Free Republic

PHOENIX (AP) — John McCain and Sarah Palin are scheduled to campaign together in Arizona next week for the first time since they conceded the presidential election in Phoenix in 2008. Palin and McCain will be at a rally and picnic in Tucson on March 26, followed the next day by a rally in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.

BOSTON -- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is stepping back into the public spotlight after spending two years behind the scenes laying the groundwork for a second presidential campaign. (snip) Romney has shifted from social issues that brought accusations of flip-flopping and undermined his 2008 White House bid. With unemployment hovering around 10 percent, his new focus is on economic themes and fix-it skills he claims as a former businessman. That plays to what some observers believe would be his strength in a second race. They could also distinguish him from potential rivals such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin,...

When we conceived the RINO FREE AMERICA PROJECT ON FREE REPUBLIC, we envisioned Conservative activism that would send RINOs packing and replacing them with true Conservatives worthy of our support. NOW we need your help to defeat the biggest RINO of all. Many of us here on Free Republic have been cheering JD Hayworth on because John McCain is possibly the worst, (and most powerful,) RINO serving in the Senate today and he simply MUST be defeated lest he betray us again as he has so many times throughout his less than stellar tenure. While "the force" might be...

Senate Republicans will lay out a 10-point election year agenda later this spring, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) suggested Tuesday. McCain said that the GOP would craft a list of 10 legislative pledges which they would seek to enact within the first 60 days of taking back control of Congress, if they were to do so in this fall's elections. "We Republicans have to provide -- and we will later this spring -- a positive vision with what we want to do for the country," McCain said during an interview on KFYI radio in Arizona.

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Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is taking the opposite route of most defeated presidential candidates: rather than quickly bow out of national politics, McCain is working to become a transformative force in the Republican Party, Politico reported Friday. Concerned about the GOP's direction, McCain has been recruiting and raising money for candidates who share his pragmatic center-right style. McCain has been a particularly generous advisor to Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), who he encouraged to run for Senate and threw a $500,000 fundraiser to support.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) generated the kind of buzz other politicians covet when he launched his bid to help rebrand the Republican Party last spring. Television crews and reporters wedged themselves among the crowd of party faithful to cover the National Council for a New America's first event at a packed pizza parlor in an Arlington, Va., strip mall. The resulting coverage dominated cable news chatter for the next week. Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney were also on board. But the council has since flamed out – at least publicly. Since its launch, the National Council hasn’t held a single...

Former House Speaker And Potential 2012 GOP Candidate Rallies Party Loyalists At Fundraiser In Washington. (AP) Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Monday urged some 2,000 Republican party loyalists to stand up for GOP principles but to be inclusive as the party tries to retake the majority. “I am happy that Dick Cheney is a Republican,” Gingrich said at the annual Senate-House fundraising dinner. “I am also happy that Colin Powell is a Republican.” Cheney, the former vice president under President George W. Bush, and Powell, who was Bush's secretary of state, have feuded recently over the approach of the...

Rep. McClintock gave the following speech to the Council for National Policy in Washington DC on May 16, 2009. Here, in the winter of our despair, I want to pause to take stock of the state of our nation on this date of May 16th. Voters have swept our party from office after a failed Republican administration that abandoned conservative principles. The most left-wing President in our nation’s history has taken office with a 66 percent approval rating and strong majorities in both houses. His agenda includes radical intervention into energy markets, highly inflationary monetary policy, a determination to dramatically...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has signed on to the latest high-profile effort to re-brand the Republican Party — but don't expect to see him take a major leadership role for the National Council for a New America, or make a starring appearance at any of the events on the group's national tour. Organizers of the effort, spearheaded by House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, originally told reporters that Gingrich had not been included in the newly-launched group because his 527, American Solutions, was a partisan entity. (The organization describes itself as a "tri-partisan" network.) Gingrich supporters dismissed...

The Republican Party certainly does require a "Big Tent" -- the kind of tent we sometimes see covering a house infested with termites. Unless conservatives can rid the GOP of Democrats hiding out in their midst, the Republican Party can never recover. Liberals are sapping the GOP's strength from within. It now seems that a looming divorce within the GOP has grown inevitable. Unless the Republican Party returns to its conservative principles, a number of conservatives will go on strike. They feel it is no longer acceptable for conservatives to do most of the hard work of winning elections, while...

Wednesday evening in the Chicagoland area Conservatives attended and event they thought would be an entertaining and informative. Three popular Conservative nationally recognized Talk show hosts were taking questions about Obama’s “First Hundred Days” in office. The Salem Broadcasting Corporation has been hosting a 12-city national tour. What they got was a shameless promotion of an Illinois RINO candidate courtesy of Hugh Hewitt. We’ll give Mr. Hewitt a break, maybe he was auditioning to be Mitt Romney’s spokes person for “National Council for a New America.” Hugh officially anointed Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL) as the best candidate for the Illinois...

Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, has come under fire from a watchdog group and Democrats for using taxpayer-funded staff to work on a new policy organization he has set up. A spokesman for Cantor said the House minority whip has done nothing wrong and that policy organizations are common in Congress. The complaints center around the National Council for a New America, which Cantor helped establish recently. It is designed to develop policy through a series of town-hall meetings. When it was announced, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said it would be bipartisan, but the initial...

Contrary to popular reports by Democrats and members of the chattering class, the Republican Party is not dead — not yet. In the aftermath of the 2008 elections, however, the GOP is hemorrhaging badly. It is dazed and confused. It is moribund, but it is not dead yet. Whether the Party of Lincoln will recover remains to be seen. Its prognosis is, at best, guarded. Having had their heads handed to them in the last election, and finding it difficult to take on a popular president, Republicans are casting about trying to find a new direction. But news of their...

Former – and perhaps future – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants to make one thing clear, he’s not sniping at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, another likely presidential candidate. Earlier this month when Romney and Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., were interviewed on CNN, they were asked about radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and Palin’s inclusion in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people. Romney quipped, “Was that the issue on the most beautiful people or the most influential people? I'm not sure. If it's the most beautiful, I understand. We're not real cute.” Some pundits took that...

The Republican Party is not an endangered species but can do a better job of outreach, recruiting candidates and getting the message out, Sen. John McCain said Sunday. In an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” McCain responded to a question referring to a story in Time magazine, describing the party as “in distress.” “I probably would not go that length,” McCain said. “We all work in cycles for many years. We have seen parties down and parties up. That’s a great thing about American politics. “But having said that, do we have to do a better job of getting our...

Two major debates face conservative Republicans about the future of the party. The first, rekindled by Sen. Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party, is whether the GOP should move furtherfurther leftward. The second is whether conservatives should tone down their advocacy on social issues. History is on the side of outspoken conservatives in both debates. To learn where to position themselves, some big-government GOP loyalists are going on so-called listening tours. The trouble is, skulking around the country on pandering tours isn't leadership. Politicians, lobbyists and campaign consultants who caused the problem cannot fix it. You can also rebrand...

Social conservatives are blasting the National Council for a New America, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) nascent effort to rebrand the Republican Party, as a misguided and weak-kneed initiative that is out of touch with the GOP rank and file. The council, unveiled last week by Cantor and Sen. John McCain, is designed to be a “forward-looking, grass-roots caucus” that formulates policy prescriptions and communicates with voters in a way that could expand the Republican ranks. In announcing the formation of the group, McCain said he hoped the group would attract moderates and “like-minded Democrats” to a series of...

Though it was reported three days ago that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would officially join the national Republican re-branding effort, the National Council for a New America, House GOP Whip Rep. Eric Cantor wanted to make it really official today. "I am pleased to announce that Governor Palin has joined the panel of experts," Cantor said. "When NCNA was announced last week, we spoke about a dynamic organization that worked to constantly bring in new people and innovative ideas. The launch of the National Council was just the first step in a growing effort to engage the American people in...

For those writing Republican centrism’s obituary after Arlen Specter’s party switch, holster your quills. In fact, if the next few weeks go well for the GOP, it might pave the way for a whole new chapter in the left flank of the right-leaning party. The month of May will be huge, recruiting-wise, for Senate Republicans, with decisions expected from several big-name candidates, including Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, Rep. Mark Kirk (Ill.) and possibly Rep. Mike Castle (Del.). All would instantly be formidable — with Crist and Castle favored at the outset — and all are...