Free Republic

In a rally last week in Waukesha, Wisconsin, there was anger. The anger was clearly based on a genuine fear that Barack Obama will become the next president of the United States, and along with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, will take our nation in a direction so far to the left, that the system of government our founding fathers envisioned will be totally unrecognizable. And they are looking to John McCain and Sarah Palin to have the cojones to take Obama and the Democrats to task on it. Barack Obama is a socialist, perhaps even a Marxist. His political...

Journalists are trained to “follow the money” – to uncover who donates how much to what campaign, especially in the midst of a presidential election. When Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld testified before the House Oversight Committee Oct. 6, the media criticized his wealth and spending amidst financial turmoil in his company and on Wall Street. But conspicuously missing was the story of Fuld’s political contributions. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Fuld has donated to Democratic candidates over Republican candidates by a margin of almost 5-to-1 in the last 15 years. He has given $106,400 to Democratic candidates...

Last Friday's debate between John McCain and Barack Obama proved to be a let down to most rational thinking conservatives. Sure, it would have been easy to claim victory as some on the right side of the political spectrum did. But in analyzing the debate from a critical perspective, McCain just didn't measure up. Not that he didn't score several points on foreign policy and national security issues. This is McCain's strong suit. He vigorously defended the war in Iraq, the dangers posed by Obama's plan for a quick withdrawal without a clear plan for victory, and the threat from...

The last two weeks have been a wild ride for the United States economy and for the presidential campaigns. The stock market has taken a tremendous beating, and financial institutions once thought of as solid, have now reached the verge of collapse under the weight of bad decisions and lack of oversight. The government has taken an unprecedented step at a bailout plan that will cost up to a trillion dollars of taxpayer money, while offering no guarantees that it will stop the bleeding. Treasury Henry Paulson, appearing on Fox News Sunday, said that our nation's still frozen credit markets...

The drumbeat. It's always there. Day and night. Rain or shine. Winter or Summer. Sunday or Monday. It comes at you from every direction. It comes over the TV, the radio, at work, at school, in music, in the newspapers, from the politicians, in conversation with others, even in church. It wears you down. It robs you of the will to resist its message.

Sarah Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson was an appalling attempt at smearing her, even to the point that some in the mainstream media even took Gibson and ABC News to task on it. From the outset, it was clear that Gibson planned to paint her as completely inept and unqualified. The very first question, asking Palin if she hesitated when McCain offered her a spot on the ticket, dripped with condescension. Here was Gibson, looking professorial with his glasses down at the end of his nose, eyebrow cocked, as if to portray her as a liar, or so self-assured as...

Money Track at Political Base Data aggregated from the FEC. All records are based on $200+ contributions to campaigns except for the 2008 Presidential campaigns, which include sub-$200 transactions as well.

Republican presidential running mates John McCain and Sarah Palin roared into Virginia yesterday in their first appearance together in this vital battleground state. Sans their opponent’s usual big-name band opening act to pull in crowds, the McCain-Palin rally drew an estimated 23,000 or more from across Virginia. Crowds packed into a hot and humid Van Dyke Park in Fairfax City to cheer for their candidates. According to the campaign press office, this was the largest McCain-Palin rally to date. Sen. Fred Thompson fired up the crowd as the lead-in to the main event with red meat jabs at the media,...

On Shepard Smith program tonight, there was a clip of Obama on campaign trail saying this: "you take a PIG, and put lipstick on it, it's still a pig" Smith said Obama was referring to Palin in the comments. NOTE: Brit Hume said today that 3 democrat Senators , who Hume showed in a picture at Obama event are the ones investigating TROOPERGATE, which is OUTRAGEOUS...why are Obama supporters "heading up" that investigation, that is a conflict of interest. That too needs to be addressed.

There's a huge buzz in the conservative community. Republicans are finally on board with John McCain's candidacy, what with his excellent accounting of himself at Rick Warren's Civil Forum at Saddleback and the addition of Sarah Palin to the ticket. We should feel excited, even proud to be Republicans again. We appear to have finally found our way, recovering from the mistakes that were made which led to the Democrats taking over both houses of congress in 2006. But lately I've been sensing a certain feeling of cockiness. Democrats, we are told, are running scared. Palin has the Obama camp...

A few months back I wrote a blog post in which I gave several reasons why I would not support John McCain for president. I had and still have several issues with which I disagree with McCain. However, since that posting, several factors have changed my stance. The biggest thing that has led me to re-evaluate my position is that fact that Barack Obama has emerged as the most dangerous candidate to ever run for the presidency. His political ideology is so far to the left as to be considered Marxist, and his ties to unsavory characters such as William...

John McCain's latest campaign ads attacking Barack Obama on his celebrity status and his messianic persona are hitting their marks. Obama has helped to paint himself as the second coming of Jesus Christ...and now those chickens are coming home to roost. His arrogant, elitist attitude has struck even some of his most ardent supporters as over-the-top. McCain, for his part, has up till now, refrained from going after Obama on his exaggerated sense of importance. Instead, he has preferred to paint Obama as just "not getting it" when it comes to such issues as the Iraq war, negotiations with Iran...

John McCain is making it increasingly difficult for conservatives to support him. His lack of passion and enthusiasm for this race has left many dumbfounded. The mainstream media's love for Barack Obama has kept McCain out of the spotlight for the longest time, and this past week with Obama on his "magical mystery" tour, McCain was virtually nowhere to be seen. One exception was when Obama was giving his "citizen of the world" speech in Germany. McCain made an appearance at a German restaurant...in Ohio. How lame is that? On those notable occasions when he pops his head out of...

There is no such thing as a bad time to salute our nation's soldiers This note ought to come under the heading of dumb, stupid or insensitive. Why would a person, least of all a presidential candidate, travel all the way to a war zone and not take time to salute our troops? And this is the man who wants us We the Peoples to believe that he deserves to be our nation's Commander in Chief. And his big ol' inept excuse? He did not think it would be appropriate to use campaign money to visit the troops! What an...

Understanding American voter sentiments heading into the 2008 Election cycle is no easy task. Voters seem to be all over the board on how they feel about the issues, the candidates, and what they think we should do about each issue is even stranger. In studying current Rasmussen Report detailed numbers, Americans seem to struggle with remaining on task all the way through their thought processes. Many voter positions appear quite counter-indicated, contradictory and even downright confusing, or should I say, confused. Obama and McCain are clearly in a dead heat statistical tie in the race for the White House....

We are in the eye of the hurricane; past the primaries and caucuses, not quite to the conventions, debates and the general election. This should be a time for both candidates to be pounding home their messages. Barack Obama is getting all the support he needs from the mainstream media. They love him, adore him, worship him. He is the second coming of Christ, or so it is believed. But what of John McCain? During the primary season, when McCain had already wrapped up the Republican nomination, and Clinton and Obama were duking it out, several pundits were saying John...

Barack Obama is on fire. The presumptive democratic nominee for president has thoroughly defeated Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House, the two of them have apparently kissed and made up, she's now on the campaign trail hawking his wares, and all is right with the world as far as the Democratic National Committee is concerned. All polls seem to indicate that Obama is beating his republican rival John McCain. McCain himself has indicated that he is the underdog in this race, and has a lot of work to do between now and November. Obama is the oncoming...

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va., June 17, 2008 – The U.S. military now incorporates a joint-force strategy to combat enemies who practice unconventional warfare around the globe, a senior officer said today at the kickoff of the 2008 Joint Warfighting Conference. The success of Operation Desert Shield, a joint military effort that forced Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991, convinced America’s enemies that unconventional, or asymmetrical, warfare was the best way to confront U.S. forces, Army Lt. Gen. John R. Wood, deputy commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, told conference attendees. “We have a strategy; it is joint,” Wood said. “In...

Hillary Rodham Clinton ended her historic bid for the White House on Saturday and enthusiastically endorsed Barack Obama. Yeah, right. She actually suspended her campaign, allowing her to hold on to her delegates and technically remain a candidate. She does so in the hope that something might happen which would change the minds of the superdelegates that have fallen over like dominoes for Obama. And what, pray tell would make that happen? Another scandal, perhaps. One so devastating to the Obama camp that it would cripple his candidacy. There are rumors of a DVD which may soon surface, purportedly of...

The Teflon candidate, Barack Hussein Obama, has resigned from his church following the latest scandal involving another preacher delivering racially charged comments. In this case, it was a guest speaker, a Roman Catholic priest, no less. Controversies surrounding the church have created persistent distractions to his campaign, so say his staffers. The problem is, this means nothing. It never has. The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Reverend Otis Moss and now Rev. Michael Pfleger, whose videotaped guest sermon at the church Sunday showed him taunting Hillary Clinton and saying she felt “entitled” to the presidency because she’s white would have decimated the...

When President Bush addressed the Israeli Knesset last week, he hit the nail directly on the head with his remarks about some who would seek to appease terrorists. Bush said: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along." "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it...

If I had any doubts about whether to vote for John McCain in this year's presidential election, those doubts were laid to rest this past week when McCain sat down for an interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. McCain solidified for me the fact that he is not a true conservative and not worthy of my support. McCain proved that on some of the most crucial issues, he will let down a base of constituents that are looking for answers. O'Reilly addressed the question of rising gasoline prices. Anyone with a brain in their head knows that only two...

The Indiana and North Carolina primaries loom large this week for Hillary Clinton. Recent polls show that she is in a virtual dead heat with Barack Obama. Obama's problems with his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright just will not go away, as much as he would like them to. Wright continues to make news because he wants to remain in the spotlight. Wright, at first incensed that Obama finally tried to sever all ties with him over his incendiary remarks, now is enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame by appearing on programs such as Bill Moyers, and making speeches...

The fact is - most Americans would love to pull the lever for none-of-the-above! 50% of American voters have been pulling that lever for years now, having already thrown in the towel on elective self-governance by not voting at all. The other 50%, who still vote, cast their votes against the other candidates, not for any of the clearly under qualified misfits that now run for the highest office in the land. (snip) In the end, a vote for Hillary is only a vote against Obama and McCain. A vote for Obama is only a vote against Clinton and McCain...

Just when you thought that Barack Obama would be able to put the Reverend Jeremiah Wright controversy behind him, the albatross around his neck became even heavier when Wright decided to return to the spotlight. First, he agreed to a sit down interview with PBS's Bill Moyer, in which he says his fiery comments were taken out of context and used in a devious manner by the media to discredit him. Wright is also scheduled to appear Sunday in Detroit at the NAACP's 53rd annual Fight for Freedom Fund dinner. And a prominent Muslim leader from a Detroit suburb has...

Barack Hussein Obama never ceases to amaze us with his comments regarding the very people he claims to want to attract to his campaign. His most recent case of foot-in-mouth disease was evidenced last Sunday when he made disparaging remarks about the voters of Pennsylvania. Obama was speaking to a group of wealthy California donors in San Francisco. He said that residents of small-town America “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” out of bitterness over lost jobs. When his opponents, Hillary Clinton and John McCain jumped all over the remarks as arrogant, Obama...

We at America Talks are launching a concerted effort to see to it that Barack Hussein Obama is not elected the next president of the United States. He is a dangerous individual who would do great harm to this country. Obama's associations with people of questionable character, his friendship with a racist pastor whose comments he claims he disavows, his plans to negotiate with and placate terrorists and terrorist sympathizers, leads us to believe that his not an honorable man who is looking out for the interests of our nation. Obama's questionable past, his embellishment of his father's legacy, his...

There is no disputing the insanity in the amount of money spent on political campaigns in America and no explaining it either. If the average American really is poor and desperate for change, where is all this money coming from? And would these Americans still be poor if they didn't waste a billion dollars trying to fill a $400k a year job? (snip) As of current FEC campaign filings, Americans have so far thrown a record $790 million at the 2008 presidential election since the campaigns started 14 months ago. The cost of selecting our next president could easily hit...

My notes on this from the Clinton call weren't clear, but USA Today posts the audio, which is. On the Clinton call earlier, Mark Penn said, "We believe that [the Pennsylvania primary result] will show that Hillary is ready to win, and that Sen. Obama really can’t win the general election." He later revised it to say that losing Pennsylvania would raise questions about Obama's ability to win. But it's a pretty strong thing to say.

Hillary, 'most secretive politician in America'? Posted: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 6:34 PM by Domenico Montanaro Filed Under: 2008, Clinton, Obama From NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan and Domenico Montanaro The Obama campaign is stepping up the rhetoric. Campaign Manager David Plouffe went so far as to call Hillary Clinton the "most secretive politician in America today." The tough talk underscored not only the negative shift in tone of the Obama campaign in the past 24 hours, but just how contentious this fight for the nomination is becoming. Part of what the Obama campaign would like the focus to be on is...

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By now, every political junkie knows that Hillary Clinton made a $5 million donation to her own primary campaign in the days leading up to Super Tuesday. Should the personal cash infusion make her supporters nervous? Maybe. Certainly the Clintons can afford such a payout, but by dipping into her own pockets, Hillary joins the dubious ranks of the self-financers, for whom GOP dropout Mitt Romney is this year's poster boy. True, self-financing did wonders for Michael Bloomberg, who spent a reported $148 million on his two New York City mayoral campaigns, but experts say that paying your own way...

Barack Obama has made a historic presidential run this cycle primarily on the basis of changing the political culture in Washington. His unbelievable success has ironically set a trap for a potential general-election run. Obama has to choose now between keeping his word, or conveniently breaking it and exposing himself as just another self-serving politician: A year ago, at the beginning of his bid to secure the clean-up-Washington mantle, Barack Obama made a pact with John McCain that, if the two were to be their party's nominees, each would accept public financing for the general election. That agreement sounded far-fetched:...

In a message to supporters sent just before 11 p.m. Friday night, Representative Ron Paul, a long-shot G.O.P. candidate from Texas, basically conceded that he’s not going to win the party’s nomination. That said, he’s scaling back his campaign — but not entirely. He said: With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do...

OMAHA, NE -- Barack Obama called Mitt Romney's candidacy "ineffective" on the day that the former MA governor dropped his bid for the presidency. Romney, who dropped out of the race for president today in Washington, said in his exit speech that the GOP must unify and not allow Democrats to allow the country to "surrender to terror." "Well my reaction to Mitt Romney's comment that's the kind of poorly thought out comment that lead him to drop out," Obama said during a press avail on his campaign plane. "It's a classic attempt to appeal to people's fears that will...

With all of the primaries going on in the past month, you may have noticed that the presidential candidates are starting to get a little snarky with each other. What you may not know is that mudslinging isn’t exactly a new tactic. And I’m not talking as recent as Nixon and Kennedy… nope, the nasty rumors and talk of mistresses and morals go as far back as George Washington. In case you’re wondering exactly how down-and-dirty these campaigns got, consider the fact that this is the only election in history where a vice president has run against the president he...

McCain is loathesome. And, it's not just fellow Republicans who despise him. But, if the hard core GOPers want to hate their front runner, who are we to stop them: But Sen. McCain still confronts a problem both in the remainder of the nomination race, and, if he wins, in the fall: He is simply loathed by many fellow Republicans, often for the very bipartisanship and maverick streak that attracts independents. His biggest, and perhaps final, test comes Tuesday, when 21 states hold contests -- most of them open only to Republican voters. "So it is over. Finished. In November,...

"This has nothing on the nearly $1 million that Hillary Clinton has had to give back as a result of the Norman Hsu scandal," he told The Los Angeles Times. "I would put Sen. Obama's record of fighting for lobbying and ethics reform up against anyone in this race."

WASHINGTON — The 2008 presidential race long ago shattered all fund-raising records. But lately even the best-financed campaigns are feeling short on cash. The leading presidential candidates raised and spent tens of millions of dollars on the same ultimately unsuccessful goal: to knock out their opponents with decisive victories in the early nominating contests of Iowa, New Hampshire and, for the Republicans, Michigan. Together, the top six candidates across both parties are projected to have brought in a total of more than $400 million and burned through at least 80 percent of it.

Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson played up his Southern roots and his conservative resume Friday during a campaign stop at the Beacon Drive-In. "It's so good to be here among folks who don't think I talk funny," Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, said to a crowd of about 300. He did little campaigning in states where they do think he talks funny - Iowa, New Hampshire and Michigan - and the results were predictable. He was third in Iowa, sixth in New Hampshire and fifth in Michigan. Thompson spent most of the past two weeks traveling across South Carolina, and...

Margaret Thatcher, She Ain’t It would be impossible to understand how anyone could ever consider Hillary Clinton qualified to be Commander-in-Chief if it were not for the fact that she is effectively running for the Democrat nomination unopposed… Face it; if you’re a Democrat, next to the empty résumé of a freshman nobody named Barack Hussein Obama and boy Edwards, the dashing ambulance chaser who has done nothing with his life beyond filing a few law suits against deep pockets, Hillary Clinton looks pretty good. How could she not be leading the DNC race? What race? But for the rest...

All eyes are naturally enough on the Michigan primary tomorrow—all eyes, that is, except mine, Jonathan Adler's, and those belonging to readers of this happy Corner who have been wondering, along with Jonathan and me, when the polls down in South Carolina would finally begin to move in Fred Thompson's direction. Now, Rasmussen reports, they have. Fred ain't dead. Lately, as the South Carolina debate demonstrated to all the world, he ain't even drowsy. Which brings me to a question. Earlier today I talked with an old friend who's close to the Thompson campaign. At every Thompson campaign stop in...

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. - Rudy Giuliani's top campaign aides are not being paid this month, an ominous sign as the former mayor makes a do-or-die push to win Florida's Republican presidential primary. Though the campaign revealed Friday it had $7 million on hand at the end of December, Giuliani said he expects to sink almost the entire wad into Florida. "Frankly, Florida is real important to us," he told reporters. "So we're going to put, if not everything into Florida, almost everything." The remarks suggested Giuliani is banking on somehow using a win in Florida's Jan. 29 primary to generate...

SUMTER, S.C. - Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson said Wednesday he is drawing a "line in the sand" in South Carolina, hoping that familiar Southern territory can revive a campaign sputtering following his last-place finish in New Hampshire the night before. The former Tennessee senator and actor arrived in this early primary state the day before New Hampshire voters went to the polls, and has steadily ratcheted up the importance South Carolina will play in the future of his White House bid. The Republican primary here is Jan. 19. "I'm proud to say I am drawing a line in the...

Twenty million, 30 million, 40 million . . . pretty soon, Mitt Romney is going to be talking about real money here. “Washington is broken,” Mitt said last night. Unfortunately, so is his campaign. Ann Romney stood behind him, wearing black, which seemed appropriate for the occasion. According to his staff, Mitt’s in it for the “long haul,” although that all depends on what the definition of the word “long” is. This morning, how’d you like to be a Romney fund raiser? Or a Romney worker in Michigan? Or a Romney anything? On the Internet message boards last night, they...

1. We expect promises of change from Democratic candidates, but it's disappointing to watch certain Republican candidates yield to that superficially seductive sound bite, too. It's like the global-warming freight train, which few politicians have displayed the guts and character not to board. 2. It's disappointing to watch candidates from both parties accept the premise that criticizing your opponents' records and pointing out their inconsistencies and lies is engaging in dirty politics. It is not dirty but obligatory to draw distinctions between you and your opponents. Dirty politics is distorting one's record or spreading lies about a candidate. Why do...

Drudge is reporting some rumors that Hillary Clinton might be considering an exit from the race to the White House. From New Hampshire, PJM’s Richard Miniter asked Rudy Giuliani what he thought. Asked about reports that Hillary Clinton may drop out of the presidential race, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, amid the press scrum infront of Jackie’s Diner in Main Street, Nashua, New Hampshire, Nashua, laughed . Then laughed again and said: “I have no comment on that. Absolutely no comment on that.” Laughing again turned to this reporter and asked “is that really the report?” “Yes, it’s in...

Columbia, SC (LifeNews.com) -- National Right to Life is putting its money where its mouth is for Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson in South Carolina. The pro-life group has mailed a postcard touting Thompson’s record to thousands of residents in the third primary battleground state and one where Thompson needs a strong showing. The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) endorsed Thompson back in November saying he has a strong pro-life voting record and stance on both abortion and bioethics issues. The mailing, sent by the group's political action committee, features a picture of an infant baby and says, “This...

Quin Hillyer is a conservative, but not a Fred Thompson lackey. His observations? I am firmly convinced that Fred Thompson still has a real shot at the nomination...I watched him with Wolf Blitzer just an hour or so ago and he came across very very well indeed. He really is hitting on ALMOST all cylinders now, more so every day since beginning to really engage about December 1. ...it is also worth noting that the utterly scurrilous Politico story yesterday almost certainly depressed Thompson's vote in Iowa. As I said on Fox News yesterday, for a news outlet to publish...

CHEYENNE - Wyoming Republicans gather today at county conventions to help select their party's presidential nominee. Will anybody care? While Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee generated lots of attention from victories at Thursday's Iowa caucuses, the same is not likely to happen for the winner in Wyoming. Wyoming has barely cracked the consciousness of national news reporters and pundits who have talked ceaselessly about Iowa and already are focused on Tuesday's New Hampshire primary. Mitt Romney, who finished second in Iowa as a Republican, briefly mentioned Wyoming on cable TV Friday morning. Some national newspapers, including the Washington...