Free Republic

The 2016 presidential election is attracting an unusually large number of hopefuls. The Republicans will probably field more than a dozen candidates and the Democrats, as many as five. Presently, very few of these supposed contenders have a real chance of becoming president. Republicans Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz are long shots. On the Democratic side, that term applies to everyone but Hillary Rodham Clinton.. But the size of the crowd isn't terribly surprising; if anything I thought it might be even larger. The barriers to entry are low, and all a candidate needs to keep going, at...

It's not just Gail Collins of the New York Times who's noticed that Jeb Bush is making a mess on the campaign trail or whatever trail he's on. That's despite the fact he's always been considered competent (compared to his brother, of course). As a humorist, Collins is having fun picking him apart, though she does seem honestly surprised. But even fellow Republicans like Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio have attacked him for saying he would have gone to war in Iraq in 2003 even if had known the intelligence was faulty, and they've watched him...

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton announced today that he will not seek the GOP nomination for president in 2016, effectively leaving the foreign policy hawk’s top super PAC donors to look elsewhere for someone to back. Some have already found their candidate — or maybe more than one — though in many cases we don’t yet know whom they’ve anointed. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is the only White House aspirant whose campaign has reported donors at this point. (Mid-July, when the reports will come due, will likely be full of surprises.) Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens seems to have...

Ask around and you’ll hear a consistent theme from political strategists in the Republican party: The 2016 primary is wide open. “It is by far the most interesting presidential year since I’ve been involved [in Republican politics],” says Steve Munisteri, a senior adviser to Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.). How interesting? Top-tier presidential campaigns are preparing for the still-unlikely scenario that the nomination fight goes all the way to the 2016 Republican National Convention. There hasn’t been a brokered convention since 1976, but the strength of the GOP field, when coupled with the proliferation of super PACs, increases the chances...

GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz said today that ABC News anchor and former Clinton White House staffer George Stephanopoulos has no business moderating any 2016 presidential debates. Cruz was asked in the Senate hallway this afternoon whether Stephanopoulos should host any debates following today’s revelation that he gave $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation without it disclosing it while officially covering the organization for ABC News. “Of course not,” Cruz responded, according to a transcript provided to The Federalist by one of his campaign communications staffers. “Debates should not be moderated by partisan Democrats who are actively supporting one of...

“I would have invaded Iraq, and you would have too.” That is literally what Jeb Bush told Megyn Kelly in an interview set to air tonight on “Fox So-Called News.” Amazing, right? Up until this point, Jeb has done everything he can to separate himself from his brother George W. Bush’s disastrous eight years as president. Just a few months ago, for example, he went out of his way to say during a speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs that he was his “own man” and that his family’s track record didn’t say anything about what he would...

You might know Nicolle Wallace as one of the co-hosts of The View, but you’re more likely to be familiar with her work as the GOP campaign operative that was once responsible for handling vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. It was a role for which she apparently feels duty-bound to repent. Absolution from the liberal entertainers who have given her a second career seems, however, eternally just beyond her reach. As a commentator and frequent television guest in the Obama era, Wallace has embraced punditry. Offering unsolicited advice to political figures is part of that job description, and Wallace has...

In recent presidential primary cycles, the influence of Southern states — with the exception of Florida, whose "Southern status" is perhaps more locational than anything else — has been minimal. While pundits like to say that GOP presidential nominees have relied heavily on a "red state" electorate based in the South, that same base has had little to say in determining the nominee. After all, neither John McCain nor Mitt Romney had much in common with the region. Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp sensed that voter turnout intensity in the region could be stronger in November 2016 if...

A number of Republican candidates for the 2016 presidential nomination have now formally declared or are poised to announce very soon. Here’s my assessment where each stands right now and how I see their strengths, weaknesses and prospects – at least at this moment. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush – his family has a record of winning elections and he has won perhaps the most important swing state twice. He has name recognition, money, clear leadership capacity, and the demeanor to be President. He also will raise a staggering amount of money. Given the GOP tradition of ultimately nominating the...

We've seen a flurry of presidential campaign announcements over the last several weeks: Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee. Oh my. But there's still at least one big notable absence. Jeb Bush, the first candidate to actually declare he was exploring a presidential bid, seems in no hurry to formally launch one. Instead, Bush has put in motion a plan that's effectively wrecking what's left of our flimsy campaign finance laws. Bush is taking the time before his formal announcement to build a super PAC that Politico says "would be...

Presidential candidate Ted Cruz, a Tea Party favorite and leading figure in the 2013 government shutdown that rattled investors, isn’t the kind of politician who usually wins a lot of friends among Wall Street campaign donors. The freshman Republican senator from Texas has none of the moderate tendencies that financiers often prefer in presidential candidates. Cruz relishes his image as an anti-establishment figure and boasts of his aversion to compromise. He has vowed to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and repeal President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare plan, commonly known as Obamacare. Despite the uncompromising rhetoric, Cruz is winning praise from...

When Ted Cruz next returns to New Hampshire, he’ll have a team of at least 42 activists – including a few of the state’s top conservatives – working with him to bolster his showing in the first-in-the- nation primary, where the most conservative candidates have struggled in recent years. Former speaker of the House Bill O’Brien, former U.S. senator Bob Smith and Executive Councilor David Wheeler announced they’d be the foundation of Cruz’s leadership team yesterday in Concord. The big three took the stage in the lobby of the Legislative Office Building in front of a group of the Texas...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)93% —an opponent of the secretive Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) that would fast-track the Pacific Rim trade deal Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)—went inside the secret room inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday morning to read the TPP text and told Breitbart News exclusively afterwards that he believes President Barack Obama should make it public now. The deal’s text is kept in a room behind double doors that each have signs: “No Public Or Media Beyond This Point.” “I think the staff signed an agreement [which didn’t include a non-disclosure]—they signed in, it’s a normal procedure,” he explained....

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz will be a keynote speaker at next month’s NC Republican Party State Convention. Cruz, a US Senator from Texas, will keynote a luncheon reception on Saturday, June 6, at the Raleigh Convention Center. The GOP says the convention’s other featured speakers include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who may also run for president next year, Donald Trump and Amb. John Bolton, who is expected to announce tomorrow if he will run for the White House.

Athens hasn’t seen this many Republicans roll into town since Reconstruction. For the second time in a row, the Georgia Republican Party will hold its biannual convention in our bastion of socialism—specifically, at that taxpayer-funded monument to big government meddling with the private sector, The Classic Center. Seeing as how we’re merely 18 months away from a presidential election, a number of GOP contenders will be on hand (after feting big donors in Atlanta, of course). So far, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is scheduled to speak at an 8:30 a.m. breakfast Friday; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s speaking slot is...

Tell me who I’m leaving out: Bush, Walker, Rubio, Paul, Cruz, Christie, Huckabee, Perry, Jindal, Santorum, Graham, Carson, Fiorina, Trump, maybe John Kasich, maybe even Rick Snyder. There’s also a chance Peter King and/or John Bolton will run, just to make life extra miserable for Rand. That would be … 18 candidates onstage in a forum that’s never accommodated more than 10. Huh. You could, of course, limit the debates to the 10 most popular and/or credible candidates in the field. Just tell me how you go about reliably discerning who those people are circa early August, five months before...

The media’s conventional wisdom is that Mike Huckabee, a onetime winner of the Iowa caucuses, doesn’t have much of a shot in 2016. So why are some pundits and news outlets suddenly attacking him if he’s just an asterisk? The answer is that the former Arkansas governor and ex-Fox News contributor will matter, at least in the early states. And beyond that, some conservatives have a visceral dislike for the guy—and especially for his passionate defense of entitlement programs.

Ideas include oath to single candidate, pledge to stay in race until end.SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — As the Republican National Committee convenes its spring meeting in this resort city, conservative activists fearful of getting stuck with another moderate candidate in 2016 are gathering 2,300 miles away to plot strategies to engineer the presidential nomination to their liking. Representatives of some 40 conservative groups plan to meet Wednesday at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in the Washington suburb of McLean, Virginia, where they will air their fears of having the nomination process hijacked by establishment Republicans and wrestle over different strategies to turn the...

And now Mike Huckabee, the Gomer Pyle of unadulterated hatred masquerading as good ol' religion, has, again, joined the Republican race for the presidency. Distressed because of the success Ted Cruz has had making inroads to the virulent right wing religious/racist base of the Christian Right, Huckabee made sure to fluff his announcement with the prerequisite xenophobia necessary to show he's still The One. A little mention of the evils of Islam here, a little homophobic red meat there- Huck's on the move to shore up those right wing evangelical votes. The problem is that Huckabee's all hat and no...

The winner and still champion: Ted Cruz, taking the first choice vote for the second month in a row. May’s vote total almost broke the 3000 ballot mark, or about twice April’s participation, but as you can see, the results remained very stable. Scott Walker remains the second choice and consensus choice leader. Thanks for participating!