Free Republic

Audio from Marks show this evening perfectly summing up who Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace are. They earn their living, since losing the McCain campaign, trashing Sarah Palin 24/7. Runs about 4 minutes.

The New Hampshire Primary is a must win for hometown Mitt Romney, but the sudden surge of Herman Cain has now put a threat to Romney’s huge lead in New Hampshire. In a recent Insider Advantage poll Herman Cain rose to 24% while Romney has fallen to 39%. Romney has been as high as 45% in previous polls. Romney has been slipping in recent New Hampshire polls, some believe due to his pressure to move the Nevada Caucus ahead of the New Hampshire Primary. mitt-romney-town-hall-new-hampshire A win for Herman Cain in Iowa could give him the momentum to make the...

"For the Bachmann campaign, this is the first big challenge. It's evidence of what happens when you jump up into the top ring of these polls, and the kind of scrutiny that you get. It's going to be important for her to get her doctors out there quickly to provide medical records and to provide the reassurance that people are going to want to have that this is not a serious issue."

In the past few weeks we’ve seen the media scrambling to promote a cat fight between Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. As the UK’s Telegraph recently wrote: The first shots have been fired in what could become an ugly battle between Sarah Palin and her potential rival Michele Bachmann for the Republican presidential nomination. [...] A Republican consultant who declined to be named because he is aligned with a rival camp, said: “The claws are out. It’s the cat fight everyone has been waiting for – Queen Sarah being taken on by the Palin mini-me.” This is all obviously designed...

Chris Wallace is back again commenting on one of his interviews, but this time he is also apologizing. Earlier today he interviewed Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and rather bluntly asked her “are you a flake?” It’s a question that Wallace now admits he regrets. Wallace acknowledged that Bachmann seemed perturbed by the question and then addressed his viewers:

Rick Perry, if he enters the GOP primary race, will be well-positioned to chip away at Mitt Romney's front-runner status. But while Romney has, at least for political purposes, an impeccable marriage to wife Ann, Perry's marriage to wife Anita has long been dogged, at least inside Texas, by whispers. Politico resurfaced the rumors for the national crowd this week, explaining that "his team is more than prepared for a re-airing of unsubstantiated rumors." (For instance, in Politico articles re-airing them. Or Daily Intel posts discussing those articles.) The most vicious gossip, which Perry publicly addressed in 2004, alleged that...

Mitt Romney’s pinch of humor falls flat in N.H. "Gov. Mitt Romney. The GOP presidential candidate, fresh off a win at the debate in Manchester, N.H., yesterday popped into Mary Ann’s Diner in Derry, where he thought he’d win over the waitresses by pretending one of them tried to grab his butt. During the photo op in front of the jukebox with the poodle skirt-wearing gals, Romney suddenly jumped forward with a startled look on his face, and said, “Oh, my goodness!” For the record, not one of startled servers did pinch an inch. “I would never do that,” one...

A visit to a therapist might be necessary to help conservatives work through their issues with the current frontrunner. What if Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination for president in 2012? A vast majority of conservatives become anxiety-ridden at the mere posing of this question, and many go ballistic at the thought of it actually happening. So a quick visit to a therapist may be helpful. Imagine yourself lying on a couch in the spring of 2012 with soothing music playing in the background. News breaks that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has clinched the Republican nomination for president. Your...

Is there a beer vs. wine or a mink coat vs. cloth coat divide in the Republican primary electorate that divides affluent and more well-educated Republicans from those who are poorer and less educated? According to a recent study by Gallup, there just may be. In a survey of 3,304 Republicans during the past three months, Gallup found that “Republican college degree holders are more likely than those without a degree to support Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, 21% vs. 13%. Similarly, Romney's support climbs from 9% of Republicans earning less than $24,000 annually to 21%...

Unified Field Theory of 2012, Axiom One: The more the Republicans can make the 2012 election like 2010, the better their chances of winning. The 2010 Democratic shellacking had the distinction of being the most ideological election in 30 years. It was driven by one central argument in its several parts: the size and reach of government, spending and debt, and, most fundamentally, the nature of the American social contract. 2010 was a referendum on the Obama experiment in hyper-liberalism. It lost resoundingly. Of course, presidential elections are not arguments in the abstract but arguments with a face. Hence, Axiom...

When I was growing up, my parents taught me that if you want people to think you’re smart, just shut up. They didn’t encourage me to shut up completely – maybe they should have – but the lesson was: never talk about things you know nothing about and people might think you’re smart..... .....For several years now, the elites have been trying to fool us in believing that two people, one on the left and one on the right, are very smart people. On the left, we have the President and on the right, we have Charles Krauthammer. We are...

K-Lo, a Romney fan of longstanding, thinks the unthinkable at NRO. And the Conservatives 4 Palin people are all over it. Given that his path to the nomination is impossible unless Mike Huckabee runs, something no serious person believes will happen, Lopez may be way ahead of the curve. The Daily Kos pollster found that Governor Palin was the top second choice among Romney’s current supporters, a result that I did not find surprising considering that a lot of Romney’s support comes from Mormons and that Palin would likely get their support in the event he did not run for...

As we all know, Mitt Romney's biggest problem in the 2012 Republican primaries is that conservatives don't trust him, given that he used to be a pro-choice moderate who got health coverage for Massachusetts' uninsured. His answer to this problem has been to run frantically to the right, staking out the most extreme position he can on any issue that comes up (his latest is an attack on lazy unemployed people). But the truth is this strategy is going to fail. What Mitt needs to understand is that voters don't make judgments based on checklists. If a true-blue conservative wants...

Was it all a heist? A candidate who had persistent financial problems pulls off a surprise upset in the primary, and the conservative grassroots open their wallets wide and often in order to help ensure the campaign’s competitiveness – only to see the candidate end the campaign with nearly $1 million in unspent funds. Is this how Christine O’Donnell wanted it? Politico reported, “O’Donnell reported having $924,800 in the bank after the election was over, according to her post-general election campaign fundraising report, filed Thursday.” The explanation from O’Donnell spokesman Matthew Moran is that O’Donnell was advised by her attorney...

As Sarah Palin ponders a 2012 presidential campaign, some prominent Republicans are urging her to resist the temptation to run even as her devoted followers flock to her book tour. In recent days, a debate has broken out among Republicans over whether the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and popular activist would be able to defeat a politically weakened President Barack Obama in two years. The criticism, rejected by Team Palin, reflects concerns among establishment Republicans that the former Alaska governor lacks the gravitas to oust a sitting president, even a struggling one. Palin has a very strong following in...

Delaware’s Republican Party both violated its own Bylaws and caused the Delaware Republican Party’s losses in the November 2, 2010, general election, a new analysis reveals. The Bylaws of Delaware’s Republican Party require in Article X, Section 1 that: “These rules of the Republican Party of the State of Delaware shall be in compliance and consistent with the Rules of the National Republican Party….” However, Rule No. 11 of the Rules of the National Republican Party states: “(a) The Republican National Committee shall not, without the prior written and filed approval of all members of the Republican National Committee from...