Free Republic

Frederick, Md. - Newt Gingrich says the finish line for Mitt Romney's path to the GOP nomination is further down the road than what current delegate counts indicate. The longshot hopeful, who has said he won't get out of the race until Romney secures 1144 delegates, is stressing that the delegates have to be "uncontested" in order to count. The frontrunner's rivals argue some of the states that awarded Romney all of their delegates violated Republican National Committee rules when they moved their contests ahead of April 1 and therefore should distribute delegates proportionally. This dispute, if it continues, would...

Rick Santorum is regarded by many of his supporters as the “real” conservative in the GOP presidential race, and most Democrats pay him the unintended compliment of considering him an arch-conservative. Undoubtedly, Santorum is a conservative of a certain type, but how far to the right was his voting record during the three terms he spent in the United States Senate? To answer this question, I went to the American Conservative Union’s ratings archive for 2006, Santorum’s last year as a senator, and looked up the lifetime ratings of those who were in the Senate at that time. One could...

Dole thinks Romney is in a tough spot over his role in crafting the Massachusetts health plan that the White House says was a blueprint for ObamaCare. He called it a liability for Romney but said it wasn’t “fatal.” “In the first place, you’re dealing with the state level rather than the national level,” Dole said. “And I haven’t gone over the Massachusetts plan, but there are mandates in it. That’s the one thing that Romney has to answer to, about mandates.” Dole added: “But I think he’s, you know, when he stands up and says, ‘One of the first...

The fact that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is a “good family man” is why he has gained traction recently with voters, according to radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. “My guess [why Santorum’s popularity is rising] might have to do with the fact that it’s now widely known that Santorum is a loving, devoted father,” Rush argued. A recent Washington Post/ABC News story stated that Santorum is winning more support from Republican women and is “less unpopular” among Democrat and independent women than his GOP rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich despite his views on abortion, contraception, and prenatal screenings...

The Romney campaign sends along a statement by Bob Dole pasted below. Relations between Dole — an establishment figure in the party — and Gingrich were well known to be tense during the 1990s. Here it is: I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a...

All the members of the Republican Party who have been complicit and collaborative in the destruction of our nation in the past few decades always talking about smaller government while never fighting against the tide of creeping socialism have now come out against Newt Gingrich. Yesterday, at National Review, Elliot Abrams attacked Newt Gingrich for attacking Ronald Reagan from the right. Today, it is Bob Dole’s turn. Bob Dole, you will remember from George Stephanoupolos’s memoir of his time in Clinton’s White House, totally cut the legs out from under Newt Gingrich and House Republicans during the government shut down....

Mitt Romney, whose liberal past and questionable conservative credentials are at the heart of his problems securing the Republican presidential nomination, is being supported by three prior Republican nominees--all of whom lost their bids for the presidency while running as moderates.Sen. John McCain, the 2008 nominee who lost to Barack Obama, endorsed Romney on January 4 heading into the New Hampshire primary.Former Sen. Bob Dole, the 1996 nomineee who lost to Bill Clinton, endorsed Romney in December before the Iowa caucus.Former President George H.W. Bush, who lost to Bill Clinton in 1992, 'unofficially' endorsed Romney in December in remarks to...

Bob Dole, the 1996 GOP Republican presidential nominee, unleashed an attack on Newt Gingrich today, saying not only is he unsuited to be president, he’ll crush the party’s candidates at the state and local levels. “Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall,” Dole said in a statement published by National Review. Dole was a senator from 1969 to 1996, overlapping with some of Gingrich’s time as speaker of the House. In his statement, Dole said he’s decided to speak out against Gingrich “before it is too late” and Republicans nominate someone who...

Former Senate Majority Leader — and 1996 GOP Presidential nominee – Bob Dole just tore into Newt Gingrich with an open letter that violates Reagan’s 11th Commandment so many times, Bob Dole will be in the confessional until Easter. ... .. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway. ... Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall. He loved picking a fight with Bill Clinton because he knew...

All the members of the Republican Party who have been complicit and collaborative in the destruction of our nation in the past few decades always talking about smaller government while never fighting against the tide of creeping socialism have now come out against Newt Gingrich. Yesterday, at National Review, Elliot Abrams attacked Newt Gingrich for attacking Ronald Reagan from the right.Today, it is Bob Dole’s turn.Bob Dole, you will remember from George Stephanoupolos’s memoir of his time in Clinton’s White House, totally cut the legs out from under Newt Gingrich and House Republicans during the government shut down. According to...

I'm sure tonight.. I'm going to be thrown off this forum....so what if I do... I'll go down swinging... Buy before I go... I'm speaking my mind.... Gutless wonder Rush Limbaughs....Hey..Charles Krauthammer... Ann Coulter.. Chris Christie...are you listening... Mark Steyn... the editors of NRO... You are all the coward of cowards... You are all covers for Mitt Romney...You are all his Lackeys.... But let me ask you all something... esp you, Ann.... What was Mitt Romney doing in France as a Mormon missionary...? Hmmmmmmm? He speaks Fench.... Tell us Ann Coulter... what was he doing there? Ask him how many...

Republican elder statesman and former Senate leader Bob Dole on Sunday endorsed Mitt Romney to be the Republican presidential nominee, a day after the former Massachusetts governor received the backing of Iowa's main newspaper. In an open letter to Iowa voters, Dole - himself a former presidential candidate - said a great deal was at stake on January 3, when Iowa votes in the first nominating contest for the 2012 presidential election. "A number of my friends are currently candidates seeking the GOP nomination. But the time has now come for us to decide who among them can defeat Barack...

Republican elder statesman and former Senate leader Bob Dole on Sunday endorsed Mitt Romney to be the Republican presidential nominee, a day after the former Massachusetts governor received the backing of Iowa's main newspaper. In an open letter to Iowa voters, Dole - himself a former presidential candidate - said a great deal was at stake on January 3, when Iowa votes in the first nominating contest for the 2012 presidential election. "A number of my friends are currently candidates seeking the GOP nomination. But the time has now come for us to decide who among them can defeat Barack...

Gannett paper, link only http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2011/12/17/23902/

AP has called the race for Turner

He stood up to the radical right when it shut down the government in 1995. Who will do the same today? The government shutdown of 1995, dramatic though it was for the country and damaging though it was to the GOP, looks like the height of Republican reasonableness compared with today’s brinksmanship over default. So much is different from 1995. The economy is weaker. Experts say the economic consequences of default may far exceed a mere government shutdown. The Republicans are much more, shall we say, ideologically inspired—with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner, and House Majority...

As rain splatters the windows of Sen. John McCain’s second-floor office on Capitol Hill, the 74-year-old Arizona Republican leans back, clasps his hands, and recalls the Nineties. Brinksmanship, he says, cost the party then, and it could cripple Republicans this summer — especially if Rep. Michele Bachmann gets her way. Over in the House, “I am told that it is very difficult,” McCain says. “There are Republicans who are committed, like Michele Bachmann, to vote against raising the debt limit under any circumstances.” Bachmann, he warns, is acting “sort of like Senator Obama did.”(snip) Yet as poorly as Obama has...

For years now there has been a clear power struggle within the Kansas Republican Party, but some major party figures say something about that tussle has changed. The rift between conservatives and moderates, they maintain, is widening into a chasm that could have significant implications for the party and the state. "I see Kansas Republicans being more divided than in years past," said Senate Majority Leader John Vratil of Leawood. (snip) ...conservative forces in the Capitol are stronger than ever. But many aligned with that side of the party want more. They seek decisive legislative majorities that could push an...

RUSSELL, Kan. | The long lines of well-wishers were here again. So were the Dole for President T-shirts and the striking red, white and blue “America’s Choice” campaign buttons. This time, though, Bob Dole was back not to launch another presidential campaign but to hang out for a few days in his old hometown. “It’s still home,” he said. “There’s only one home, and that’s wherever you grew up.” Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/06/11/2943571/ailing-bob-dole-returns-to-russell.html#ixzz1P4Vd7iBE

The race for the 2012 Republican nomination for President is becoming more concrete. GOP candidates made their pitches to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington on Feb. 10-12 and a straw poll of attendees was taken. The Washington Post reports Rep. Ron Paul of Texas won the poll, with about 30 percent of the 3,742 ballots cast. The poll doesn't say much as not one candidate received more votes than the other. Some of the biggest news from the weekend came from former vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin and she didn't even attend the conference. Palin hired...

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- A spokeswoman for the Dole Institute of Politics in Lawrence says former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole has been readmitted to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Dole Institute spokeswoman Heather Anderson tells The Associated Press that Dole was admitted to the hospital Thursday.

On Oct. 24, 1996, Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole got up at a campaign rally and promptly lost it: "I wonder sometimes what people are thinking about, or if people are thinking at all," he shouted. "Wake up, America!" Those words -- an unmistakable harbinger of the humiliation Dole would experience by losing to Bill Clinton in a landslide 12 days later -- seemed to echo painfully like Taylor Swift singing without the benefit of an auto-tune machine in the bewildering comments made over the last couple of days by President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. It's odd, to...

Not only did he endorse her, he did it from his hospital bed at Walter Reed. And then he sent her the maximum possible donation allowable under law.Second look at the GOP establishment? Christine OÂ’DonnellÂ’s message resonated with the voters, and to the surprise of many she defeated Congressman Mike Castle, who many of us thought would win. The primary is over and in my opinion it is time for voters to join hands and support Christine OÂ’Donnell. The Delaware seat is important and the winner in November could well determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the Senate. I find...

An endorsement from a symbol of bygone centrist Republicanism, Bob Dole: Christine O’Donnell’s message resonated with the voters, and to the surprise of many she defeated Congressman Mike Castle, who many of us thought would win. The primary is over and in my opinion it is time for voters to join hands and support Christine O’Donnell. The Delaware seat is important and the winner in November could well determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the Senate. I find many of the attacks on O’Donnell to be personal and lacking in balance and fairness. If her campaign wishes I am willing...

Introduced by a Democratic state representative at a gathering of hundreds of senior citizens at a condo complex in heavily Democratic Broward County on Wednesday, Florida governor and U.S. Senate candidate Charlie Crist thanked God that he was no longer a Republican. "You know, I used to be a Republican," Crist told the adoring crowd after an introduction by Democratic state Rep. Ari Porth . When a women in the audience yelled out, "Thank God!" Crist immediately said, "Yeah, thank God. Right - used to be!" The statement came the same day Washington Examiner columnist Timothy P. Carney revealed that...

Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole is hospitalized at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, undergoing therapy after recovering from pneumonia, his spokesman says. Dole, 86, was admitted to the military hospital about three weeks ago with a respiratory condition, spokesman Michael Marshall said Monday. Dole recuperated from his bout with pneumonia but has remained at Walter Reed to regain strength from earlier surgery on his left knee, Marshall said.

White House tells DNC to take down "Republican Support" ad that was on YouTube, Dole said "It's just not my view." Here's how Dole appeared in the video (Screen Shot)

Former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole says a top GOP leader asked him not to publicly support health care reform. But he's doing so anyway. The former Kansas senator said Wednesday that health care reform is "one of the most important measures members of Congress will vote on in their lifetimes." Dole opposes a government-run insurance option, saying it could put private insurers out of business. He expects something to pass by early 2010. Dole spoke at a health care summit in Kansas City. He said afterward that some Republicans have asked him to stay mum including Senate Minority Leader...

The national debate on health care took an ominous turn last week as a number of high profile Democrats beginning with former President Jimmy Carter argued that critics of the Obama Administration have latched on to this debate as a way of voicing their latent racism and anti-Black bigotry. The worst chief executive of the twentieth century dismissed tea party protestors as sore losers who cannot accept the painful reality that an African-American man is now the President of the United States. The fact of the matter is that since 1980 Jimmy Carter has been unable to accept the painful...

Bob Dole, a venerable 86 years old now, was back in the Washington limelight over the weekend, appearing on ABC TV to dispense counsel on a bipartisan approach to health care, popping up in newspapers explaining how to cut a deal, even suggesting Gen. David Petraeus as a presidential possibility. But his most heartfelt weekend activity took place elsewhere, out of sight of Washington politicos and devoid of any potential for gain or notoriety. It came under a brilliant Saturday-morning sun, when the former Republican presidential candidate, now a bit more frail than most Americans recall him, stepped out of...

“I will go on to the White House or go back to Kansas.” — from Bob Dole’s speech resigning from the Senate during his 1996 presidential campaign Even if it’s 13 years late, make good on your promise, Bob. Give up your Watergate apartment and go back to Kansas. Please. The photo here could be seen as Exhibit ‘A’ from the pathologist’s report. No, not of Ted Kennedy’s affliction, but of DC Swamp Fever, Washington-itis, or whatever you want to call the disease that overtakes politicians who, like a lonesome Brokeback cowboy, just can’t quit the town.

(FORTUNE Magazine) – As we tap out these words on our trusty 101-key enhanced keyboard, the Dow Jones industrial average is around 2700 and also looking enhanced. ... (FORTUNE Magazine) – Easily the most maddening political debate these days is the one about whether Congressman Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat, should resign on grounds of turpitude. ...

For the first time in 32 years, Democrats got more than 50 percent of the country to vote for their candidate in a national election, and now they want to lecture the Republican Party on how to win elections. Liberal Republicans have joined them, both groups hoping no one will notice that we just lost this election by running the candidate they chose for us. For years, New York Times columnist David Brooks has been writing mash notes to John McCain. In November 2007, he quoted an allegedly "smart-alecky" political consultant who exclaimed, in private, "You know, there's really only...

McCain needs to learn from the mistakes of another honored war hero who ran for the White House and lost.John McCain has long known what it's like for a teleprompter-challenged Republican senator to go up against a charismatic, made-for-TV Democrat. In 1996, McCain was Bob Dole's right-hand man. He served as one of the Kansas senator's closest traveling companions and top surrogates in the battle to unseat Bill Clinton. It was a race that began as Dole's to lose—Clinton was caught up in the Whitewater scandal. But lose he did. McCain watched as the Democrats successfully transformed the image of...

Bob Dole says Bob Dole is mad at Scott McClellan. The former Senate majority leader and 1996 Republican presidential candidate sent a nasty e-mail to McClellan calling him a "miserable creature" for his latest book blasting the Bush administration, FOX News has learned. In the e-mail, Dole basically describes the former White House press secretary as a traitor looking to cash in on the "liberal" media's distaste for President Bush. "There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don't have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," the five-term...

Bob Dole unloads on McClellan Bob Dole yesterday sent a scalding email to Scott McClellan, excoriating the former White House spokesman as a "miserable creature" who greedily betrayed his former patron for a fast buck. In an extraordinary message obtained and authenticated by Politico, Dole uses his trademark biting wit to portray McClellan as a classic Washington opportunist. "There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," Dole wrote in a message sent yesterday morning. "No, your type soaks up the...

How can the world's hungriest schoolchildren be denied meals while the farm bill being debated in a House-Senate conference provides millions in subsidies for wealthy farmers? That's what Congress proposes. In all fairness, it should not become law. We are puzzled that Congress wants to increase overall farm bill spending by billions of dollars yet reduce by more than 90 percent the mandatory funding to feed hungry children. The program at issue saves lives and has a proven ability to break the cycle of poverty and hopelessness in poor countries. We are not expressing disagreement because the program, supported by...

WASHINGTON - A great old war hero - arms man gled by battle and known as an acerbic straight shooter - is picked by Republicans to be their nominee to make darned certain that a Clinton doesn't get back into the White House. John McCain? No, Bob Dole in 1996. And it didn't work out very well for Republicans. Dole lost after a campaign vexed by senior moments such as when the nominee fell off a stage, or when he referred to the Los Angeles Dodgers as the Brooklyn Dodgers. All along, President Bill Clinton showed extreme deference to Dole,...

As Hillary Clinton starts to fade away, or so it appears, John McCain faces both new obstacles and opportunities in his quest for the White House. The question is, will he be "helped" in the same way Bob Dole was in 1996? Dole was one of the better nominees the GOP has put forth in modern times. He was (and is) bright, witty, conservative and independent. Oops. Did I say independent? That was his problem. The Republican establishment generally doesn't like independence. President George H.W. Bush could barely stand Newt Gingrich in Gingrich's pre-Speaker years as House GOP Whip. Gingrich...

Bill Clinton in the town hall debates of 1996 and 2000 included physical, non-verbal debate strategies. This paper analyzed these "visual bytes” to see how Clinton used them during the debates. While the impact of “visual bytes” on the audience cannot be measured, this paper discusses the rhetorical implications of their use. -snip On Question One about national unity Clinton challenged Dole's response through aggressive posturing when Dole answered first. The camera shot aired had Clinton looking into the camera as Dole spoke while the shot frequently showed the back of Dole's head. The camera zoomed in for a quick...

I posted a squib on the National Review Web site about a robo call I received from John McCain. (Virginia's primary is Tuesday.) The call stressed that he would, if elected, be a down-the-line limited government conservative who would never raise taxes, would defend life, would enforce immigration laws and would win the war on terror. The candidate is trying, I said, to meet conservatives "more than halfway." The response of readers was, shall we say, emphatic. One lady wrote that she would never vote for him as "He is the most disloyal, ill-tempered man and he brings out the...

Ann Coulter wasn't invited to CPAC this year but she's still giving a speech 50 yards away. The speech is only open to 500 attendees but you can watch it live here -- courtesy of uStream. (VIDEO)

Former Sen. Bob Dole, the failed Republican presidential candidate in 1996, became the focus Tuesday of an increasingly testy exchange between GOP presidential contenders John McCain and Mitt Romney. The tit-for-tat began with Dole coming to the aid of McCain, a fellow war hero and former Senate colleague, in a letter to conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. He has relentlessly criticized the front-running Arizona senator as insufficiently conservative.

(CNN) – Mitt Romney is backing away from a statement that seemed to denigrate former GOP presidential candidate Robert Dole, who wrote a letter to Rush Limbaugh yesterday defending the former Massachusetts governor’s main Republican rival, John McCain. In a FOX interview Tuesday morning, Romney had said the former Kansas senator was “probably the last person I would have wanted to have write a letter for me.”

Below is the text of a letter former Republican Kansas Sen. Bob Dole sent to radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, as obtained by FOX News. Rush, I have not seen you in a long time but I do hear you frequently and I know that you have serious reservations about Senator McCain. Not that many care but I have not been involved in the Republican Primary contest because Elizabeth, a good conservative, is running for reelection in North Carolina where Romney, McCain and Huckabee each enjoy considerable support. I was the Republican Leader from January 1985 until I left...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: So by now, if you don't know that Bob Dole sent me a letter yesterday afternoon, then you haven't been paying attention.  Here's the timeline on this.  Senator Dole, for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect, sent me an e-mail that I received here at 2:35 p.m. yesterday afternoon.  I assumed that it was a private e-mail and was going to reply to it later in the afternoon when I got home.  By the way, Mike Allen of Politico.com, the headline:  "Dole Scolds Limbaugh," there was no scolding in this letter.  I have it here...

Mitt Romney backpedaled Tuesday after saying former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole is “probably the last person I would have wanted to have write a letter for me.” Romney made the remark in response to a letter Dole wrote to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh in defense of John McCain. Romney even tried to call Dole, with no luck, from his plane as he criss-crossed the country on Super Tuesday in last-minute campaigning. “Let me make it very clear. Senator Dole is an American hero, a war hero, a fine man and a great leader for our party,” Romney...

Bob Dole, the former Senate Republican leader, wrote an insistent letter to Rush Limbaugh on Monday and suggested that for the good of the party, the conservative talk-show host should stop his strafing of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). On Monday's show, Limbaugh asserted that McCain has "lied about his reason for opposing the Bush tax cuts," and added: "I think McCain has an animus toward the Republican Party. I think ever since South Carolina 2000 he's had it in for the Republican Party, and one of his objectives is to destroy it and change it." McCain, the front-runner for the...

Stop comparing mean old crazy McCain to good old Bob Dole!

Albert Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. With that in mind, if John McCain wins the Republican presidential nomination, it might be appropriate to temporarily designate the site of the 2008 Republican convention an insane asylum. Why? Well, a Republican doesn't need to spend much time on a political analyst's couch before depressing memories of the 1996 presidential election – also known as the Bob Dole debacle – are dredged up. If you're old enough to remember that frightening experience, but still too traumatized to recall it, perhaps...