Free Republic

Immigration reform advocates plan an aggressive campaign to bring the issue back — and the White House has signaled it’s on board. Can Obama emerge from the fiscal crisis with enough momentum to win the immigration fight? As the fiscal fight roiling Washington nears its end, the White House is already signaling that it plans to use the political momentum it has gained during the shutdown fight to charge back into the immigration debate. And this time, Democratic pollsters and advocates say, they could actually win. The final chapter of the current crisis hasn’t been written yet, but Democrats in...

If Republicans don’t join together with Democrats to pass comprehensive immigration reform, “they will never win another national election,” according to Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). -snip- Gutierrez is an outspoken progressive, but he has still made somewhat unlikely alliances with Republicans in order to push immigration reform. In 2012, the Illinois Democrat praised the immigration reform strategy presented by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), someone he had previously called an “extremist.” Gutierrez also partnered with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) earlier this year, participating in a pair of immigration reform events in Chicago.

The Democratic National Committee is launching Spanish-language online ads and robocalls targeting Republicans on the government shutdown, it announced Thursday. The effort is the third phase of a broader campaign this week that has been hitting Republicans in their home states, including House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), as well as early voting states Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. The Spanish-language calls and Twitter, Facebook and Google ads launching Thursday will target Latino voters in...

Allen West, beloved Tea Party candidate, is telling D.C. bloggers he’ll take a run at Marco “Speaks With Forked Tongue” Rubio’s Senate seat in 2016. “If I see people are not taking our country down the right path, God will set my feet on the right path,” said the Colonel. (1) Rubio’s fatal mistake was to coax the Tea Party into backing him–and back him they did, right into the Senate’s front door–and then promptly putting in with old guard, Senate liberals who were playing him for a fool. This mistake just may doom his re-election bid. It’s something you...

Senator Marco Rubio withdrew his support for Judge William Thomas’ nomination Tuesday to the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida despite having backed the nomination more than 10 months ago, according to the New York Times. For confirmation to move forward, a nominee must have support from both United States senators in their home state. Senator Rubio said he was concerned about two decisions in cases made by Judge Thomas. If Thomas had been confirmed to the court, he would have been the first openly gay black judge on the federal bench. Rubio said he was concerned...

The first eight-plus months of 2013 have convinced us of one thing: Rand Paul acts and the rest of the potential 2016 Republican presidential field reacts. On drones, Paul led a 13-hour-long filibuster that drew Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (among others) to the floor in support. On Syria, Paul was out front in his opposition to a military strike — a position that 30 of his Senate Republican colleagues shared as of this writing. Those 30 include both Rubio,who voted against the use-of-force resolution in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. ... Below are our rankings...

Former Rep. Allen West open to Senate primary challenge against Rubio By Justin Sink - 06/19/13 08:34 AM ET Former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said Wednesday that he may mount a primary challenge to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in their state's 2016 U.S. Senate primary. West told station WMAL that he could run for Senate "if I see people that are not taking our country down the right path, if I see people that are not standing up for the right type of principles, and putting their own party politics before what is best for the United States of America."...

Marco Rubio Sinking in New Hampshire 2016 Poll BY: KEVIN DERBY | Posted: August 7, 2013 8:59 AM The latest Granite State poll by WMUR and the University of New Hampshire was released late on Tuesday and it shows U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sinking in New Hampshire, home of the first presidential primary. Rubio is expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. In recent months. Rubio has drawn fire from conservatives for his prominent role in supporting immigration reform. The poll finds New Hampshire Republicans divided on who they want to see as their party’s nominee...

Syria's butcher Bashir Assad could end up toppling British Prime Minister David Cameron and not the other way around, while also giving Russia a big boost back on to the Great Power stage and green lighting Tehran's most ambitious and sparky plans in its mountain tunnel complexes. Along the way he has exposed President Obama as feckless and fearful. The president and his team are scrambling to remind lawmakers of what the Commander-in-Chief ought to have long ago argued to the country: When the good guys blink, the bad guys notice. Lots and lots of blinking. Most of the people...

Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution provides, in pertinent part: No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.**snip**This political season, the eligibilities of Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal and Ted Cruz are the subject of debate. As much as we want certainty, the term “natural born...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was met with enthusiastic cheers from an "adoring" audience during his address at a conservative summit on Saturday, the friendliest of any of the potential 2016 presidential hopefuls to speak at the Defending the Dream summit. The event, hosted by Americans for Prosperity, drew a handful of other conservative stars and would-be presidential contenders: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R ) and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R ) all spoke. But according to The Washington Post, none received so warm a welcome as Cruz. He was met with chants of "Run, Ted, run!"...

The buzz in Washington continues over Republican Sen. Marco Rubio's assertion last week that if Congress stalls out on immigration reform, President Obama may legalize many of the 11 million illegal immigrants administratively. The Florida lawmaker told a radio station that Mr. Obama will be "tempted to issue an executive order like he did for the Dream Act kids a year ago, where he basically legalizes 11 million people by the sign of a pen." Then he added, "a year from now we could find ourselves with all 11 million people here legally under an executive order from the president."...

Marco Rubio once looked like the Republican savior over immigration. Now, to some conservatives, he seems as trustworthy as a door-to-door salesman. From the right-wing talk-show hosts to local activists at town halls, many conservatives say they’re upset that Rubio’s talk and deeds conflict over comprehensive immigration reform. “The problem is he sold this based on talking points,” said Jason Hoyt, an Orlando tea party activist, summing up the discomfort many conservatives have with the Florida Republican senator. “He had four or five talking points, which sounded pretty good,” Hoyt said. “But then we saw the bill, and it was...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) faced hecklers angry with his leadership on immigration reform at a Friday Tea Party summit in his home state. According to reports, Rubio was met with cries of "No amnesty!" as he gave an address during the opening session of the Americans for Prosperity's Defending the American Dream Summit in Orlando.

Cruz, one of four potential 2016 presidential candidates to speak to the two-day gathering, got by far the most enthusiastic response from the limited-government, free-market group. He received standing ovations when he called for abolishing the Internal Revenue Service and repealing the federal health care law. Cruz, Rubio, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Texas Gov. Rick Perry all made speeches to the group and got the most enthusiastic responses when they sounded anti-Washington themes. While the 2016 election is more than three years away, Tucker and other activists said it’s not too soon to size up which candidate can run...

By Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow In Constitutional Sudies and Editor-In-Chief, Cato Supreme Court Review As we head into a potential government shutdown over the funding of Obamacare, the iconoclastic junior senator from Texas — love him or hate him — continues to stride across the national stage. With his presidential aspirations as big as everything in his home state, by now many know what has never been a secret: Ted Cruz was born in Canada. (Full disclosure: I’m Canadian myself, with a green card. Also, Cruz has been a friend since his days representing Texas before the Supreme Court.) But...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called Friday for a strong U.S. response to last week’s use of chemical weapons outside Damascus, urging multiple missile strikes aimed at destroying Syrian President Bashar Assad’s major military assets and rendering him largely powerless. While Graham, in a statement with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, said the attack could be done “in a limited way, without boots on the ground,” the breadth of the two Republican senators’ suggested action would significantly increase U.S. involvement in a two-year civil war in Syria that has left 100,000 people dead and sent 1 million refugees into neighboring...

ORLANDO, Fla. – A small but loud group booed and heckled Florida Sen. Marco Rubio while he tried to give a speech at a conservative conference here Friday, a sign that his support for a bipartisan immigration bill has hurt him within some elements of the Republican Party. “No Amnesty!” several people shouted when Rubio walked to the lectern at the Defending the American Dream Summit, an annual gathering of Republicans and conservatives organized by the advocacy group Americans for Prosperity. Rubio was elected to the Senate in 2010 with support from the tea party, but he has been the...

OKLAHOMA CITY, August 13, 2013 ― The election of Senator Marco Rubio to the U.S. Senate in 2010 was a moment of celebration for the newly formed Tea Party movement as Rubio became known as the “Tea Party darling.” Rubio’s stump speech about his family’s escape from Fidel Castro’s Cuba never failed to bring people to their feet. The speech reminded his listeners that America is the greatest country on earth and a beacon to the world’s oppressed. Upon being sworn in, Rubio fought hard against Obamacare and worked to get the U.S. back on the path of economic success....

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) — On a recent swing through the most conservative parts of his state, Sen. Marco Rubio told a packed banquet hall at the St. Andrews Bay Yacht Club that major policy issues were threatening the American dream: onerous taxes, burdensome regulations — and, above all, President Barack Obama's health care law. But all Doc Washburn wanted to know about was immigration. The local radio talk-show host asked the Republican senator why he had worked with Democrats on legislation that would give the estimated 11 million immigrants here illegally an eventual path to citizenship. "We know you,...

KINGWOOD, Texas — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has come home to Texas to promote his long-shot bid to defund "Obamacare," warning Tea Party activists Monday that they have only a few months to stop the health care reform law before people get “addicted” to it. Cruz, who has thrilled his conservative base with his promise to shake up business as usual in Washington, says that once the insurance subsidies kick in at the beginning of 2014, it will be too late to undo the Affordable Care Act. He said that is precisely President Obama’s goal. “His strategy is to get...

OTTAWA - U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, who says he recently discovered he is likely a Canadian, must win security clearance from Canada's spy agency, fill out a four-page form and then wait up to eight months to sever his ties to America's northern neighbor. Cruz, a Texas Republican who has fueled speculation that he may run for president in 2016, was born in Canada, which automatically makes him a citizen. On Monday he offered to renounce that citizenship. ... People giving up Canadian citizenship must prove they are or will become a citizen of another country, do not live in...

Earlier this week, CNN asked me to write an op-ed on Ted Cruz, and whether he’s a realistic contender for the presidency. My reaction: Of course he is — but probably not in 2016. And for that matter, neither are the Republicans who seem to get the most mention for that position: No one doubts that Cruz has a bright future in the Republican Party, but that doesn’t mean the future is now.Cruz, like Rubio and Rand Paul, have only barely arrived on the national stage and are many years younger than their sell-by date. None of the three has...

The mainstream media refuses to give it up. ABC News is trying to fool people into believing that Sarah Palin will be a presidential candidate. Check out this graphic and see it for yourself. Before RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was interviewed on This Week, ABC aired a pre-recorded video package with the announcer saying at the end, “There’s no shortage of prospective Republican candidates, and that makes it even more challenging for the party to resolve its ideological divide.” So let’s take a look at who ABC News thinks is a potential Republican presidential candidate: Ted Cruz? Check. Donald Trump?...

Many Republicans who are eyeing a run for president in 2016 are backing an all-or-nothing plan to defund ObamaCare. More than half a dozen possible GOP White House candidates support that strategy while a handful are calling for a more nuanced approach to defunding or repealing the healthcare law. Another five are dodging questions and a couple others are not signaling one way or another. [A detailed breakdown is outlined in the chart below.] In short, some are willing to go to the brink and beyond of a government shutdown to defund ObamaCare. But it’s far from unanimous. Still, the...

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) released the following statement on President Obama’s comments concerning violence in Egypt: “President Obama’s detached and abstract statement yesterday on deteriorating conditions in Egypt is only the most recent manifestation of this Administration's failed policy in that country. As there can no longer be any reasonable doubt that what occurred in July was a military coup, the first step is to send an unequivocal message that the United States is a nation of laws and suspend aid to Egypt. “The United States has invested billions in Egypt since the Camp David peace...

The senator steals a march on potential 2016 rivals. By Robert Costa The early dynamics of the 2016 Republican presidential-primary contest were jolted on the morning of Friday, July 19, in a ballroom on the third floor of the Marriott hotel in downtown Des Moines. It was there, in front of coffee-sipping pastors, that Senator Ted Cruz of Texas wowed the kingmakers of the Iowa caucuses for the first time. Without notes and ignoring the podium, he roamed the carpeted dais for nearly an hour, quoting Scripture and musing about the Democrats and their occasional affinity for Satan. The reception...

Of all the arguments advanced in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens, perhaps the most outrageous came from Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) during a radio interview on Tuesday.  Outrage should not be exclusively directed at Rubio, because what he said is very possibly true.  And outrage should not be limited to the immigration issue, because what Rubio said will prove true of many other issues as well.  This is call-to-arms, fife-and-drum stuff.  The question is whether there are enough American patriots left to hear the music, and answer.Rubio warned that if a comprehensive immigration bill is not passed by Republicans,...

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh began his Thursday afternoon program by addressing the possibility that he and such other well-known conservatives as Sean Hannity and Mark Levin might moderate debates of Republican primary candidates during the 2016 election cycle as a departure from the previously biased questioning at such events by obviously liberal journalists. “I don’t see how I can do it,” he stated. “I’m too famous,” and he added that his presence would “overshadow” the event, though Limbaugh admitted that deciding whether to take part in a radio debate “would be a real, real, real tough call” since...

Our most recent rating of Republican presidential contenders features a top tier of three notably different candidates: A Midwestern governor (Scott Walker) who is known best by the activists who will help decide the nomination; a leading national figure (Chris Christie) who has irked conservatives; and a firebrand senator (Rand Paul) with devoted supporters who would shake up the party’s platform and, perhaps, identity.Chart 1: Updated Crystal Ball Republican presidential rankings First Tier Candidate Key Advantages Key Disadvantages Since Last Update Scott WalkerGovernor, WI •Midwest GOP gov. in Obama state •Heroic conservative credentials •Shown political durability •Too bland? Next Pawlenty?...

Sen. Rand Paul is happy Sarah Palin is on his side. “I love an endorsement by Sarah Palin, what’s not to love?” the Kentucky Republican said on CNN on Tuesday. Over the weekend, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee said she was on Paul’s side in his recent public spat with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. “I’m on team Rand. Rand Paul understands, he gets the whole notion of ‘Don’t tread on me, government,’ whereas Chris Christie is for big government and, you know, trying to go along to get along in so many respects,” Palin said on...

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin slammed what she called Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) latest rationale for passing comprehensive immigration reform; that President Barack Obama will enact reforms unilaterally with or without the GOP’s support. She called Rubio’s latest plea to conservatives “craven” and said that he should “go down fighting” against immigration reform rather than conceding that those reforms were already fait accompli. -snip- “To argue to conservatives who believe in limited government that we should pass this massive amnesty monstrosity because Obama is going to do it anyway smacks of the worst kind of political expedience,” she continued. “I think...

Full Title: Sen. Rubio, ‘You Know Nothing About Our Border’: Arizona Sheriff Hammers Immigration Bill Supporters and Offers Revealing Picture of the Border Sierra Vista, Arizona -- Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels doesn't mince words. He's angry that local law enforcement and the citizens who call the Southwest border home have been left out of the decision making process when it comes to security and immigration reform. ARRIAGA, MEXICO - AUGUST 04: Central American migrants run to board a freight train headed north early on August 4, 2013 in Arriaga, Mexico. Thousands of immigrants ride the trains, known as 'la...

The Republican Party is desperately in need of a leader who can bring the party together and excite the base. Early signs indicate that Texas Senator Ted Cruz might be that man. There was a palpable excitement inside Stephens Auditorium in Ames before Cruz hit the stage. “That was the first political speech to get me excited in a very long time,” said Dane Nealson, the chair of the Story County GOP who worked on the presidential campaigns for Tim Pawlenty and Rick Perry. “He’s the best shot I’ve seen so far to unite the factions.” The Family Leader CEO...

Skip to 3:45 for the key bit, in which a guy who’s willing to go nuclear in a quixotic bid to defund ObamaCare warns his party not to be too obstinate in resisting immigration reform — or else. Mark Krikorian summarizes his logic this way: Mark Krikorian @MarkSKrikorian Give your toddler all the candy he wants, because otherwise he´ll just take it anyway: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/marco-rubio-immigration-executive-order-95487.html … (Snip)In fairness to him, Rubio’s not making this up. Amnesty shills on the left have warned, with increasing volume lately, that King Barack might decide to grant de facto amnesty to illegals via executive order

One word, my friends: RINOgeddon. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that Christie earns 21% support when Republican voters are asked whom they would vote for if the party’s primary in their state were held today. Florida Senator Marco Rubio runs a close second with 18% of the GOP vote, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush at 16% and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul with 15% of the vote. Congressman Paul Ryan, the unsuccessful Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012, picks up 13% of the Republican vote, with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker dead last at six percent (6%)....

Sen. Ted Cruz hasn’t said whether he has presidential ambitions, but Sunday he won one of the first straw polls for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. The Texas Republican captured 45 percent of the 504 votes cast by attendees at the Western Conservative Summit, a day after drawing several standing ovations during his luncheon speech at the fourth annual conference. “We shall see what sort of crystal ball summiteers have in awarding that decisive nod to Sen. Ted Cruz, who was so magnificent from this platform,” said John Andrews, founder of the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University, which hosted...

Via the Examiner, a short but noteworthy clip insofar as it exposes a potential fault line between Cruz and Rand Paul. McCain lumps them together as “wacko birds� but I’m not so sure that’s true of Cruz on national-security issues. His alliance with Paul interests me because it strikes me as a personification of the uneasy libertarian/tea-party alliance. The groups overlap heavily on spending issues, and both are deeply suspicious of Obama’s expansion of government. The master stroke of Paul’s drone filibuster was that he found a sweet spot for both, making the philosophical case for due process while humiliating...

MSNBC's Chris Matthews made a bold prediction on Wednesday's Hardball. "The hard-right is going to take over the Republican Party in 2016 and the nomination is going to Rand Paul" (video follows with transcript and commentary):CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me finish tonight with this. I’ve been offering a prediction of late. Let me nail it down now. I believe the Republican Party is going to go hard-right in 2016. It’s going to run someone from the growing hard-right wing of the Party, something it hasn't done since 1980. And here's the thinking which works equally...

Money line: “This is what I do for a living.” Didn’t he predict a Bush/Clinton race in 2016 just nine months ago? If he believes what he says here about the parties swinging like “pendulums” from moderate nominees to ideologues and then back again, why would he have named Jeb as a strong contender last November? In fact, the roots of the counterargument are in Matthews’s own shpiel here: Most of the time, they head to the center. This is what Republicans did most successfully in 1952 – when, after twenty years of Roosevelt and Harry Truman – they wanted...

In South Carolina, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has been attacked in television ads for his support of immigration reform. In Tennessee, GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander is ducking criticism from Tea Party groups that his overall voting record is too moderate. Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, faces angry conservatives in his state for not joining an effort by some in his party to block the federal budget unless it defunds Obamacare. For these Republicans, the only uniting factor is that the criticism is coming from their own party. The reasons they are under attack vary from one group to...

Arizona Senator John McCain is in Egypt with South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham just weeks after the new government, run by the Muslim Brotherhood, was overthrown by the military. Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was heavily protested by millions of people as he tried to turn the fragile State into a dictatorship under Sharia law. More from The Daily Beast: During their whirlwind tour of Cairo Tuesday, two top GOP senators held the most extensive meeting to date between U.S. officials and senior officials in the embattled Muslim Brotherhood, whose supporters are fighting in the streets to overturn last month’s...

The parade of bad GOP candidates since Reagan has one thing in common: they were all rich men with no skin in the game, for whom victory was optional. The Bushes of Connecticut and Texas, the McCains of Arizona and the Romneys of all over the place had no downside to an electoral loss; they were all just as well-off as they were before the start of their campaigns, and could return to their multiple homes with no sense of personal loss, just a little chagrin at letting the team down. By contrast, the Democrats have fielded a succession of...

Republican Senate candidate Matt Bevin launched a Facebook petition Tuesday to demand that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sign a letter by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) vowing to block legislation to keep the federal government open unless it defunds the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. “Over the past couple of days, Sen. McConnell has been asked repeatedly whether he will support Sen. Mike Lee’s effort to defund Obamacare before its implementation on October 1st, and each time, Sen. McConnell has refused to answer," Bevin said. "It is truly sad to see the minority leader of the U.S. Senate so...

On Mark Levin’s radio show on Monday, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio argued that Republicans should use Congress’ budgetary powers to defund President Barack Obama’s unpopular 2010 health care reform law. Rubio, who seemed to have fallen out of favor with Levin after the immigration debate in the Senate earlier this summer, used his appearance on the conservative talk radio program to talk about an idea that has pitted newer Republican legislators against a GOP establishment that insists the defunding scheme can’t work. “[T]here has to be some point at which we say, ‘Look, this is the issue where we...

Sen. Marco Rubio's immigration push might have hurt his chances of winning the GOP presidential nomination, Republican lawmakers say. [WATCH VIDEO] While it’s still a long way until 2016, a number of GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate say Rubio (R-Fla.) will have to repair his standing with the conservative base if he hopes to be his party's next candidate for president. “There's terrible disappointment with Marco Rubio specifically,” says Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), an opponent of the Senate immigration bill that Rubio helped write and pass. “I don't think it's going to help him anywhere.”

In a recent poll of Alaska voters, George Zimmerman -- who was recently acquitted in the shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin -- got a surprising 2 percent support as a hypothetical Republican presidential candidate. The newest Alaska survey from Public Policy Polling shows Hillary Clinton's only chance of winning the state in 2016 would be in a matchup against Republican Sarah Palin, where Clinton would lead 49/40 percent. Clinton trails all other Republican candidates in the survey. Out in front, Chris Christie leads her by 8 points at 46/38, Jeb Bush leads at 49/42, Rand Paul is up...

Senator Marco Rubio’s immigration reform effort is in danger. It might seem like his presidential ambitions are in trouble, too. His numbers are down; Chris Christie, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz are starting to dominate the media’s discussion of 2016. In response, Rubio seems desperate to reestablish his conservative credentials, even by associating with a losing fight to defund Obamacare. That knee-jerk response calls Rubio’s political instincts into question, but his presidential chances are still alive, even if his immigration effort is on life support. Rubio’s immigration bid probably hurt him on the right, but Rubio was never a natural...

Via Mediaite, he’s making a point about inexperience. I’m … just not sure which point. It’s true, Obama had little experience as a federal legislator (and zippo as an executive) before running for president, and look how little he’s accomplished. But is that a function of “inexperience� or a function of other variables, like greater partisan polarization and Obama’s disdain for doing the sort of congressional outreach needed to pass bills? Rubio and Paul will each have served a few years more than Obama did in the Senate by election day 2016. They each also have some cred in working...

A look at the 2016 Republican field By Ramesh Ponnuru The next Republican presidential nominee is already planning his campaign. If it is not too early for him to think about 2016, why should it be for the rest of us? We don’t know, of course, what issues will be uppermost in the public mind that year, or what the economy will be like. Republicans can take comfort, though, in the fact that only twice in the last century has a two-term president been succeeded by someone else from the same party. They should also be encouraged that the leading...