Free Republic

Of course Donald Trump is doing very well and doesn’t need any help; but the way he is mopping the floor with the “other guys” could actually present a small but real problem on his march to victory. Those who have run local political campaigns, say for County Executive, have likely experienced or seen the problem of dealing with the down time between the county committee’s endorsement in April or May and the real campaign against a Democrat that starts unofficially the day after Labor Day. This can be called the July 5th problem. If there is excitement about your...

The Friday Filibuster: The one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about this week in politics.Closing Numbers12: The number of Christians ISIS executed in recent attacks for refusing to renounce faith.9: The number of people who died in South Carolina’s historic floods.$20,000: The amount of taxpayer dollars one ATF agent stole after submitting fraudulent work hours.16% of New Hampshire Republicans would vote for Fiorina, meaning she came in second place and is gaining on Trump. 42%: The amount deportations have dropped since 2012. 30% of Americans still have a ‘very favorable’ view of Planned Parenthood, despite the undercover video investigation. 42%...

Give him credit. Most elected officials are content to tinker at the edges, but Governor Jindal of Louisiana actually wants to solve problems. Look what he’s done, for instance, on fiscal policy. He sought to abolish his state’s personal income tax, a step that would have dramatically boosted the states competitiveness. That effort stalled, but he actually has been successful in curtailing state spending. He’s amassed one of the best records for frugality of all governors seeking the GOP presidential nomination. And he’s now joined the list of presidential candidates seeking to rewrite the internal revenue code. Since we’ve already reviewed...

After left-wing media went crazy over Dr. Ben Carson's comments about whether or not he'd vote for a Muslim president a few weeks ago, and he gained 100,000 new Facebook "Likes" as a result, I decided to begin tracking how many new Facebook followers each of the GOP candidates were attracting weekly. What I found may surprise you. Candidates perceived as part of the "establishment," such as Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Lindsey Graham, and George Pataki had surprisingly few followers considering their name recognition and experience. My initial research revealed Jeb Bush had the most followers amongst the...

In a new web advertisement released this week, Hillary Clinton expresses solidarity with victims of sexual assault. She implores those who have been abused not to “let anyone silence your voice. You have a right to be heard. You have a right to be believed. We’re with you.” So, Hillary Clinton, a willing participant in the 1992 Clinton for President Campaign’s plan to handle “bimbo eruptions,” is supposedly concerned about victims of sexual assault. She is so skilled at lying that she does not realize the hypocrisy so evident in her new campaign message. In defending her husband from the...

The wheels haven't come off Hillary Rodham Clinton's bus quite yet, but they're getting wobblier. Hence the Joe Biden boomlet. As a columnist, never mind as a conservative, I think it's a fantastic idea. (A Biden vs. Trump debate would cause a national popcorn shortage.) But is Biden really the answer to the Democrats' problem? That depends. As with any malady, the right treatment hinges on the correct diagnosis. You don't recommend better diet and exercise for a shark bite. Biden is a treatment for one symptom, not the whole disease. The latest ABC/Washington Post poll numbers underscore the continuing...

Here are the current rules of the political game in America. When Democrats are in office, they move the country to the Left as quickly as possible. When Republicans are in office, the country still moves to the Left, albeit more slowly; so the GOP can claim it’s "gotten something done." Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been caught in enough scandals, committed enough gaffes and made enough mistakes to destroy any Republican ten times over; yet they've gotten a pass. Meanwhile, Republicans live in holy terror of having their political careers destroyed by having a quote in...

Quiet conversations have begun in recent weeks among some of the Republican Party’s biggest donors and normally competing factions, all aimed at a single question: How can we stop Donald Trump?

Hillary Clinton's second race for the presidency is only about a quarter through, but she already seems to be causing general fatigue. The lurid revelations about the Clinton Foundation proved that it was not so much a charity as a huge laundering operation. Quid pro quo donations from the global rich and powerful fueled the Clintons' jet-setting networking. In between political campaigns, the foundation provided sinecures for out-of-work Clinton politicos. This is hardly proof of Hillary's grass-roots progressivism. Then came Clinton's email fiasco. No one knows how the current investigation of her alleged misuse of email accounts, servers and classified...

MOST ENTERTAINING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF MY LIFETIME! Without question—it is a statement I’ve said repeatedly on-air, and one that comes out often in private conversations. Look at the interest level. People who have never voted in primary elections are turning out by the thousands to see the consummate socialist at one end of the spectrum, and by the tens of thousands to see a man who brags how well he’s beat the system of free markets. I don’t expect most of these people to vote in the actual primary elections—because they probably won’t—but man is it fun to watch....

To many in Washington, there's little question that the 2016 presidential election should feature a dynasty rematch between the Clinton and Bush families. To most outside of Washington, that's the last match-up they want to see. The difference could perhaps be described as a tale of two Americas. The past 15 years have been a great time for political insiders, as the city of Washington, D.C., has become a boomtown. In fact, our nation's capital is now the nation's wealthiest metro market. Fueling the economic growth in our nation's capital has been an explosion of federal spending during the Barack...

On paper, Donald Trump offers a lot as a candidate. He’s able to command a room, he is decisive, confident, unapologetic for what he believes, doesn’t need to kiss rings and make promises to raise money, and he stands up to an activist media. But campaigns aren’t run on paper, they’re run in life. And in life, Donald Trump appears to have an out-of-control ego in need of constant feeding, which is coupled with no ability to control himself. Nothing about Donald Trump’s life requires constraint. Worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 billion, there is nothing he can’t afford...

By Joel Leyden United States News AgencyNew York --- August 23, 2015 ... Social media is no longer the bastard son of the media. It is the media. There was a time when newspapers (print), billboards, lawn signs, buttons, radio and TV ruled in winning a political campaign. Those days are history. Classic media is still relevant, but no longer primary. It is no longer the question "should we add social media to our campaign budget?" But - "should we add newspaper, TV and radio to our campaign budget". The reason is called "instant", "feature" and "cost effective". One need...

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders represent two sides of the same coin. Both men have tapped into a deep anger -- a discontent -- in the public mood. Little seems to be going right. America appears in decline under a disengaged president. We can't seem to win wars, or know why we are fighting them. People are afraid of losing their jobs or unable to find one. While the treasury takes in record amounts of money from working people, it outspends its income. Sanders and Hillary Clinton want to spend (and borrow) even more. Why the anger? Is it justified...

We can acknowledge that Donald Trump's popularity is partially related to his unapologetic defense of himself and his policies, but let's examine why that is particularly appealing to his supporters and others. How did we get to this point? Grass-roots conservatives believe that their policies can make America great again, that they can make Americans more secure and prosperous. Many of them still believe in traditional values, which are now in disrepute. They are appalled at the systematic assault on their ideas in our public schools, our universities, the media and Hollywood. They are horrified by the attacks on their...

In 1935 George Dangerfield published "The Strange Death of Liberal England, 1910-1914," a vivid account of how Britain's center-left Liberal Party, dominant for a century, collapsed amid conflicts it could not resolve. The Liberal Party had appeared impregnable. Its cabinet in 1910 included Herbert Asquith (in the midst of the longest consecutive prime ministership since the Duke of Liverpool's and until Margaret Thatcher's), and the future wartime leaders David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. But after 1910 the party never won an election again. What got me thinking about Dangerfield's delightfully written book were political developments here and in Britain...

The continuing saga of Hillary Clinton’s missing e-mails just keeps getting “curious-er and curious-er”. And I’m becoming more and more reminded of the Nixon Watergate investigation. You know, the one Hillary Clinton was fired from for unethical and dishonest behavior. Then North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin gained fame through his leadership of the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Campaign Practices, also known as the Senate Watergate Committee, which was looking into the campaign practices of the Nixon re-election campaign. The Watergate investigation gave us the phrase, “What did the president know, and when did he know it,” regarding President Richard...

This past weekend at my annual RedState Gathering, I rescinded an invitation to Donald Trump to speak after getting the runaround from his campaign on what he really meant when he said Fox News' Megyn Kelly had "blood coming out of her eyes or wherever." It was an unfortunate outcome. As I told the Trump campaign, I feel like the other candidates have been doing their best to ignore Trump and treat him as a sideshow, when, in fact, he was sitting in the center seat at the debate. The other candidates, the media and the Republican Party should give...

Hillary Clinton is in a freefall right now. Her poll numbers are dropping, her socialist rival is drawing larger crowds and a new book being released this week is reminding Americans about her phony marriage. In Ron Kessler’s new book, The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of Presidents; it was revealed that former President Bill Clinton is once again cheating on his wife. This time his mistress is a buxom blonde who brings cookies to the secret service agents, according to Kessler. He also claims that Hillary treats agents with “contempt.” In fact, he says...

One might say that the president was rather presumptuous when he declared, passionately and quite seriously, that if he launched another bid for the White House, he would emerge victorious. But would he? The voters have spoken, it seems, and it doesn't look good, at least according to a new Rasmussen poll. Not surprisingly, almost every self-declared Republican surveyed (93 percent) said they would decline to pull the lever for President Obama if he was on the ballot. (I suppose after six and half years, the public is ready for a change). But far more interesting, perhaps, is the fact...