Free Republic

NR has learned that the McCain campaign has been calling key state GOP officials around the country the last couple of days and sounding them out about the consequences of a pro-choice VP pick. The campaign is asking about the reaction of conservative grass-roots activists to such a pick and whether a pro-choicer can be sold to them. This is an indication that the McCain campaign is serious about the possibility of a pro-choice VP nominee and that McCain leaving the door open to Tom Ridge last week may not have been merely a friendly nod to a longtime supporter....

This is an AP article. I did a search and didn't see it posted anywhere and I'm not sure if AP articles were still prohibited here. Anyway, Ridge believes Republicans will accept a pro-abortion VP.

Top social conservative leaders in key battleground states are urging John McCain not to pick a running mate who supports abortion rights, warning of dire consequences from a Republican base already unenthused about their nominee. McCain’s comments Wednesday to the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes that former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge’s pro-abortion rights views wouldn’t necessarily rule him out quickly found their way into the in-boxes of Christian conservatives. For those who have been anxiously awaiting McCain’s pick as a signal of his ideological intentions, there was deep concern that their worst fears about the Arizona senator may be realized. “It...

WASHINGTON — Democrats and the media have used the term so much that it's almost an article of faith. But the so-called "Republican attack machine" waiting with piles of unregulated cash to chew up Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is anything but. Obama cited the threat of unregulated attack groups — called "527s" because they're authorized to raise unlimited cash under that section of the Internal Revenue Service code — to justify dropping his pledge to take public financing — along with its spending limits — for the general election campaign. Yet there's no 2008 equivalent to the 2004 Swift...

John McCain has cursed and bullied fellow Senate Republicans on a host of issues over the years. Yet McCain's colleagues are setting aside any hard feelings to embrace his White House bid -- for their own good. In doing so, many are also distancing themselves from Republican President George W. Bush, widely derided for the unpopular Iraq war, ailing economy and soaring gas prices. "We are going from rallying around one of the most disliked guys in the world, to a guy who is very well liked in America, but not so popular in the Senate," a Senate Republican leadership...

For four months John McCain had a clear field while Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were at each other's throats. Given the opportunity, the Arizona Senator failed to define the debate in favorable terms, spending much of the valuable primary months defending himself on charges that his campaign staff was top heavy with lobbyists. Conversely, McCain has so far eluded the anti-Republican tidal wave that threatens to sweep away the party's candidates at every level, from county councils to the U.S. Senate. Amid the early wreckage -- GOP partisan identification in the tank, three defeats in rock-solid GOP House districts,...

Why the Conservative Crisis? To me, Conservatism is mostly the child of Wisdom and Common Sense. But what do we do when common sense is no longer common and wisdom is no longer held in esteem? That is the current state of Conservatism in America. Slandered and slapped, belittled and maligned. Many conservative Americans are shifting nervously in their seats, unsure of what they were once sure of. The power of a constant drone of the media, academia, and even popular culture can make even the most headstrong believers hesitate. When the perception is built that almost nobody believes as...

As congressional Republicans contemplate the prospect of an electoral disaster this November, much is being written about the supposed soul-searching in the Republican Party. A more accurate description of our state is paralysis and denial. Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans. Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we...

I've never been a fan of John McCain. Not only is he not a conservative, he may have done more damage to the conservative movement than any other Republican over the last few years. Look back at the Gang-of-14, global warming, McCain-Feingold, coddling terrorists at Gitmo, illegal immigration -- on and on and on, and you'll remember John McCain working feverishly with liberals to defeat conservatives. For that reason, John McCain was not someone I backed for the Presidency. My order of preference for President was Duncan Hunter (whom I consulted for), Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and then,...

The Republican Party is dead. That’s what the smart people say. The “brand” has lost its meaning. I don’t know if the party is dead, but I do know it has lost its soul. It has abandoned its traditions and principles, and America seems to be just about done with it. Ironically, those who want to save it are the ones who have killed it. When Arnold Schwarzenegger says he wants to chart the course of the Republican Party, you might as well turn off the lights and go out of business. The Republican Party has lost its purpose by...

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 "You're Going to Lose If You Keep This Up"   [Kathryn Jean Lopez] As Sean Hannity issued the above warning to congressional Republicans today on his show, the House — including enough Republicans (100) to amass a veto-proof majority — passed the pork-laden farm bill. We editorialized on the bill: The program is nothing more than a massive income transfer from American taxpayers to a small handful of very large producers who grow just a few crops; the program can’t be serving the purposes its defenders claim it does — ensuring a stable food supply and...

. . . Democrats will control Congress. If they also control the White House, we will have a series of legislative packages that will make the Great Society look like a libertarian government. . . . The country is in trouble. We have forgotten our founding principles, and we move inexorably toward a European style socialist state, with the only winners being an enormous bureaucracy. This will accelerate the economic decline. The argument is to give the Democrats their head, and pick up the pieces after the inevitable crash. I think that overlooks the resilience of tax and tax, spend...

Soul searching Republicans are turning to an unlikely savior, one-time party heretic and now presumptive White House nominee John McCain, as they try to stave off an electoral disaster. Stung by the Democratic seizure of three staunch conservative seats in Congress, Republican lawmakers fear a shellacking in November's general election, after losing control of both chambers of Congress in 2006. The rise of McCain as their champion is not without irony, since the 71-year-old Arizona senator has quarreled with his own party for years on issues as diverse as immigration, campaign finance reform and global warming. But it is precisely...

All Republican leaders must resign Written by Viguerie on Wed May 14 11:48:26 -0400 2008 Republican leaders in the White House, the Congress, and the Republican National Committee and its affiliates, along with most Republican leaders at the state level, have failed – or outright betrayed – the conservative voters who put them in their positions.The result is that the party’s “brand� has become a negative, to an extent greater than in the Watergate era, perhaps worse than in the days of Herbert Hoover. The number of new Republican voters is flat while Democratic voter registration is skyrocketing.Contributions to GOP...

Special election races for Congress have arguable value as bellwethers for upcoming general elections. Mostly these races get decided on local issues rather than national themes, as in Louisiana, where the Republicans ran a lousy candidate, considered the only person who could have lost the seat. They do demonstrate the strength of national party efforts, though, and when one party loses three special elections in districts previously thought safe, that sends a message — and rightly has Republicans worried about their chances in November: A Democrat won the race for a GOP-held congressional seat in northern Mississippi yesterday, leaving the...

RUSH: I've been waiting for this, and I am prepared for this. I just got an e-mail, not a subscriber. This is in the general e-mail account at ElRushbo@eibnet.com. It's from a woman called Sandy Bose. I guess that's how you pronounce it. BREAK TRANSCRIPT "Dear Rush: Since Operation Chaos, the GOP has lost three congressional seats. I'm a conservative. I have nothing. I have no candidate for president. I have no national party unit, and no Rush, who is consumed with Operation Chaos. Enough is enough. Sandy Bose." I've been waiting for this. I've been waiting for somebody to...

In a major blow to national Republicans, a Mississippi congressional seat that once voted for President Bush by a twenty-five point margin elected a Democrat on Tuesday. Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers beat out Republican candidate Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, by a 54%-46% margin, a spread that several Republican strategists on Capitol Hill characterized as a startling wake-up call for a party in dire straits. Voters cast ballots for the fourth time in three months for the seat, vacated when Republican Roger Wicker was appointed to fill the remainder of Senator Trent Lott's term. After winning the...

Lot's of very glum faces among House GOP members this morning as they emerged from their weekly closed-door session. The political situation is not good, and they aren't even trying to deny it. Rep. Tom Davis stomped on the concrete floor of the Capitol basement when asked by reporters about Republican fortunes at the moment. "This is the floor," he said, by way of explanation. "We're below the floor." Inside the meeting, Davis had just presented his colleagues with what he said was a 20-page memo outlining his prescription for a way out of this mess. He did not offer...

It goes without saying that the GOP is taking a dreadful thrashing right now. Conservatives are unmotivated, Democrats are obliterating Republicans in the fundraising arena, and the GOP's poll numbers have dropped off a cliff. George Bush, the face of the Republican Party, has an approval rating of 30% and according to Rasmussen Reports, one of the best polling agencies in the business, 41.4% of Americans consider themselves to be Democrats while only 31.4% say they are Republicans. Worse yet, voters trust the Democrats more than Republicans on the economy, government ethics, the war in Iraq, health care, Social Security,...

McCain has recently been making efforts to reach out to all sorts of people not traditionally associated with the GOP. He appeared on the View, the Daily Show, before black civil rights activists in Alabama, etc. When is he going to make a serious effort to reach out to conservatives? How about promising to appoint strict constructionist judges? How about re-assurances on gun ownership rights? What about reducing the out-of-control spending of this administation? Does he take conservative support for granted? Does he even want them? Maybe he sees that Obama and his kooky spiritual advisor have totally freaked most...

While Democrats duel, the unofficial Republican nominee considers a vice president. John McCain should start by asking what he needs. The admiral’s son fits two legs of his own party’s three-legged stool: foreign policy (zinging terrorism) and economic (scoring spending). Alas, he is out to sea with social and cultural conservatives, the one group without which national Republicans once routinely lost, and will surely lose again. According to a new Pew Research Forum poll, 44 percent of the electorate terms itself “born-again.” Politically, these Christian, mostly Protestant, evangelicals are the Republican Party’s largest block: 35 percent of George W. Bush’s...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) is calling on Republicans to seek "real change to avoid a real disaster" in the wake of another Democratic victory in a special election on Saturday. In a letter to House Republicans posted on www.newt.org, Gingrich urges House leaders to call an “emergency meeting” of House Republicans to address what he describes as a “catastrophic collapse of trust in Republicans.” “If a majority of the House Republicans vote for real change, they should instruct Republican Leader John Boehner [Ohio] and his team to come back with a new plan by the Wednesday before the...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - John McCain toured still hurricane-damaged areas of New Orleans and declared that if the disaster had happened on his watch, he would have immediately landed his plane at the nearest Air Force base. The Republican presidential candidate is campaigning this week in what he calls forgotten areas of the country. He offered a pledge Thursday to New Orleans residents that their situation will not be forgotten and that such a botched disaster response will never happen again. McCain was unsparing in his criticism of the Bush administration. He said Congress must share some of the blame,...

John McCain is a hero for his service in Vietnam. Most conservatives would be thrilled to support him, if only he would give them reason to. Why is it that conservatives have such a hard time lining up behind John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president? Is it, as some liberals suggest, just "pique" -- that we didn't get our way, and now we're throwing a tantrum? Or are the differences between McCain and conservatives very real, very serious matters that go to the heart of the principles of conservatism? The truth is that the differences with McCain are...

Sen. John McCain this morning said "greedy" Wall Street investors are partly to blame for what he said is probably an economic recession the nation is now suffering. "There has to be a modification of the greedy behavior of some of these people," he said, using the word "greedy" repeatedly in remarks to the Associated Press annual meeting at the Washington Convention Center today.

Senator John McCain, who drew criticism last month after he warned against broad government intervention to solve the deepening mortgage crisis, pivoted Thursday and called for the federal government to aid some homeowners in danger of losing their homes, by helping them to refinance and get federally guaranteed 30-year mortgages. “There is nothing more important than keeping alive the American dream to own your home, and priority No. 1 is to keep well-meaning, deserving homeowners who are facing foreclosure in their homes,” Mr. McCain said in a speech on economic themes that he gave at a window company in the...

The RNC is not the GOP. It’s only a collective national action committee for the state Republican parties, a fund raising and steering committee. Yet for far too long, the RNC has assumed increasing power over the political process to the detriment of the party. Voter complacency and apathy towards the political process has left control of the party in the hands of a few centrist party elites and conservative voters have lost faith in their own party as a result. (snip) The Message in the Money? Is McCain Listening? Is the RNC Listening? So Who has Whom in Check...

Associated Press SANTA ANA PUEBLO, N.M. -- Republicans want to attract different voters. The top campaign official for the presumed GOP presidential nominee, John McCain, is identifying five groups of target voters. Rick Davis told a meeting of Republican state chairmen at Santa Ana Pueblo Friday that those groups include young voters and Hispanics. They also include what he calls "Wal-Mart moms," "Rehab Republicans" and "Facebook independents." Davis said it's not just McCain who would benefit from their support. He said they could help GOP candidates further down the ticket. He defines Rehab Republicans as longtime GOP members who haven't...

... If there's a single thread that runs through the e-mails I receive from peevish Republicans, it's that none of the current candidates possesses the conservative purity of Ronald Reagan. One could almost get the idea that Dutch was betrayed by Pontius Pilate and crucified on Calvary. But that wasn't exactly the case. The fact of the matter is that Gov. Reagan gave Gov. Jerry Brown a run for his money – or should I say our money? – when it came to raising taxes here in California. But, in spite of the additional revenue, he was responsible in large...

Democrat Bill Foster won the Illinois House seat occupied for more than two decades by former Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert, who retired before the end of his term. The result shows that Democrats not only have political enthusiasm on their side but that Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who endorsed Mr. Foster, is a campaign asset down ballot, at least in his home state. ...To his credit, Mr. Oberweis did talk about lower taxes, smaller government and other Republican themes. But as in his past campaigns, the issue he hit hardest was illegal immigration. One of his infamous Senate ads featured...

Aside the most obvious case -- his own -- John McCain cited two recent examples of GOP candidates taking a hard-line on immigration to no avail (And note the elbow thrown at a certain former colleague who came after McCain in the primary). My colleague Josh Kraushaar writes up McCain's comments: On NPR’s “Morning Edition” today, John McCain suggested that strong anti-immigrant rhetoric contributed to two recent, high-profile GOP Congressional losses – of former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who badly lost to Sen. Bob Casey in 2006, and Jim Oberweis, who lost the heavily Republican seat of former House Speaker...

McCain won't bow to the Religious Right. At United Jewish Communities conference, three representatives from the presidential campaigns of Senators John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, talked with an audience about why their candidate benefits the Jewish community.

Alan Keyes Leaving Republican Party By John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com JLof@aol.com After 20 or so years of working within the GOP to try and reform it into a more Christian/conservative Party, Dr. Alan Keyes is leaving the Republican Party. He will soon make this announcement and explain why he can no longer, in good conscience, remain a Republican. Many things over the past two decades or so have contributed to Alan’s decision to leave the GOP. One recent example: A secret meeting of some conservative “leaders” discussing not how to oppose John McCain but what promises McCain might make to...

Perhaps the most obvious way McCain could upend the normal dynamics of this year’s election would be a bold vice presidential choice. He could pick a hawkish and principled Democrat like Joe Lieberman. He could reach beyond the usual bevy of elected officials by tapping either David Petraeus or Raymond Odierno — the two generals who together, in an amazing demonstration of leadership and competence, turned the war in Iraq around last year. He could persuade the most impressive conservative in American public life, Clarence Thomas, to join the ticket. There are other unorthodox possibilities.

Conservatives and party regulars were not happy about the selection of Carly Fiorina to head the Republican National Committee’s “Victory 2008” campaign raising funds for the presidential election. She was one of the nation’s most visible CEOs before she was fired by Hewlett-Packard in 2005 for not generating enough profits. Federal Election Commission records show Fiorina contributed nothing to the Republican Party the last eight years. Her only political giving was to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign—$2,100 in 2006 and $2,300 in 2007. Fiorina was at McCain’s side when he campaigned in the critical Michigan and Florida races. Fiorina has...

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/54994.html"I'm a proud conservative liberal republic -- conservative Republican. Hello, easy there. Let me say this. I am a proud conservative Republican and both of my possible or likely opponents are liberal Democrats."

Former Republican National Committee chairman — and the man who reportedly advised President Bush in early 2001 not to regulate carbon dioxide — has switched sides and is now being paid to lobby for greenhouse gas regulation on behalf of the eco-activist group Environmental Defense. According to Greenwire’s John Fialka (Feb. 21), ED board member and hedge fund tycoon Julian Robertson is putting up the cash to hire DC lobbying powerhouse Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Ken Mehlman and former Democratic congressman Vic Fazio will lead Akin Gump’s efforts. "Their first mission is to find the right political formula...

Scripps Howard Editor: Conservatives Should Be Like JFKIt is getting tiresome already, but we are starting to see a new kind of story on this issue of McCain and his tiff with the conservative wing of the GOP and that is the shut-up-and-take-it style of commentary, the style were conservatives are told to throw away their principles and just vote McCain anyway. I am sure that you all have noticed that John McCain is not the conservative's hero? There has been story after story expounding on how McCain has a lot of cajoling to do before principled conservatives will...

Whether the RNC is trying to destroy the GOP or not, it’s clear that they couldn’t do a better job of destroying it, no matter how hard they try. Making John McCain the RNC nominee is the most certain way to lose the 2008 election. But even if McCain could actually win in November, almost a numerical impossibility by the way, many conservatives have already predicted that even a McCain victory would be the end of the GOP as we know it. What’s the RNC thinking? While MSM polling data aims to make McCain look like the best the RNC...

I'm one of those conservatives who has no love for John McCain. I don't even have any like for the man. I can't stand his arrogant smirk. I recoil at the very sound of his voice. When he says, "my friends," as he does too often, I want to reach into the perceived dimension behind the flat screen of my TV set, grasp him tightly around his throat and shout, "I AM NOT YOUR FRIEND!" I'm one of those conservatives who still feels his knife in my back. I have voiced my displeasure with the prospects of being forced to...

Prior to Super Tuesday, I opposed the nomination of Senator John McCain to be president. I was, in fact, adamantly opposed, and emotionally so, as my wife can attest.That was before Super Tuesday.After Super Tuesday and Romney's withdrawal, McCain become the GOP nominee. That wasn't my desire; that was just a fact. I did the math, and then looked ahead, sensibly, to November. Faced with the obvious and stark reality of a Clinton or Obama presidency, I took my emotions, turned them off, and endorsed McCain. I began writing a series of arguments exhorting my fellow conservatives to do the...

Are John McCain’s supporters trying to drive conservatives away from their candidate? Senator McCain is the inevitable Republican presidential nominee. He is headed, though, for a defeat of McGovernite dimensions if he can’t sway conservatives to get behind his candidacy. For their part, conservatives don’t want McCain, but even less do they want to spend the next four-to-eight years saying “President Obama,” let alone reliving history with another President Clinton. In short, there are the makings here for a modus vivendi, however grudging. Yet, McCain’s admirers appear to think belittling the senator’s good-faith opponents is the way to go. Theirs...

People need to do the math and understand that beating Obama is going to be tough, he received more votes by himself in the Primaries then all of the Repulican candidates combined, but in the end he must be defeated in November, it must be done because, Obama will destroy Conservatism. I listen to his speeches, I see the hypnosis, women crying openly, grown men misty eyed, Young adults in trance like states, it is approaching cult worship. It is the Rhetoric of inclusiveness a Rhetoric of the WE in America, We the People against them the defiant, them the...

Written by JB Williams ©2008 USA Whether the RNC is trying to destroy the GOP or not, it’s clear that they couldn’t do a better job of destroying it, no matter how hard they try. Making John McCain the RNC nominee is the most certain way to lose the 2008 election. But even if McCain could actually win in November, almost a numerical impossibility by the way, many conservatives have already predicted that even a McCain victory would be the end of the GOP as we know it. What’s the RNC thinking? Can McCain Win? While MSM polling data aims...

GOP goon squad can’t rattle McCain DL-Online Published Saturday, February 09, 2008 It’s been a kind of perverse pleasure to watch Sen. John McCain overcome the vitriol of talk radio’s conservative goon squad. Despite vicious daily broadsides from Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham (and their sycophants on regional and local talk radio), McCain emerged Tuesday as the front-runner among Republican candidates for president. On Thursday, the senator’s only credible competition, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, suspended his campaign, effectively handing the nomination to McCain. So much for the influence of the talkers with the base of...

There's an old Groucho Marx riff in which he launches a new career as a stick-up artist -- while worrying that his native cowardice may not induce the requisite fear among his victims. Sure enough, after a little time in a dark alley he springs out to confront his first victim, points his gun to his own head and says, "Take one step closer and I'll kill myself." Such is the posture today among pundits on the far right of the Republican Party as Sen. John McCain moves closer to receiving his party's nomination. Consider the destructive implications of their...

The untold story emerging from the Super Tuesday primaries is not that McCain has the Republican nomination almost wrapped up, or that the Democrats are evenly split in their support for Obama and Clinton. The real story is that the manipulation of the election process has become so obvious to the thinking portion of each party that a latent rebellion is brewing. More and more people are cynical and angry over media bias, carefully timed big name endorsements that sway ignorant voters, and back room party deals (yet to come) that are specifically aimed at thwarting the ever-growing dissatisfaction of...

I feel moved to comment on the continuing hoopla from the conservative commentators which they are directing against John McCain. Ann Coulter has gone as far as to say she will support Hillary Clinton instead while Rush Limbaugh and others have suggested they may sit out the election if he is the nominee. Rush has even said that we are allowing the media to select our candidate just like the liberals do. Well, Rush and his allies are also the media so when conservatives were elected before was this also a case of the media selecting our candidates? Let me...

Having accepted the concept of the "Big Tent" a long time ago, the GOP can't excommunicate anyone from the party. It was a dumb idea and the GOP has paid the price for it in endless philosophical drift and inept presidential nominees. John McCain differs in degree, not kind, from the last three GOP presidential candidates. Bush Sr., Dole, Bush Jr., McCain: Where's the substantive difference? They are all intellectually lame Republicans, with little to no interest in conservative political and moral philosophy. . . . HUCKABEE, FOR ALL of his glibness, is striking much closer to the bedrock of...

Congressman Mike Pence Issues Challenge to McCain WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 /Standard Newswire/ -- The following is U.S. Congressman Mike Pence's (R-IN) speech to Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this morning in Washington, D.C.: Today I come to CPAC 2008 to speak not about conservatism's past, but its future. Because, despite the obituary that is being written for conservatism in this election, I believe this movement will define the Republican Party for generations to come. And, as the theme of this conference attests, the future of freedom and the future of conservatism is forward. We are past the time where we...