Free Republic

Perhaps I should have changed the title of this post to "The Americans Who Stayed At Home". That's really where this all lies. In the aftermath of the election, I was reading some posts on Facebook and came across one from someone I am related to. He and his wife shall remain nameless, but what they posted troubled me greatly. They basically congratulated President Obama for his victory and then wrote that they were proud of the fact that they did not vote. I could not believe what I was reading. How can any American citizen not have the desire...

What is Project Orca? Well, this is what they told us: "Project ORCA is a massive undertaking – the Republican Party’s newest, unprecedented and most technologically advanced plan to win the 2012 presidential election." Pretty much everything in that sentence is false. The "massive undertaking" is true, however. It would take a lot of planning, training and coordination to be done successfully (oh, we'll get to that in a second). This wasn't really the GOP's effort, it was Team Romney's. And perhaps "unprecedented" would fit if we're discussing failure.

CLEVELAND - Four years ago, Colleen Weston was one of the many young Americans enchanted by Barack Obama’s message of hope and change. Now the 28-year-old marketing director from Cleveland in the battleground state of Ohio says she has grown up and will this time vote for Republican candidate Mitt Romney. “I am definitely disappointed in the job that has not been done,” Colleen explains. “The positions Obama ran on in 2008 like turning the economy around and making change for the American people, I just haven’t seen it.” As Obama’s hair has turned gray during his time in the...

For months now, the Romney campaign has been putting together a high-tech voter monitoring operation to use on Election Day that will identify which of their committed supporters have voted -- and then corral those who haven't. They call it the Orca Project, named for the powerful killer whale. Why Orca? It seems the Orca is the greatest natural predator of the Narwhal, the name of the Obama campaign's top secret voter micro-targeting system. Orca will deploy 34,000 operatives in key precincts tomorrow, linked by a smartphone "killer app" to 800 volunteers on the floor of TD Garden (formerly Boston...

Editor's note: The 2012 presidential race is CNN Chief National Correspondent John King's seventh campaign. King is traveling through battleground states, where the election will be decided, to find the voters who will determine whether President Barack Obama gets a second term or if the country needs the change in direction that Mitt Romney represents. Dumfries, Virginia (CNN) -- Retiree Robert Stevens says he often turns off the television when the attack ads appear, and he hangs up the phone when it's a presidential campaign calling. "I want to make my own independent decision," Stevens said in a lunchtime conversation...

Just over a week ago, I along with fifty other Tennesseans boarded a charter bus and began a five hour trek to the front lines of the 2012 fight for the Presidency. We arrived in southwestern Ohio at roughly 10 PM EST that Friday night. Upon our arrival to our hotel, we received our room assignments and initial instructions. Then we bedded down for the night. The next morning a slight drizzling rain and colder conditions greeted us. We again boarded the charter bus and left for the Butler County Victory Center located 15 minutes away. We received a quick...

“If the election was held today, President Barack Obama would lose the state of Wisconsin because where his base is, we have not turned out the vote early," Mayor Michael Hancock told a Democratic rally. "The suburbs and rural parts of Wisconsin – the Republican base – are voting. President Obama’s base has yet to go vote. "We've got to get our people to go vote," Hancock said. Early voting, which began in Wisconsin on Oct. 22, is a central component of Obama’s strategy to win the state. The president won Wisconsin four years ago by 14 percentage points, but...

This is the first year I've been canvassing a precinct and I must say it's been an adventure. I'm getting to know my neighborhood, my neighbors and the vibe of the voting public. As the old saying goes, you meet some of the most "interesting" people. Reactions range from smiles, enthusiasm, blank poker faces, war stories from vets, "huh?" to a the rare "get off my property whippersnapper!!!" I'm canvassing for Deb Fischer (NE, US Senate) and it's been a blast. 95% positive with lots of good reactions. What are your canvassing stories?

Get out the vote is one of the most important things a campaign does to win an election. It's actually going to be more important in a lot of ways in the presidential race than convincing the few undecided voters still out there to come Romney's way. You can help with Romney's get out the vote effort by going to his website and signing up to make get out the vote calls into the swing states using your free cell long distance. They provide the numbers, the names of the voters and a script, currently focused on getting people to...

With help from the likes of tough-guy actor Chuck Norris, the National Rifle Association wants to make sure pro-gun voters don't take their rights for granted this election season. And the group wants to see President Obama defeated. "We believe that gun owners and hunters can make a difference," says Stephanie Samford, an NRA spokeswoman. “Wisconsin is a swing state. Wisconsin matters." Thus, the NRA has bought more than $1.3 million in TV ads in Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio and Virginia, Samford says. The “Defend Freedom, Defeat Obama” ad tells viewers the president is “chipping away at our Second Amendment rights.”...

Team Romney & the GOP have made over 5 million volunteer voter contacts this week. Enormous effort on the ground (including 2.4 million volunteer voter contacts yesterday on Super Saturday by 30k volunteers).....Enthusiasm is on our side............ FL made over 1 million volunteer voter contacts this week...VA 500k...OH 600k...NC 500k...CO 250k...WI 400k...NV 250k...NH 125k

In two months we Americans will go to the polls once again to decide who the president will be for the next four years. We will not be allowed to vote on those who wield the true power in this country. On November 6th we will not vote for the chairman of ExxonMobil or JPMorgan Chase or Citibank or the Premier of China. That day will come, but not this year. Now, I know there are a goodly number of you out there who believe there's not a snowball's chance in Kenya that Barack Obama will not be re-elected to...

Charlotte, NC – Former DC Mayor Marion Barry hit the Democratic convention Monday and, as per usual, the divisive and wildly popular figure immediately drew onlookers and media interviews. Barry was barely 10 feet into the Charlotte convention center before convention goers and reporters started queuing up to talk to him. Although extremely controversial thanks to numerous arrests for crack possession, Barry remains very popular in Washington and many parts of the black community nationally. Sporting a bright red t-shirt that read “I’m a Democrat and I support DC Statehood,” the 76 year old Barry was clearly in his element....

The Reverend Al Sharpton spoke words of wisdom to a Bethel Baptist Church crowd for Social Justice Awareness Sunday evening. Sharpton emphasized three reasons why he was particularly motivated to travel to Tallahassee to speak: the Champion case, the Trayvon Martin case and voter suppression – all in Florida. Among the crowd were the parents of Florida A&M Student Robert Champion and Trayvon Martin. Today marks six months since Martin’s death at the age of 17 and just over nine months since 26-year-old Champion died. “We are still recovering,” said Sybrina Fulton. Sharpton admired the fact that the Martin family’s...

It’s Friday evening. The air is cool and the sky is clear. A group of well-dressed men and women gather at Empowerment Temple in West Baltimore at an event designed to spur people to register and vote in the upcoming election and those that will follow. Inside the church, a panel of distinguished guests has their audience's full attention. CNN commentator Roland Martin asked the panel--including the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, former Rep. John Conyers, BET commentator Jeff Johnson, Bishop Vashti McKenzie and several others--what they perceived to be the biggest problem among Blacks and how that problem could be...

Tea Party Express Launches Our Mobile Phone Bank Bus For 81-Day 'Get-Out-The-Vote' Campaign . State Tea Party Express is launching its newly debuted 'Mobile Phone Bank Bus' on an 81-Day Get-Out-the-Vote Campaign that aims at engaging and educating conservative voters in the November 6th election. . . The tour will stop in 23 states that are the key battleground states for the 2012 election. . Today’s kickoff will be held at the Victory Field House in Valley Park, MO at 7:30 PM. . 7:30 PM – Victory Field House 932-A Meramec Station Rd Valley Park, MO . This is...

Wednesday marked Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day. Across the United States, conservatives gathered in chicken restaurants to show support for the company after its president, Dan Cathy, came out against gay marriage. Democratic mayors in Chicago and Boston at first threatened to halt expansion of the Chick-fil-A chain to their cities, which turned a question of sexual morality into a debate about freedom of speech. The motto of conservative Christians seems to be, "They'll take my chicken from my cold dead hand..." Writing as a European, this story combines two of the things we most readily associate with America: Jesus Christ and...

<p>President Barack Obama’s support among Latino voters has dropped to a new low, according to a poll by Quinnipiac University.</p> <p>The poll, released Wednesday, found Obama support at 59 percent, well ahead of presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, which had 30 percent support. But the figure was significantly lower than that registered in a Fox News Latino poll released in March (he had 73 percent support) and a USA Today/Gallup poll published in June (66 percent).</p>

I recently found myself in a discussion about America’s youth with a small group of conservative activists. They were in unanimous agreement that conservatism and libertarianism will never be “cool,” that young people just don’t relate to the conservative or libertarian message, that no amount of outreach could be successful, and that we have to just face it–liberalism appeals to young people and eventually they’ll grow out of it and see the light. I couldn’t disagree more on every level. The good news? They’re wrong. As a former teacher, student adviser, dean, and private tutor, I have had the pleasure...

Wisconsin is a critical state in Obama's strategy to win reelection. [Obama] won it handily against McCain in 2008, but recent polling there is consistent with other swing states; the race between Obama and Romney is very tight. It is hard to see a path to another term that doesn't include Wisconsin in Obama's column. Fearful that a Walker victory in next month's recall would be a crippling blow to the state's Democrat party, the Obama campaign is shifting its entire campaign infrastructure in the state to help oust Walker on June 5th. [Video at link] This is just the...