaska chameleon” for his political track record. “You have voted for Obamacare, for massive tax increases, for carbon taxes which could cost Alaskans 21,000...

A great interview with Governor Sarah Palin on a Tuesday afternoon. Sounding very much like George Washington, the rather reluctant leader, Governor Palin ends the interview with a bold statement about leading the party. Ronald Reagan was a democrat for most of his adult life. He famously said that he didn’t leave the democrat party, the democrat party left him. Governor Palin is saying what the rest of us are thinking. We’d MUCH rather revitalize the Republican Party than go in another direction, but …. and what else can be said but …. we haven’t left the GOP, the GOP...

Rick Perry has announced that he will not seek reelection in 2014. When he leaves office, Perry will have served as governor of Texas for 13 years (the longest such tenure ever, I believe) and, as John Fund notes, he has a fine record. Perry kept taxes low and business regulation reasonable, and it is no coincidence that approximately 30 percent of new private-sector job creation during the last decade occurred in Texas. Perry will also be remembered for his extremely weak run for the presidency. His lack of fluency and failure to remember his own talking points cost him...

O-B-A-M-A-C-A-R-E, the president's signature first-term legislative achievement, may spell another round of political trouble for many Democrats, who have some new explaining to do, thanks to the White House. Whether employers are eagerly sidestepping a key provision for another year (as many learned they would after a concession Tuesday night from President Obama) or House Republicans persist in voting to repeal the whole law (which they’ve done nearly 40 times), it’s clear the Affordable Care Act continues to exist under a cloud more than two years after its enactment. “This is a setback for the administration and for Democrats,” Jim...

Boom indeed! Governor Jindal’s tweet blasting President Obama for the Obamacare delay has been retweeted over 300 times and counting.

On Tuesday, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh joined the hosts of Fox & Friends for a wide-ranging interview relating to international and domestic political issues. Limbaugh attacked President Barack Obama’s administration’s response to the turmoil in Egypt and the Middle East saying that the White House prefers shaping perception to affecting positive change. He then went after Republicans for focusing on the politics of immigration rather than the Affordable Care Act and noted that it was a real possibility that the GOP could lose the House in 2014.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK Sarah Palin rejoined Fox News as a contributor earlier this month, indicating that the polarizing former Alaska governor and Vice Presidential candidate remains a powerful voice in the conservative landscape. Is she beneficial to conservatives and the Republican Party, or does she do more harm than good? Sarah Palin is undeniably useful and important as a face of the conservative movement. She is ineffective and even detrimental as the face of the conservative movement. Unfortunately, that's exactly what she became when John McCain selected her as his running mate in 2008: the face of the GOP...

"Millsap is a calendar girl for the Bare Knuckle Babes (Miss May 2014), and on Saturday she served the Babes proudly by wrestling a 72-pound flathead catfish onto the banks of Oklahoma’s Lake Texoma."

Dr. Greg Brannon, practicing OB/GYN critical care surgeon out of Cary, NC, officially announced that he will run for Kay Hagan’s Senate Seat in the 2014 election. The announcement came months after a grassroots effort was formed to convince Brannon to run for the position. “Draft Dr. Greg Brannon to Senate Run 2014,” a social media page created by several grassroots supporters and friends in the North Carolina tea party and liberty activist movement, attempted to convince Brannon to throw his hat in the ring by displaying grassroots republican support for his potential candidacy.

Sam Webb, chair of the Communist Party USA wants to give the GOP a “Licking” in 2014 and its going to work even more closely with the Democrats to do it. In his latest message to the Party faithful Ingredients for a movement that can transform our country Webb outlined Communist Party objectives for the near future. Speaking of the broad “progressive” alliance with the Communist Party at its center Webb said; Contrary to what some on the left think, the starting point of transformative politics isn’t political desires and wish list, but a sober and concrete assessment of the...

A question I’ve been asked a lot lately goes a little something like this: Beyond the fact it betrays the rule of law and rewards lawbreakers by giving them what they broke the law for in the first place, I don’t understand why all these Republican “leaders” want to engage in a scamnesty program that will just result in adding over $6 trillion more in debt for taxpayers while simultaneously allowing Democrats to register millions of more new voters. Hispanics have voted Republican only 31% of the time since 1980. Do they want the whole country to look as broke...

Are you ready to rumble? I certainly hope Charlie Crist is because switching from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party evidently causes short term memory loss... In a great graphic from our friends at the Republican Party of Florida, they introduce round one between CRIST CRASH VS. SCOTT SURGE...

Dear Fellow Republican: I'm writing to ask for your support for the Republican nomination to defeat Senator Mark Warner in next year's election. Senator Warner's 100 percent pro-Obama voting record - support for ObamaCare, Cap and Trade, Dodd-Frank, Amnesty for Illegal Aliens, Gun Control, unrestricted abortion, higher taxes, weakness on defense, and the assault on our Constitutional Freedoms - does not represent Virginia values. People say that Mark Warner's warchest and alleged "popularity" makes him "safe" - I don't buy that. I know that a strong conservative opponent who draws a line in the sand and stands up for what...

Gov. Rick Scott is more popular, according to a new poll by Quinnipiac University, but 50 percent of voters say he doesn’t deserve to be re-elected and that he would lose handily to former Gov. Charlie Crist if the 2014 election were today. Scott’s standing with the public has been so persistently grim that any improvement looks like a breakthrough. His approval rating cracked 40 percent for the first time in the latest poll — 43 percent of voters approve of his handling of his job, 44 percent disapprove.

If ever there was a region where incumbent Republican governors can experience the great GOP gubernatorial apocalypse, it is the upper Midwest. Three of the races involve Republican incumbents who rode the Republican wave of 2010 into office. They are Rick Snyder in Michigan, John Kasich in Ohio and Scott Walker in Wisconsin. That potential loss of three Governor’s offices may be mitigated by a Pat Quinn Democratic loss in Illinois. The problem is that Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin are less red than Illinois is certainly blue.

Organizers behind the bodacious “Road to Majority” conference are determined to wrangle conservatives onto the same page as the 2014 midterm elections loom. The event, virtually ignored so far by the mainstream press, begins Thursday at a hotel just three blocks from the White House. “This conference is a chance to unify all conservatives. And I mean social conservatives, tea party folks, fiscal conservatives, middle of the road Republicans — everyone,” Gary Marx, executive director of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, tells Inside the Beltway. “This is a chance to focus, to get on the real road to a majority...

PARK CITY, Utah — The Republican Party is trying hard to move on from Mitt Romney. His donors are another story. Three potential presidential candidates grasped at the Republican Party’s financial torch Friday by auditioning before an audience of Romney’s most influential fundraisers and GOP officials. After huddling with the former nominee in a dark lodge Thursday night, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul woke up early to hobnob with donors and deliver their pitches at Romney’s Experts and Enthusiasts conference. All three Republicans had unique challenges...

POSITANO, Italy -- I am in Positano, Italy, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, soaking up the sun and pondering the immensities. Pompeii is just down the road, or over the mountain, or somewhere nearby, and it seems to me that Pompeii is the future for America if things continue under Barack the Pitiable, not Rome as the left-wingers and the right-wingers seem to have agreed upon. Pompeii went out in a cataclysm. Rome gently declined with a few massacres and plunderings as sad punctuation marks. Yet 2014 is just around the corner and quite possibly the beginning of the end for...

The White House sought to pressure House Republicans into a budget conference with the Senate on Monday, warning President Obama would veto any 2014 spending bills based on the House GOP budget. In Statements of Administration Policy, the White House said Obama would veto all spending bills unless they pass Congress "in the context of an overall budget framework that supports our recovery and enables sufficient investments in education, infrastructure, innovation and national security for our economy to compete in the future." That language suggests the administration, like congressional Democrats, wants to use the conference to turn off the automatic...

Michele Bachmann's taking a bow. Sarah Palin's star has faded. With the brassy, blow-dried bombasts of the GOP moving to the sidelines, there's no elected heir apparent to inherit the mantle and carry the conservative crusade forward on the national stage. What does that mean for a Republican Party struggling to woo the women voters it needs to win national elections? It may be for the best, say some of the GOP operatives who have been pushing the party to rebrand itself after its 2012 losses. "They and their style gives short shrift to other women in the GOP," said...

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann says she will not run for re-election in 2014, ending her tenure as the representative from Minnesota's sixth congressional district after four terms. In a video released on her website early Wednesday , Bachmann says that, in her opinion, if presidents can only serve eight years that length of time is sufficient for her to serve in Congress.

There are good reasons to be hopeful about the 2014 midterm election. The second presidential midterm election has historically been murder. With the exceptions of Clinton in 1998 and Reagan in 1986, the president in his second midterm has lost massively in the House of Representative: FDR (-71 seats), Ike (-49 seats), Nixon (-49 seats), Bush II (-31 seats.) Except for Clinton in 1998, each of those midterms produced losses for the president's party in the Senate (Reagan, in fact, lost the Senate in 1986). Senate elections are affected by the particular class of senators elected six years before as...

The top White House adviser on health care said on Monday she did not anticipate how lengthy and persistent the political opposition would be to healthcare reform - U.S. President Barack Obama's signature domestic legislative achievement. The administration had not anticipated opposition to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, nicknamed "Obamacare," would drag on years after the law's passage, said Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Despite its goal to provide health coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans and improve the quality of medical care delivered across the country, many voters have balked over concerns...

With the scent of scandal encircling the White House, some Republicans are already licking their chops over the 2014 midterm elections, while some Democrats are pre-emptively licking their wounds. Not so fast, folks. Retract those tongues. While it is impossible to predict what might drive voter attitudes in an election 18 months away, there are quite a few signs that 2014 will be nothing like 2010, which produced tremendous success for Republicans. First, the electorate is less conservative. In May 2009, the Tea Party had just begun to flex its muscle and feel its power on a national level. Now,...

Barack Obama appointed Tuesday to help lead the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, Robert F. Bauer, said during the 2012 election that voter ID laws are a Republican tactic to suppress lawful votes. During the 2012 election, the Obama team tapped Bauer to lead the legal teams for the campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Among his initiatives: fighting voter ID laws enacted by a number of states in an effort to combat voter fraud. During his time as the team’s organizer, Bauer told the Associated Press that he believes that the GOP is enlisting these new laws to impede...

Each year, 24/7 Wall St. identifies 10 important brands sold in America that we predict will disappear before 2014. This year’s list reflects the brutally competitive nature of certain industries and the importance of not falling behind in efficiency, innovation or financing. The list also reflects how industry trends can accelerate the demise of certain brands. This year, we included two magazines — Martha Stewart Living and Road & Track. With print advertising in a multiyear decline, some magazines have weathered the decline better than others. These two, however, have suffered sharp drops in advertising revenue over the past five...

On her Wednesday radio show, conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham attacked a number of Republican senators that voted to support the immigration reform bill on Tuesday, saying that she was thinking about moving to Arizona to primary Sen. Jeff Flake, who is up for re-election in 2018. “Let me tell you — I am thinking of moving to Arizona,” Ingraham said. “You know why? I will primary challenge Sen. Jeff Flake myself, if that’s why this requires. Jeff Flake, living up to his last name, backed down from a previous promise his spokeswoman made to Breitbart. This is just...

The foreign-headquartered company that recently purchased the leading U.S. electronic voting firm is boasting that it was highlighted in a report on how technology is making the election process more efficient, secure, transparent, accessible and reliable. The report, WND has learned, was authored by a firm with links to billionaire activist George Soros. The information comes after WND reported two weeks ago that SCYTL recently acquired the software division of a non-profit election organization tied to Soros’ Open Society Institute. Yesterday, WND reported SCYTL announced its technology will be deployed at more U.S. jurisdictions ahead of the 2014 midterm elections....

Conservatives and Republicans would be unwise to pursue President Obama's impeachment as my colleague Bruce Walker today argues. The odds are the effort would backfire, and there is a much more important goal that should be at the center of our political strategy: sweeping Democrats out of office in 2014 and 2016 in numbers sufficient to enact structural reforms, including replacement of the tax system and junking the IRS and outlawing public employee unions. President Obama is handing his opponents the means, if only they have the wit to pursue the bigger goal. ..... Somewhere along the line, Hillary and...

Back in their day, the tea party folks were riding high, fueling indignation over alleged government-run death panels, a treasonous Federal Reserve and the like. They commandeered sparsely attended Republican primaries, managing to nominate for Senate seats a dabbler in witchcraft in Delaware, holders of strange views on rape in Missouri and Indiana, and in Nevada, a candidate suggesting armed insurrection if her people didn't win elections. All lost -- some in races an old-fashioned Republican would have won. In the interest of party self-preservation, Republican leaders sidelined the more extreme tea partiers, or tried to. Meanwhile, the tea party's...

[Team Obmaugabe]continues its demonization of anyone that stands in its way. Formerly Organizing for America, Organizing for Action, a non-profit, non-partisan(laughable) group the pushes President Obama’s liberal ideology and agenda, has been targeting everything and everyone who is supportive of the right to bear arms. Back in early April, we interviewed several OFA volunteers who attended a gun buy-back program put on by the Broward County, Florida Sheriff’s Department in Pompano Beach, Florida... Now OFA has sent out another ‘call-to-arms’ email to protest members of the South Florida Congressional delegation. OFA’s recent email announces that they are organizing ”Gun Violence...

SB 962 Fetal deaths; when occurs without medical attendance, mother, etc., must report within 24 hours. Requires that when a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf, within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff's department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred. The bill also specifies that no one shall remove, destroy, or otherwise dispose of any remains without the express authorization of...

My rule of thumb is that a vast majority of alleged political scandals will have less electoral impact than the conventional wisdom initially holds. There are two main reasons for this. First, voters weigh major issues like economic performance and the conduct of foreign wars heavily in making their decisions, leaving relatively little room for everything else. Second, the news media may overplay the lead story, scandalous or otherwise, on any given day, even though it may turn out to be relatively unimportant in the context of a multiyear political cycle. But the recent admission by the Internal Revenue Service...

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - A man who has never run for office is throwing his name in the hat for next year's US Senate race. Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel from Madisonville, said he plans to run against incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu because of her support of President Barack Obama's policies. Landrieu, who is in her third term, will also be facing Congressman Bill Cassidy in the November 2014 election.

A new Harper Polling poll shows a plurality of likely Alaskan Republican voters support their former Governor, Sarah Palin, as a U.S. Senate candidate in the 2014 GOP primary over Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and 2010 Senate candidate Joe Miller. The survey of 379 likely Republican voters found that 32 percent support Palin, whereas 30 percent support Treadwell and 14 percent support Miller. The Harper Polling poll, conducted via telephone on May 6 and May 7 on behalf of the Tea Party Leadership Fund, found that 45 percent of likely GOP voters think Palin would “fight hardest for conservative values,”...