Free Republic

MANCHESTER, N.H. — If this is Mitt Romney’s idea of a victory rally, one shudders to think what would have happened if he had lost the Iowa caucuses. The day after his impossibly thin eight-vote victory, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination flew here for a town hall meeting at Manchester Central High School, where he was to bask in the endorsement of his 2008 arch rival, John McCain. But the senator grimaced when he was introduced, and as Romney delivered his own stump speech, an increasingly impatient McCain pulled up his sleeve and checked his watch. McCain gave...

It seems like only yesterday that Sarah Palin stepped into a pair of red, Naughty Monkey peep-toe pumps and blew up every assumption about the Republican Party and women. With a briefing book in her hands, a baby on her hip, and a party enamored with her, Palin created the impression in 2008 that the GOP was not only willing, but eager, to elect a women to the highest, or at least second-highest, office in the land. On the high heels of Palin-mania came a slew of fresh Republican faces like governors Nikki Haley in South Carolina and Susanna Martinez...

Traveling around Iowa to cover today's caucuses, Washington Blade journalist Chris Johnson met up with some often overlooked voters: young gay men willing to confess Republican-leanings. Well, five of them, anyway. "I come from a farming family, so it’s conservative or Catholic," said a 21-year old, Bryan Pulda. "Our personal views are more reflected in the Republican candidates.” Ryan Schrader also traced his political leanings to his family, saying, “I come from a very conservative background myself. My family is very conservative Baptists." Like Pulda and so many other Iowa voters, Schrader's faith also influences his political preference. In this...

Michele Bachmann had high hopes going into this Presidential campaign. She saw herself as the second coming of Sarah Palin. A new and improved version of Sarah Palin. Unfortunately, Bachmann is not a new Sarah Palin nor an improved Sarah Palin. Michele Bachmann is in last place in most of the polling. Every recent poll put Bachmann in last place heading into the caucuses, a far cry from her summer win in a state GOP straw poll. But top campaign advisers vowed she would prove the recent surveys wrong by activating a support network built through her visits to small...

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) -- Daniel Bradshaw, a young barber at Platinum Kutz in central Des Moines, hovers over a customer's half-trimmed head, clippers in hand, talking about the good old days of 2008. "Yeah, I was all for Obama. He was the man!" proclaimed Bradshaw, 32, whose friends call him "Mr. Puerto Rico" and whose colleagues sometimes refer to him as "Mr. Steal-Your-Client." As he brushed the hair clippings off his apron, he goes on: "I even got to meet him, once. He was all that." Or so he thought. Bradshaw, like many of his fellow Democrats, feels let...

In Monday afternoon Fox News interview, ex-Alaska Guv praises Santorum again and adds "Donald Trump has a lot to offer." Palin: "I did praise Rick Santorum and I'll praise him again...

(VIDEO AT LINK) With the Iowa caucus just hours away, Ron Paul's supporters released a new long-form video featuring the endorsement of a Mitt Romney impersonator and highlighting Paul's many policy positions. With the January 3 Iowa caucus approaching quickly, Republican presidential candidate Congressman Ron Paul returned to Iowa on Monday. Paul had been in Texas to ring in the new year and to take a breather from the hectic campaign activity that has become a standard practice in this volatile GOP presidential primary. And true to their activist grassroots form, Paul's passionate supporters turned up the heat on New...

Mitt Romney's top ten is made up of Goldman Sachs, followed by Credit Suisse (Switzerland), Morgan Stanley, Barclays (UK), Bank of America and JP Morgan. In contrast Romney's co-frontrunner in Iowa, Ron Paul, has a top three donor list made up of the US Army, US Navy and US Airforce.

Welcome to the Post’s new politics and culture blog, “She the People: The World as Women See It.” Though dedicated to the proposition that politics properly understood encompasses just about everything, I thought we’d start with some predictions about Tuesday’s caucuses in Iowa, where a bunch of our writers rang in the new year with Republicans. My own bet is that Rick Santorum will indeed score the surprise of the night, just as he told me he would . Yet even if he wins outright, four years from now in Iowa, I further predict that we in the media will...

I have recently been very critical of Congressman Ron Paul on WeArePolitics for a myriad of different reasons that main one of which is that I feel that he is very detrimental to the Republican Party. A party that he has absolutely no loyalty to nor allegiance. Paul, as I have written before, has run a slash and burn campaign in Iowa, and it is certainly working for him....At the expense of a few of the other candidates and in particular former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Paul's campaign has been running non stop ads in Iowa about Newt that contain...

I vote for Newt! --- * Newt Gingrich? * Mitt Romney? * Rick Perry? * Michele Bachmann? * Rick Santorum? * Jon Huntsman?

Iowa is not one those states that dominates the news around the year. But every four years, Iowa gets a real chance to lead, when the primaries roll around. This year the Republicans have a large field of announced and unannounced candidates. Sarah Palin is not running, yet. But she certainly has imprinted on the GOP base, and Tea Party, and were I in Iowa, and able to write in my choice I would write in Sarah's name. Would that hurt other announced candidates? Certainly. It would hurt Bachmann, and Paul and maybe Santorum. And they all have their strengths,...

The 2012 White House contender Michele Bachmann is projecting herself as “America’s Margaret Thatcher” ahead of the January 3aucuses. “What we needed [in 1980] was the most articulate conservative we had to hold Jimmy Carter responsible and we got Ronald Reagan. And at the same time across the ocean there was another country, an ally of ours called Britain. Britain was also suffering under socialist policies. They needed a strong conservative too and up rose a woman and her name was Margaret Thatcher,” The Telegraph quoted Bachmann, as saying. “She was the Iron Lady and she led Britain back to...

NEWTON, Iowa -- As they waited for a bus dubbed the "Constitution Coach" to pick them up at the Des Moines airport and bring them to their makeshift lodgings late Tuesday, about two-dozen college-aged Ron Paul volunteers mingled in the cold night air. The sudden appearance of a reporter's notebook and tape recorder drew comments befitting a group of young people who proudly wear their skepticism on their sleeves. "What's the article you're going to be writing, man?" "Yeah, what's the spin, bro?" Asked where they had flown in from, the answers ranged from California to Virginia -- with one...

As the race for the Republican presidential nomination hots up, the candidates have been dropping hints about their possible running mates. Newt Gingrich today said he would 'certainly' consider asking Sarah Palin to join him on the ballot, while Mitt Romney was accompanied on a campaign stop this morning by Chris Christie, the popular Governor of New Jersey. Both those GOP heavyweights were thought of as potential candidates for the top job before announcing that they did not intend to run. Mr Christie endorsed the frontrunner Mr Romney in October, but Mrs Palin has yet to give her support to...

The man who ran Herman Cain’s Iowa campaign, before he dropped out of the presidential race, announced he is now supporting Newt Gingrich. Larry Tuel was Cain’s state campaign director until Dec. 3. Friday he endorsed Gingrich in an email to The Des Moines Register. Tuel said in his email that the former House speaker "is intelligent, positive and has the best grasp of policy and the role of government as it relates to tax, spending and regulatory power. I particularly appreciate his national tax policy, welfare reform, and ideas for reducing and refocusing regulatory authority to solve our deep-rooted...

Iowa GOP Presidential Poll – 12.28.11 Among Registered Voters Who Will be Voting in Iowa's Republican Presidential Primary InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion Research 2011 1. If the Republican presidential caucus or primary were held today, would you vote for Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, someone else or do you not know who you would vote for? (CHART AT LINK)

Fresh off of his endorsement from former KKK Grand Wizard and former Congressman from Louisiana David Duke, we find this photo of Congressman Ron Paul with former Klansman, former Nazi and current radio show host and moderator of Stormfront.org Don Black. Pictured next to Black in the cool hat appears to be his radio sidekick and son Derek. (Here's an interesting note....Derek's mother is David Duke's ex-wife. Que the banjos.)

This week at a tele-town hall hosted by Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, a caller asked Newt Gingrich if he would consider choosing former half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Gingrich responded by saying that Palin “is certainly one of the people you would look at” and told the caller that he is “a great admirer of hers.” "She is certainly one of the people you would look at. I am a great admirer of hers and she was a remarkable reform governor of Alaska, she’s somebody who I think brings a great deal to the...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is pretty much done for if he finishes too poorly in Iowa, where he has spent far and away the most of any candidate. Politico’s Mike Allen reports that “Rick Perry is the king of the airwaves,” having spent about $2.9 million on ads in December alone. His super PAC has spent an additional $1.3 million. Yet in the CNN-Opinion Research poll released Wednesday, Perry is in fifth place in Iowa at 11 percent. In RealClearPolitics’ average of Iowa polls, Perry is in fourth, with 12 percent. Perry’s days are numbered if he spends more than...