Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Republican National Committee wants to take more control over how the party picks a White House nominee. The RNC was to meet Wednesday in Memphis, Tennessee, to choose members who will effectively set the calendar for 2016's long list of potential presidential contenders. If the party's chairman, Reince Priebus gets his way, the GOP will pick its nominee more quickly than during past contests and have fewer debates in which candidates could criticize each other. The RNC also was expected to put penalties in place for candidates who don't follow the committee's plans. RNC officials described...

North Carolina Republicans sorted through their choices to challenge Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan on Tuesday, and Speaker John Boehner sought re-nomination to Congress from Ohio, first in a springtime spate of primaries pitting the GOP establishment against tea party challengers. Indiana also picked candidates for the November elections, when control of Congress will be at stake for the final two years of the President Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House. Several Republican House incumbents drew strong primary challenges, including Reps. Walter Jones of North Carolina, David Joyce of Ohio and Susan Brooks of Indiana. …

The state's highest court on Thursday struck Gov. Tom Corbett's only Republican challenger from the May 20 primary election ballot, leaving Corbett unchallenged for the GOP nomination he was favored to win anyway. In a 5-2 decision, the state Supreme Court reversed a Commonwealth Court ruling on grounds that conservative activist Bob Guzzardi's failure to file his statement of financial interests on time with the State Ethics Commission doomed his candidacy. "The untimely filing of the statement constitutes a fatal defect that precludes a candidate's appearance on the ballot," the majority wrote. Challengers backed by state Republican Party had raised...

German lawmakers fumed on Friday over “vicious” criticism by senior US senators of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s stance on Ukraine ahead of talks she will hold with US President Barack Obama. John McCain, a former Republican candidate for the White House, on Thursday accused Merkel of standing in the way of firmer measures against Russia over its actions in Ukraine due to Berlin’s lucrative business ties with Moscow. “I would tell her that I am not surprised but embarrassed at their failure of leadership. They’re the leaders, they’re being governed by the industrial complex from Germany,” McCain said. Republican Senator Jeff...

It's no secret that establishment Republicans are out to get Rand Paul, but the "darkest secret" on Wall Street, reports Politico, is that they'll happily vote Hillary in 2016 to do it. The Monday piece reveals that Wall Street Republicans won't think twice about voting for Hillary Clinton in a world where Jeb Bush and Chris Christie aren't running for president and Rand Paul holds the GOP nomination. "The bulk of the big money guys are either Big Boy [Christie] or Jeb," said a top GOP donor. "Rand Paul still is a grass-roots phenom and a boardroom horror show." The...

A retired U.S. general came under sharp criticism from a Republican committee chairman on Thursday after testifying that the Obama administration reacted weakly to the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya. Retired Brig. Gen. Robert Lovell, the star witness at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, testified that U.S. forces “should have tried” to get to the outpost in time to help save the lives of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. He blamed the State Department for not making stronger requests for action. A few hours later, the powerful chairman of...

Republicans like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee the most and consider him the best qualified potential GOP presidential candidate among the major contenders. But, as with the rest, they aren't psyched for him to run, according to a new Economist/YouGov.com survey. Some 72 percent of Republicans like Huckabee, a Fox host and conservative populist. That beats Sen. Rand Paul, at 66 percent, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 62 percent, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 60 percent. And 51 percent of Republicans also view him as qualified to be president, more than the rest again. But as previous...

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is launching ads this week in North Carolina and Georgia in a crunch-time effort to help establishment-backed Republicans in crowded Senate primaries. It is also pumping money into commercials praising GOP hopefuls in Michigan, Montana and Alaska. The powerful business organization’s ad buy is a clear attempt to tip the balance in Republican contests and help the GOP nominate viable general election candidates. In 2010 and 2012, tea party and far-right conservatives cost the GOP seats in Nevada, Delaware, Colorado, Indiana and Missouri and shots at Senate control, a fate Republicans are determined to avoid...

<p>LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The American Conservative Union's Political Action Committee has endorsed Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell for re-election.</p> <p>ACU Director of Government Affairs Larry Hart cited McConnell's lifetime ACU rating of 90 out of a possible 100 as demonstrating McConnell's consistent support for conservative principles.</p>

Newly-elected Rep. Vance McAllister, R-La., will not seek re-election in November, according to a local report. Earlier this month, surveillance footage leaked of McAllister kissing one of his congressional staffers. The incident led to multiple calls for his resignation, including from Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. “I am committed to serving the 5th District to the best of my ability through this term, but I also have to take care of my family as we work together to repair and strengthen the relationship I damaged,” McAllister told the News-Star, which also reported that McAllister will complete the rest of his term.

While speaking in his home district, House Speaker John Boehner made fun of his GOP colleagues for their unwillingness to deal with immigration policy.

Fighting to move beyond his father’s shadow, Sen. Rand Paul is crafting new alliances with the Republican Party establishment during a Northeast tour that began Friday in Boston. The 51-year-old Kentucky Republican, son of libertarian hero and former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, headlined an afternoon luncheon hosted by top lieutenants of former presidential nominee Mitt Romney—a private meeting that comes as Paul weighs a 2016 presidential bid of his own. To succeed in a national campaign, however, those close to Paul acknowledge that he must broaden his appeal beyond the tea party and libertarian-minded activists who rallied behind his father’s...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) believes the country's illegal immigrants should be given work visas and be allowed to remain in the United States. The potential 2016 presidential contender spoke at the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago on Tuesday and told David Axelrod, President Barack Obama's former top adviser who now heads the institute, that he did not vote for the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill. He did not do so because it did not grant enough work visas in the agricultural and construction industries. The Congressional Budget Office determined that bill would lower the wages of American...

Some Republicans are pushing for their party to drop its opposition to same-sex marriage as public opinion on the issue shifts rapidly and the party tries to woo younger voters more supportive of gay unions. […] But social conservatives warn that Republicans could lose loyal voters by softening their stance. A majority of Republicans still oppose gay marriage. …

The GOP is making a bold play for a U.S. Senate seat in reliably Democratic Oregon, where a Republican hasn’t been elected to a statewide office in more than a decade. Republicans back in Washington think they’ve found the right candidate in Monica Wehby, a children’s brain surgeon who’s raised more than $1 million and put her early opposition to President Barack Obama’s health care law at the center of her campaign. […] Wehby faces four other Republicans, most notably state Rep. Jason Conger of Bend, a lawyer who’s promoting his conservative credentials and his experience representing a district that,...

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is "hellbent" on passing amnesty legislation, and other GOP leaders are signaling to donors and lobbyists that they also want to pass legislation this Congress, even though attempting to do so would depress the GOP base and create divisions within the party ahead of 2014's midterm elections that could give Republicans control of Congress.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivered a message to his fellow members of the Republican Party on Thursday: being pro-life means reforming America’s drug laws and criminal sentencing procedures. Christie has long advocated for drug treatment programs as a means of reforming the country’s prison system, but Christie took a new tactic on Thursday when he framed that advocacy as a pro-life argument. “I’m pro-life, and I believe strongly in the sanctity of life,” Christie told an audience in Jersey City on Thursday. Addressing his fellow Republican governors, Christie said that “it’s great to be pro-life, but you need to...

GOP presidential hopefuls are largely steering clear of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s fight with the federal government. The showdown, which left armed militia members and feds staring each other down last week, has captivated talk radio and cable news shows, turning Bundy into a conservative cause célèbre. Yet Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential candidate, are the only big-name Republicans to have spoken out on the dispute so far. Tea Party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been silent, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have also not...

Amid raucous debate, Nevada Republican Party conventioneers on Saturday stripped opposition to gay marriage and abortion from the party platform and endorsed Gov. Brian Sandoval for governor in the June 10 primary despite misgivings by conservatives, his criticism of the process and his absence from the meeting. The convention also backed Sue Lowden for lieutenant governor over state Sen. Mark Hutchison, R-Las Vegas, who was endorsed by Sandoval and who also spurned the party’s move to endorse candidates before the primary. A nominating committee proposed more than three dozen pre-primary endorsements, although the panel decided against recommending anybody in the...

After months on the defensive over his health law, a more combative President Barack Obama has emerged to fight about gender politics, leading to an election-year competition with Republicans for support from women. No single group will be more important to Democrats’ fortunes, say White House advisers, than unmarried women, who are likely to go Democratic—if they vote, and that’s far from certain when trust in Washington is low. The president is trying to convince women that Democrats are more concerned about improving their financial standing in difficult economic times, and he charges Republicans with standing in the way. “Republicans...