Free Republic

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) described Rick Santorum, when he represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate, as a senator who had "very little interest" in people who disagreed with him. "Rick is somebody that has no doubts about his position. And very little interest in the views of those who disagree with him," Conrad said in an interview scheduled to air Friday evening on Bloomberg TV. "I think that would be my take on how Sen. Santorum conducted himself with his colleagues when he was in the Senate." Conrad described Santorum, now contending for the Republican presidential nomination, as "unyielding and...

Mitt Romney campaigned this week in Michigan with Republican Governor Rick Snyder who said: “Our country has never elected a president born and raised in Michigan.” Given the oafish way Mitt Romney is campaigning, it never will. Mitt Romney is doing in Michigan what he did in South Carolina, when Republican Governor Nikki Haley endorsed him and Newt Gingrich promptly thumped him. In Minnesota, Republican ex-Governor Tim Pawlenty endorsed Mitt Romney just in time for another thumping, this time by Rick Santorum. His plan is to line up the party’s establishment and beat up on his opponents in the race....

The SuperPAC promoting Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign is unleashing radio ads Thursday in three key states as well as nationally on popular conservative talk shows. The target of the independent group’s attack ads isn’t Rick Santorum, who has surged to the front of the race, but rather Mr. Gingrich’s favorite nemesis, Mitt Romney, along with the faceless enemy known as the Republican “establishment.” The five ads called “Time to Choose” – two run a full minute, the others go 30 seconds – build on Mr. Gingrich’s own increasingly angry statements in the past two months about the GOP “establishment” and...

It was yet another embarrassing spectacle of Republicans squabbling over who was for big government first. Jim Talent, a former senator from Missouri acting as a surrogate for Mitt Romney, took Rick Santorum to task for voting for Medicare Part D while in the Senate in 2003. Medicare Part D was indeed an egregious example of federal government growth. It added at least $7 trillion to the already substantial unfunded liabilities of the Medicare system. The deficit-financed prescription drug benefit was also the biggest new entitlement program since the Great Society. On a media conference call, Talent described it as...

Even with the president’s approval rating showing signs of life and the Republicans busily bashing themselves over the head — “one is a practicing polygamist and he’s not even the Mormon,� retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently quipped about her party’s two frontrunners — America continues to track right, according to polling data released by the Gallup Organization last week. Americans at this political moment are significantly more likely to identify as conservative than as liberal: conservatives outnumber liberals by nearly two to one. Forty percent identify as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, and 21 percent liberal....

When campaigns gather information from strategists, one of the most annoying things I notice is the importance placed on poll-tested buzz words. In a Republican primary, where every candidate seeks to gain the vote of its base, the biggest buzz word is 'conservative.' During the 2010 elections, newly active conservatives (the tea party) worked to unseat Democrats who played the big buzz word but then voted for the wholesale take over of the health industry. They also worked to primary (negate incumbency) life-time anointed Republicans who hadn't really been scrutinized in the past. The actions of the tea party showed...

Long before the tea party movement became an American political phenomenon, Newt Gingrich chucked empty produce crates into the Chattahoochee River in Roswell as part of a tax day re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party. The year was 1994, and the Georgia congressman was months away from reaching the apex of his political career as U.S. House speaker. As he now seeks the presidency, Gingrich casts himself as an intellectual forefather of the grass-roots movement that has redefined Republican politics, and as the man best suited to harness its energy against the “establishment” choice, Mitt Romney. So far, tea party...

The Houston Chronicle is reporting Texas Gov. Rick Perry is quietly fundraising for Newt Gingrich, the man he endorsed for president when he dropped out of the race. Perry has not made any public speeches on Gingrich's behalf yet. How is Perry raising money for Gingrich? Perry has sent an email to potential donors with the title "Bold Reagan Conservatives." In the email he touted what he believes are Gingrich's conservative qualities, stating that giving his campaign money would send a message to President Barack Obama.

... According to her mother,Amelia was denied a life-saving transplant because she was "considered mentally retarded." The statements attributable to her denying doctor are explicit and, if true, leave no doubt that the girl'slife was discounted because she has a neurological syndrome. The hospital is wisely reconsidering, but... Thirty-ninepercent of programs stated that they "rarely" or "never" considerNDD[neurodevelopmental delays] in their decisions, whereas 43percent of programs "always" or "usually" do. [SNIP] PeterSinger,...has argued..."[W]e should not see all human lives as of equal worth but recognise that some are more valuable than others. Such judgments should be made on the basis...

* Try Moderately Severe, or Severely Moderate!* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *Mitt Romney told a gathering of conservative leaders and activists Friday that he is severely conservative, or something. "I was a severely conservative Republican governor," Romney told the audience regarding his time in office, pointing out his support of traditional marriage and abstinence education. Sure Mitt and maybe God resides near a star called Kolob. Hey, I’ll send you a quarter so you can call someone who gives a flip!Now being far more conservative than Mitt, I’m not so certain that government should even be dabbling in matters of...

<p>Mod update: SANTORUM VOTES IN SENATE FOR Sotomayor WHILE NOT A SENATOR!!!</p> <p>Santorum joined every Democrat in the Senate and 24 other Republicans in voting yes. Sotomayor was confirmed by a vote of 67 to 29. It does not appear that Santorum talked publicly about his decision to vote in favor of Sotomayor’s confirmation. As many conservatives predicted, she was eventually nominated to the Supreme Court — but not until a decade later.</p>

Please DO NOT MISS that speech. PHENOMENAL!!! http://www.therightscoop.com/full-speech-daniel-hannan-at-cpac-2012/

MANASSAS, Va., Feb. 10, 2012 - Richard A. Viguerie, the Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, along with conservative activists Bill Wichterman and Rebecca Hagelin, hosted a luncheon and hour-long question and answer period for 90 national conservative leaders at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. "Four weeks ago, a large group of national conservative leaders met in Texas and came to the consensus that we should back Rick Santorum's campaign for President," noted Viguerie. "With relatively few resources, but lots of grassroots conservative support, Rick went on to win the Republican contests in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado," observed Viguerie....

Rick Santorum has backtracked from his 2008 endorsement of Mitt Romney by saying he was for “anyone put McCain.” But in this 2008 interview with Laura Ingraham Santorum praised Romney at great length — contradicting some of what he says today. In the interview, Santorum calls Romney a “true conservative” and says he “is someone we can trust.”

...Romney’s embrace of insuring the minimum wage increases, currently at $7.25, was surprising for a candidate who insists he is a reliable conservative. It was major mistake on his part for three reasons. First, from an ideological standpoint, what was he thinking? Has he missed the decades long discussion among conservatives about the disastrous impact of the minimum wage? It has eliminated jobs – hundreds of thousands of them – for young persons on the low rungs of employment. The ill effects have been felt especially by African American youth. Not only that, but the minimum wage represents a government...

<p>SAN ANTONIO — A federal judge blasted by Newt Gingrich and other conservatives for his ruling that prohibited prayer at a Texas high school graduation is firing back in accepting a settlement to the case.</p> <p>U.S. District Judge Fred Biery on Thursday admonished those who “demagogued this case for their own political goals.” He then added, “You should be ashamed of yourselves.”</p>

Participants in a recent shale gas energy conference held in Hobbs, New Mexico, referred to a whirlwind trip to Lea County, NM, as “exhausting” but “enlightening.” Bradford County Commissioners Doug McLinko, Mark Smith, and Daryl Miller, Susquehanna County Commissioner Mary Ann Warren and Pennsylvania state Rep. Tina Pickett were among local elected officials to partake in discussions and serve as guests on informative panels.

The resurgence of social and cultural issues in voters' minds poses new challenges for GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney as he reels from surprising losses Tuesday to conservative favorite Rick Santorum. The economy remains the No. 1 issue of concern for a majority of Americans. But recent hoopla ... has created a perfect storm that has pushed these seemingly dormant issues to the surface. [Snip] Even the general public has increasingly leaned to the right. In a Gallup poll last month, 40 percent of Americans identified themselves as conservative, 35 percent as moderate and 21 percent as liberal. The numbers...

Bound by a common desire to deny President Obama a second term, restive activists gathering Thursday for the 39th annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington find themselves lacking a clear champion in the suddenly scrambled Republican race to choose an alternative. CPAC attendees — expected to number more than 6,000 from across the country — pride themselves on maintaining varying degrees of independence from the GOP. The three-day gathering kicks off two days after primaries and caucuses in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri raised doubts once again among conservative voters about presumed GOP front-runner Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum, a social...

Sorry, Ann. I have adored you as a commentator, as you know, and appreciate your kind words about me in the past. But in discussing the individual mandate in your piece last week, "Three Cheers for RomneyCare," you honestly don't know what you are talking about. In the process, you are transgressing on my own work and past policy achievements, and grossly undermining the policy and political case against Obamacare. Read on, and I will explain in full. It was me, working for and with conservative health policy guru John Goodman, who first rang the alarm bell for conservatives over...

I have been writing for a long time about the real news in the Battleground Poll results over the last decade.  These bipartisan polls predict election results with remarkable accuracy and which also reveal the answers to all the questions respondents provided -- including, critically, how people describe themselves ideologically. In the last twenty consecutive Battleground Poll reports over the last ten years, the overwhelming majority of Americans have described themselves as "very conservative" or "somewhat conservative," although the poll provides six other possible responses:  "moderate," "somewhat liberal," "very liberal," or "don't know/unsure."  On average, about 60% of Americans in...

Over the last decade, conservatives have enjoyed Fox News, a national news network which has given conservatives a fair shake and which has been willing to expose the bigotry of the establishment media towards conservatism. Yet there is the chance that Fox News, when owner Rupert Murdoch dies, may drift towards the lockstep leftism so characteristic of other news networks. Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/if_fox_fails_us.html#ixzz1lbszR489

On October 1, 2010, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney described the genius of the American idea and lauded its results. “No nation has done more to lift people out of poverty than this nation,” he said in remarks at Benedetto’s, an Italian restaurant in Tampa, Florida. “Our free enterprise system has lifted billions out of poverty.” Romney spoke at a “Reclaiming America Rally” for Marco Rubio, then a candidate for the Senate. It was one of three events Romney did that day with Rubio. The two men chatted in the kitchen before their remarks to a crowd that spilled into...

SPARKS, Nev. — With Friday’s jobs report punctuating the nation’s steadily improving conditions, Mitt Romney and his advisers are confronting an unexpected economic turnaround that threatens to undercut the central rationale for his candidacy. The Republican presidential front-runner and his advisers moved Friday to adjust their rhetoric on unemployment and rejected the notion that good news for the country spelled bad news for Romney, instead insisting that his economic mission always has been bigger than just jobs....................

Mark Levin spent part of his first hour playing Milton Friedman clips and explaining why Romney’s position on minimum wage is wrong, to educate the man and us. But as you’ll see in his monologue below, it frustrates him very much that he feels he has to do so. He starts by playing a clip of Romney today that he was very much unimpressed with, which then turned into this amazing monologue where he explained why he is frustrated with Romney’s lack of conservatism. This is a MUST LISTEN. Here is a partial quote from his monologue but you should...

PHOENIX, February 3, 2012- Mitt Romney’s win in Florida didn’t happen because the voters felt at heart with Romney’s message and past, but rather the negative onslaught of campaign ads run by the Romney campaign and its allies against Newt Gingrich. An analysis from the Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG) shows that 92% of political ads airing during the last few weeks of the Florida primary were negative. It was so negative that CMAG President Ken Goldstein said, "this is the most negative campaign ever." Of all the ads during the Florida primary, 68% were negative toward Newt Gingrich and...

.......The Democrats and the Obama re-election machine have sat by and watched the Republican Follies over the past 48 hours, and by doing nothing they have gathered manna from heaven for the upcoming campaign. First, Gingrich is carpet-bombed in Florida, reacts petulantly is taken off his game and forgets what won South Carolina for him... .....Then Romney is seized by foot-in-mouth disease. By claiming he doesn't care about the really poor and would fix any holes in the safety-net he has reinforced the image of a greedy Wall Street banker out to make money at any cost. ....Mitt Romney then...

..Mr. Romney has captured the Republican flag and will carry it into battle this Fall. If he loses, those people who believed devoutly that the times require something more than a standard-issue Republican for whom all things political are negotiable and to whom there is no dispute that cannot be settled by compromise … those people will be saying, "Never again." If, on the other hand, Mr. Romney wins, what then? Does anyone expect that when he gets to Washington and starts running the government like a business, entitlements will reform themselves, the deficit will shrivel on its own accord,...

The Case for Romney - A president who owes you is better than one who owns you. [BIG snip] Let me try to offer some solace. Even if Romney is a Potemkin conservative (a claim I think has merit but is also exaggerated), there is an instrumental case to be made for him: It is better to have a president who owes you than to have one who claims to own you. A President Romney would be on a very short leash. A President Gingrich would probably chew through his leash in the first ten minutes of his presidency and...

In South Carolina, Newt Gingrich correctly attributed his success to the fact that he had simply "articulated the deepest felt values of the American people." Then the former speaker promptly went to Florida and abandoned that in favor of the most deeply felt values of Beltway consultants -- a childish food fight with Mitt Romney. Bad idea. Thus, with gravy stains on his tie and mashed potatoes in his hair, Newt Gingrich will limp away from Florida with less chance of becoming the nominee, let alone president. He may not finish even as runner-up (or even Miss Congeniality), a position...

Last night, a number of people on Twitter pointed out that Mitt Romney didn’t get a majority of the Florida primary vote and claimed that combining the percentages of all other competitors showed that he could still be stopped. I pointed out earlier that this assumes everyone wouldn’t vote for Romney as a second choice, which polling shows to be false (he was second among second choices in Florida), but let’s put that aside for a moment. To whom should conservatives look as the consolidation candidate? After watching Newt Gingrich lose two debates and suffer a steep reversal of fortunes...

It is terrible that conservatives are out there distorting the records of each candidate. Or worse passing along wrong information without checking facts. All of them have qualifications and disqualifications. But can we get away from what they say they will do and compare what they actually did when they were afforded governing power? I was talking to a nationally published conservative author and speaker today who had absolutely no clue that Newt Gingrich gave the “keynote” rebuttal AGAINST Al Gore on Cap and Trade legislation. This is a travesty not just of conservative media, but those we surround ourselves...

.....As it happens, Ronald Reagan himself -- but of course -- long ago addressed just this issue. On December 16, 1976, barely over a month after Gerald Ford rang up yet another loss by a moderate Republican presidential candidate, Reagan -- not happy -- was interviewed by the New York Times. Said Reagan: "We are simply saying, 'What does our party stand for?' If the great majority agrees with the philosophy, and some say it's a philosophy they can't go along with, that's a decision for every individual to make. A political party is not a fraternal order. A party...

Confident of victory in the Florida primaries tomorrow but afraid it might not be big enough to derail challenger Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney's team is moving to play down talk he will win by 10 points or more. "The win will wind up big, but we're not going to get double digits," said a key advisor. Several polls today have Romney's lead increasing to a Real Clear Politics average of 12 percent. Only three of nine of the most recent polls have Romney's lead in single numbers, with the highest being a 20 point lead in a Suffolk University poll...

More than 100 people rallied behind former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in downtown Jacksonville this morning as he promised he is closing the gap on rival Mitt Romney in Florida's Republican primary, despite polls showing otherwise. Gingrich appeared in a conference room at the Hyatt with his wife and Ronald Reagan's eldest son, Michael, for a 20-minute speech before leaving about 9:30 a.m. for other parts of the state. It was Gingrich's first public appearance Monday, a day before the primary. "I think we can run a campaign that creates a dramatic choice and that enables us to win a...

In Europe, there has been over the past two years a seismic shift in the opinion of the American president, who was once thought of as an agent for "hope and change" (something many in Europe could not explain either). I have often written about the opinion many in Europe have of Barack Obama. Yesterday one of my favorite columnists, Janet Daley, who writes for The Telegraph in Great Britain, penned an outstanding article clearly calling out Barack Obama for who he is and what he is doing. The title of the piece: "Barack Obama is Trying to Make The...

One of America's Founding Fathers, John Adams, wanted to create "a government of laws, not of men". This statement is one of the most misunderstood in American history. The communist governments of Cuba, China, and North Korea, are nations with many laws in their books, but they are not what John Adams had in mind. America's founding fathers created a constitution that was deliberately designed to starve the federal government of revenue. This is why they refused to impose a federal income tax on the American people, and the federal government had to survive on revenues raised from import duties....

The Mitt Riff, or why we will be okay if Mitt Romney survives the 2012 GOP primary gauntlet and becomes our nominee. In two words: Moderate conservatism. One can argue that the totality of the heresies Mitt has committed against conservatism make him unfit to carry the conservative banner against Obama. As for the heresies, you would probably be dead on. They are there, so I won’t argue their existence, but rather will argue why they aren’t as bad as are perceived and in the end why they shouldn’t unduly concern conservatives.

Republicans are worried sick about Newt Gingrich’s ascendance, while Democrats are tickled pink. Yet no responsible Democrat should be pleased at the prospect that Gingrich could get the GOP nomination. The future of America is too important to accept even a small risk of a Gingrich presidency. ....And it’s the flagrant irresponsibility of many of his propositions – for example, that presidents are not bound by Supreme Court rulings, that the liberal Ninth Circuit court of appeals should be abolished, that capital gains should not be taxed, that the First Amendment guarantees freedom “of” religion but not “from” religion. It’s...

........It is difficult to convey to NRreaders, much less to NewYorkTimes readers, just how astonished and annoyed the grassroots activists in Florida are. These are not people who hold party posts or are on LarrySabato’sRolodex as potential sources. They are the people who dropped what they were doing in 2010 and dashed off to the aid of their party in its hour of manifest need. They restored order to the public square, imposed clarity on the party message, sent a human wave of self-declared reformers to Tallahassee and Washington, and then said, with a sigh of relief, “There.You guys can...

From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin provides an iconoclastic new history of the entrance of evangelical Christians into national American politics. Examining the key players of the “Religious Right” — Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Chuck Colson, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and many others — D. G. Hart argues that evangelicalism is (and always has been) a bad fit with classic political conservatism. Hart shows how the uneasy alliance of these unlikely political bedfellows has contributed directly to the fragmentation of today’s conservative movement. He contends that the ongoing burden of reconciling the progressive moral idealism of religious conservatives with the...

Willard “Mitt” Romney is now lashing out at Newt Gingrich because of the Georgian’s long history as a Reaganite, making the preposterous argument that Gingrich was not present during one of the most important eras in American history. The question is how would Romney know? When given the opportunity to talk about his conservative credentials in his run for Senate in 1994 he denied Reagan saying "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush." From the beginning of his political career, Gingrich was always at the ramparts as a staunch ally of...

Before this campaign is over, America will know who Saul Alinsky is, even if Mitt Romney does not. " Let me just say that I believe the debate we're going to have with President Obama over the next eight or nine months is the outlining of the two Americas: The America of the Declaration of Independence v. the America of Saul Alinsky; the America of paychecks v. the America of food stamps; the America of Independence v. the America of Dependence; the America of strength in foreign policy v. the America of weakness in foreign policy. Those two choices, I...

I understand it's all about Newt vs. Mitt all the time. But I would ask that people think about a the bigger picture. All I'll say briefly about Newt and electability is, if in 2007 someone told me a black man named Barack Hussein Obama would defeat Hillary Clinton in the Dem primary and John McCain in the general election, I would have said they were crazy. So, please stop telling me you know for a fact what result any match up might produce in November of this year. We may all think we know, leading to a number of...

.... On Sunday, Romney tried to make a virtue of his shortcomings,... "I'm not someone who is angry at — and mad, but I am very upset about the direction this country is headed," the former Massachusetts governor said on "FoxNews Sunday," and he implicitly contrasted himself with an opponent who had a reputation as a Washington bomb-thrower. "No one says to me that I'm someone that flies off the handle, that I'm erratic or incapable of dealing with stressful situations. People see me as a guy who's calm under fire. I've been tested time and time again, had success,...

Newt Gingrich mobilized the tea party vote to help him win the South Carolina Republican presidential primary, according to exit poll results and interviews with supporters. Supporters of the conservative tea party movement were crucial to Gingrich's victory in Saturday's primary to be the Republican nominee facing President Barack Obama in November's election, exit poll data from South Carolina showed. Almost two-thirds of Republican voters said they backed the tea party, a three-year-old, grass-roots movement focused on smaller government and fiscal reform. Among tea party supporters in the South Carolina primary, Gingrich had a lead over Mitt Romney of 20...

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Rick Perry’s withdrawal and perfectly timed endorsement of Newt Gingrich on Thursday probably will help the former House speaker pick up a percentage point or two in South Carolina’s Republican primary on Saturday, political analysts predict. The Perry endorsement, coupled with the news that the final count in Iowa showed Mitt Romney actually lost the Jan. 3 caucuses to Rick Santorum, brightened what could have been a much tougher day on the campaign trail for Mr. Gingrich, who is again facing questions about his personal history of marital infidelity. But the Texas governor’s carefully chosen words of...

Washington (CNN) -- Briefly back in Congress doing his day job, Ron Paul met with high school students outside his office. True to form, he signed copies of the Constitution and wryly told them with a chuckle, "No one around here reads it very much. I'd like to get everybody to read it." [...] What Paul did not do was attend a closed-door gathering of House Republicans. In fact, the GOP presidential contender is known to never attend these meetings. But Paul's Republican colleagues who did go had no shortage of opinions about his strong showing in the presidential race...

This Saturday will be the most important primary vote of the year. Either conservatives and Tea Party members unite to stop Mitt Romney or we see a repeat of 2008, with a liberal Republican going up against Barack Obama.The conservative movement is split between three candidates, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum.I am calling on conservatives and members of the Tea Party movement to unite behind Newt Gingrich in South Carolina so that we can stop Mitt Romney.If we are going to see a conservative agenda advanced, we need a conservative candidate to do it and the only remaining...

Newt Gingrich identified the very core of conservatism with his remarks in the first South Carolina presidential debate. His vision of conservatism is the one that most Republicans don't understand and most Democrats don't want you to know. Gingrich was asked to explain his views on work ethic and the government erosion of that ethic through (at least in part) federal and state entitlement programs like food stamps. He suggested that poor high school students be given opportunities to perform janitorial services in their schools as a way to earn money and to learn how to work at a job....