Free Republic

George H.W. vs. Bill was Bush/Clinton I. Jeb vs. Hillary could be Bush/Clinton II. And if we’re very lucky, George P. will win his race for Texas land commissioner and Chelsea will ease into public service with a Senate seat in New York or something and we’ll be on track for Bush/Clinton III circa 2032. Two points about this. One: It’s proof of how insatiable the media’s appetite for dynastic politics is (especially Democratic dynasties) that this is biggish news today even though she said the same thing six months ago. You get the feeling that Chelsea could go on...

Recently reporter Thomas Edsall - who has spent most of the last 30 years covering politics for the Washington Post and the New Republic - had some advice for the GOP. He draws upon some recent polling data to argue that "the Republican Party can afford to marginalize . . . Christian right leaders because evangelical social conservatives . . . are not going to vote Democratic." Thus, he reasons that Republicans can, as he puts it, "concede defeat in the culture war" in the hopes of picking up more socially liberal voters. Mr. Edsall might want to check with...

Of course! Democrats love to promise expensive things for free. Free healthcare, free cell phones, free money. Why not free college? Meet Bill Halter who’s running for governor of Arkansas. The emphasis below is mine. Bill’s letter to Arkansans Young adults who receive a college degree today on average can expect to earn $1 million more over the course of their working live than similarly situated Arkansans who do not. But Arkansas currently ranks 49th out of 50 states in the percentage of our workforce with college degrees – behind Mississippi and ahead of only West Virginia. And we’re not...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has revealed to Newsmax that he is looking at a possible bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. Asked in a Newsmax TV interview if he is considering another White House run, Huckabee declares: “Yeah, I’m not ruling it out at this point. “I’m not sitting around having meetings with the strategic team, but it’s something I will certainly look at and I’m talking to some people just to determine whether it’s a kamikaze raid or whether it has potential and possibility.” Huckabee, who was governor of Arkansas for more than a decade up...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee insisted in an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney will be a “pro-life president” and he also predicted that Republicans will step up their campaign in the critical swing state of Ohio in the days leading up to the election. “I do believe that people know that this is not the front and center issue for Mitt Romney, never has been. But they’re comfortable that he really is going to be a pro-life president,” said Huckabee on Wednesday...

This year’s cast of GOP convention speakers could be future rivals, each jockeying for prime positioning in case 2016 opens up, Republican strategist Steve Schmidt said on MSNBC Monday night. The emerging five: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Rep. Paul Ryan. “All of these people in their own right are people who may have presidential aspirations and the ability to run a formidable campaign,” he said. “You maybe see the next generation of rivalries in the Republican Party.… You may see them all previewing what’s going...

The Army has revoked the Special Forces military occupational specialty of an Arkansas political candidate who claimed he served as a Green Beret in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kenneth Aden, a Democrat running against incumbent Rep. Steve Womack for Arkansas' 3rd District, has said in interviews he served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Green Beret, though a DD-214 and other documents he released to substantiate the claim only raised questions. In a statement Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Special Warfare Training Center at Fort Bragg, N.C., said Aden was dropped from Special Forces training in April 2008 "after failing...

LITTLE ROCK — In Arkansas, it’s the Republicans who are trying to make political hay out of the U.S. Supreme Court’s affirmation of the federal health care law, a big victory for the Democratic president’s signature policy issue. Reaction from Arkansas Democrats has been muted, likely an election-year reflection that the law known as Obamacare is as unpopular in the state as its namesake. GOP officials brushed aside any notion that the high court’s ruling had repudiated their vehement opposition to the law as a takeover of health care. “To the people of Arkansas I say this: I heard your...

After a poll released this week showed President Barack Obama only beating his Democratic primary opponent John Wolfe Jr. by seven points, 45 percent to 38 percent, in Arkansas's Fourth Congressional District, state Democrats moved to practically disenfranchise Arkansas voters. "[D]elegates Wolfe might claim won't be recognized at the national convention," national party officials are telling state Democrats. Wolfe is being accused of not following the party rules. “They want a coronation,” Wolfe tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “They’re conflating [Obama] with the party. Are we supposed to call him ‘Dear Leader’? Is this some kind of North Korea thing?” Wolfe...

President Barack Obama faced a stiff challenge from an unlikely opponent in the Democratic presidential primary in West Virginia on May 8. A federal inmate in Texas drew 42 percent of the Democratic vote in the Mountain State — about 52,000 votes to Obama’s 70,000. While the President squeaked by with a victory in West Virginia, he could lose an upcoming Democratic primary in Arkansas where he faces an opponent who polls show is running a competitive race. Tennessee attorney John Wolfe, who is an official candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2012, is drawing a surprising amount of...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Monday that Mitt Romney may be the Republican Party's "most electable" presidential candidate and dinged Texas Gov. Rick Perry for comparing Social Security to a "criminal enterprise." Huckabee's endorsement remains one of the most coveted among Republicans this election season, as the former pastor brought droves of evangelical Christians to the polls for his 2008 presidential run. On Monday, Huckabee noted what some see as another potential hurdle for Perry: his seeming likeness to President George W. Bush, the last Texas governor to occupy the White House. "It gives the Democrats the opportunity to...

Many linked his decision to his desire to run for governor in 2014, but insiders also recognize that next fall Ross was about to be confronted with the strongest challenger of his congressional career, in the person of Republican Tom Cotton of Yell County near Dardanelle. That’s the same place that was made a household name in True Grit, as in “My name is Mattie Ross of near Dardanelle in Yell County.” But the story of Tom Cotton which is about to unfold in his congressional campaign is strictly nonfiction. A rural Arkansas farm boy, Cotton made his way to...

A poll unveiled this week from American Research Group shows that three Republican presidential candidates -- U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska -- are gaining serious momentum in Iowa, site of the first presidential caucus. Bachmann, who declared her candidacy in June and has been surging in polls at both the national and state levels, topped the poll with 21 percent. Former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts placed second with 18 percent. Paul, who was the Libertarian candidate in 1988 and ran for the Republican nomination in...

I took a much needed break this weekend with friends and family and so I wasn’t around to blog the big news. Mike Huckabee is out of the running for the Presidential nomination. Now, I said as early as February 22nd that I was betting Huckabee wouldn’t run. So I’m happy to have a winning prediction under my belt. But besides that, this really shakes up the calculus for 2012. Iowa is now going to be wide open, and it leaves the “not Mitt Romneycare” position as one much easier to fill. The question is, who does this benefit? Palin?...

Well it would seem that Republicans in Congress blinked agreeing to a last minute deal where they compromised everything and Democrats gave nothing. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is doing a victory lap, and President Obama was thankful that funding Planned Parenthood was avoided. "We protected the investments we need to win the future. At the same time, we also made sure at the end of the day this was a debate about spending cuts — not social issues like women’s health and the protection of our air and water. These are important issues that deserve discussion, just not during...

Anyone who thinks presidential ambition is an incurable condition hasn’t spent much time lately with Mike Huckabee. The man who came in second in the 2008 GOP primary isn’t exactly ruling out another run in 2012. But he doesn’t sound all that eager to jump right back into the fray, either. “I’m not one who thinks the future of the world is depending on whether I run for president,” the former Arkansas governor said in an interview. The truth is, there were many things about the presidential campaign grind that Huckabee didn’t much like the last time around. Don’t look...

In a radio interview on Monday, Mike Huckabee said that President Obama was a) raised in Kenya; and b) as a consequence of this Kenyan upbringing, probably indoctrinated with anti-Western views by his father and grandfather and their stories about the Mau Mau uprising of the early 1950s. When the comments made national news on Tuesday, Huckabee, through a spokesman, claimed that he'd "simply misspoken" and that he'd "meant to say the president grew up in Indonesia." This explanation made little sense, because Huckabee hadn't merely said the word "Kenya" -- he'd discussed at length and in detail some of...

Mike Huckabee is the Hamlet of the 2012 presidential cycle. The former governor of Arkansas says he really, truly has not decided whether to run for the Republican nomination, and we believe him. He says he’ll decide this summer. His just-released book, “A Simple Government,” and accompanying book tour – which happens to include six stops in Iowa and five in South Carolina, two early nominating states – would appear to point to “yes.” But at a tea with reporters Wednesday sponsored by the Monitor, he seemed to plant the seeds for “no.” First, let’s go through the reasons Mr....

Does Mike Huckabee really hate Mitt Romney so much he'd run for president just for the chance to throw haymakers at his old rival? As a new poll shows the two Republicans running neck and neck against President Obama in the 2012 presidential race, the rivalry between Romney and Huckabee that began during the 2008 campaign resurfaced Monday when Politico published a story titled "Huckabee throws a Mitt fit." Click to enlarge Associated Press Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee From the archive News analysis: Analysis: Why Jon Huntsman Jr. may be running for president – Jan. 31, 2011 Huckabee: Israel...

According to a new poll, 51 percent of Republicans who intend to vote in their party's primaries do not believe that President Obama was born in the United States. Among these birthers, Mike Huckabee is the preferred candidate with 24 percent of the vote, followed by Sarah Palin at 19 percent, "someone else" at 15 percent, Newt Gingrich at 14 percent, and Mitt Romney at 11 percent. Unfortunately for the birthers, though, Huckabee, the winner of the birther primary, has made it clear that he doesn't subscribe to such conspiracy theories. As he said on Geraldo at Large on July...