Free Republic

Winterset, Iowa - Beyond the silos, down the street from the Rexall Drug, a few steps from the movie theater and the bakery, and hard by the Ben Franklin five-and-dime sits the Northside Cafe, with its nine wooden booths and its 15 shiny circular stools along the counter. This noontime, the hand-scrawled sign outside speaks of chicken-fried steak, butternut-squash soup, bread pudding, homemade desserts, hot drinks - and Rick Santorum. The former senator from Pennsylvania won the 2012 Iowa caucuses. Here, a classic Iowa small town, is just the sort of staging ground Mr. Santorum put to good use four...

Leaders of the Christian right have found their man: Ted Cruz. In the past two weeks, the Texas senator has wracked up a string of high-profile endorsements from influential evangelical leaders, including Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown, and Family Leader chief Bob Vander Plaats. According to the National Review, many more are on the way.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is seen by many voters as a social conservative. His friends at the Republican Jewish Coalition, which he has addressed many times, know him as a leader on foreign policy issues. His expertise on Iran is as solid as it gets.[Snip] "They know who I am and I know who they are. I have been fighting radical Islam before it was fashionable to fight radical Islam." He observed, "I authored the Syrian Accountability Act." Colin Powell said this act was the primary reason Syria exited Lebanon. He also authored the "Iran Freedom and Support Act."

What if you get pregnant, your partner has abandoned you, and you happen to live in Missouri where there is ONE clinic which provides abortions? What if you're also financially or geographically unable to exercise that particular option? The Republicans have made sure that you must birth that baby, welcome to single-parenthood! According to GOP Presidential 'hopeful' Rick Santorum, you will be the leading cause of gun violence.

The quest for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination has turned into a race with three big lanes - establishment voters and social conservatives, plus Donald Trump's coalition of blue collar GOP voters. In setting the stage for a possible three-candidate showdown for the GOP nomination, this split bodes particularly well for social conservatives, who staged strong but ultimately failed runs in past two-way races. There's a lot to be said for driving in the social conservative lane. That candidate gets a well-defined base of voters that's been there before and that turns out. Consider the last few Republican presidential fights...

GOP presidential candidates former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum defended GOP frontrunner Donald Trump's statement to ban Muslims from coming into the United States until the government can put in place an effective vetting process during the undercard debate hosted by CNN in Las Vegas, Nevada on Tuesday. Even without being on stage, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump managed to drive the conversation within the first five minutes of the debate. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took a swipe at Trump saying, "Donald Trump has done the one single thing you cannot do, declare war on Islam...

Republican presidential candidate former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum argued that "Islam is different" and the idea that its political structure is "protected under the First Amendment is wrong," a point former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee agreed with. Santorum said, "The fact of the matter is, Islam is different. I know this is going to come as a shock to a lot of people, and I mean that sincerely. Islam is not just a religion. it is also a political governing structure. The fact of the matter is, Islam is a religion, but it is also Sharia law. It is also...

Donald J. Trump for President Inc. announced Thursday that the campaign has officially filed a full slate of state delegates to appear on the ballot in the Tennessee 2016 Primary. The campaign said the Tennessee slate of 82 potential delegates, the most allowed under state law...

If you only watch one heart-warming, warm-and-fuzzy, inspirational, feel-good holiday movie this season, make it this one. Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors airs at 8 p.m. today on NBC and continues the tradition established by such country-themed bio-pics as Walk the Line (Johnny Cash) and Coal Miner's Daughter (Loretta Lynn). Whereas those films took a broader perspective on the lives of their country legends, this offering concentrates on a seminal period in young Dolly's life -- her hardscrabble but loving childhood in rural Tennessee that inspired the famous hit song from which the movie takes it name. Many viewers...

"We will not start World War III by taking out (Iran's) nuclear capability. We will stop WWIII. WWIII is underway in the world today. Everybody needs to understand that. WWIII has started and unless we short circuit it, it's going to explode into a real global conflict," Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum warns on Breitbart News Daily.

This month, the Islamic State's monthly English-language magazine, The Dabiq, quoted three so-called American "crusaders," including 2016 presidential candidate Rick Santorum. The item, titled, "In the Words of the Enemy" also featured "Virginia state Sen. Richard Black and former CIA officer and author Gary Berntsen, who are all quoted at length in the article on their various warnings about the group's abilities to expand its caliphate." Santorum, who's a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and the runner-up in the 2012 Republican presidential primary election, has been speaking at length in speeches and appearances about the ISIS threat and the need...

Frank Luntz, the moderator of the Presidential Family Forum on Friday night, asked former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) if there was ever a time he cursed God. I was surprised by the question because I thought it was deeply personal, and not exactly an aspect of one's life that a candidate would want to put on full display. Santorum gave a graceful answer to that question that I found very encouraging and inspiring. It also sheds light into the depth of his character. Here's a transcript:

It's been said to me a number of times from Republican activists of every stripe. Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, both former Iowa caucus winners, just don't have it this time around, and thus, they should take the cue and get out of the Republican race for president. In the poll-driven presidential campaign that has also been overly nationalized, I completely understand why this sort of thinking is prevalent in Iowa less than three months before people will head out to caucus. While the size of the Republican field has been reduced, it's still large and cumbersome. And after watching...

Chris Christie’s back among the leads in the next episode of this TV season’s favorite reality series, The GOP Debates. CNN, which is airing the next episode, on December 15, this morning announced its casting criteria. Nine candidates look likely to make the cut for the RNC-sanctioned debate at The Venetian in Las Vegas, the network said: Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Rand Paul is however, a bubble-dweller at this point, and...

There will be a few empty seats around one Thanksgiving table this year: Donald Trump and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are among those skipping Friday's Presidential Family Forum in Des Moines. The event is hosted by the conservative Christian group the Family Leader. President Bob Vander Plaats is seen as an evangelical kingmaker in Iowa. Discussions of politics and religion may be ill-advised at most holiday feasts, but not so here. Instead, Republican presidential hopefuls sit together around a table and answer open-ended questions that Vander Plaats says are designed to reveal their "character." Vander Plaats has a track...

GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rick Santorum says President Barack Obama is “ignorant to the threat posed by radical Islam,” in response to Obama’s statement that Republicans are creating a “potent recruiting tool” for ISIL through their rhetoric. “President Obama should be ashamed of himself, but sadly he is so ignorant to the threat posed by radical Islam that he doesn’t even have a clue how wrong he is,” Santorum challenged. “Radical Islam is not exploiting Republican rhetoric. Radical Islam IS at war with the West!”

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee have failed to qualify for the prime time Republican debate on November 10, making them the first top-tier candidates to be relegated to the undercard round, Fox Business Network announced Thursday. Meanwhile, former New York Governor George Pataki and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham failed to qualify for the undercard debate, meaning they will not appear at all when Republicans gather in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, next week.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is "pretty boring." And that's why you should vote for him, Santorum told Alabama Republicans during a Tuesday night conference call as part of a series the Alabama Republican Party has been holding with 2016 presidential candidates. "I think the most important thing is we've been disappointed enough in Washington, D.C., by sending people down there that don't live up to what they say they're going to do," Santorum, who won the Alabama presidential primary in 2012, told Alabama GOP Chairwoman Terry Lathan on the call, adding that he has "a track record that you...

Former Sen. Rick Santorum said on the radio Wednesday that the first Democratic debate revealed all the candidates to be socialists. He made the comments in response to a question about an exchange on capitalism between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Clinton said at the Democratic debate Tuesday that at times we have to “save capitalism from itself” and that corporations should share more of their profits with workers. “I’ve been around it for a long time,” Santorum, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, said of the debate in an interview with Rose Unplugged on AM1250 The Answer....

On Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum went on the left-wing talk show The View, where the debate turned to one of the more persistent myths about Planned Parenthood’s services. In response to Whoopi Goldberg asking of Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding, “What will you replace it with if you take it away?” Santorum answered: Well, first off, I’m for reallocating every dollar that goes to Planned Parenthood and put them in women’s health centers that actually provide more comprehensive services than Planned Parenthood does. Planned Parenthood, for example, doesn’t provide mammograms. Now, I know people say...