Free Republic

The contenders looking to primary the controversial South Carolina senator in 2014 are starting to come forward. Watch out, Lindsey Graham: the Tea Party says that you are next. Tea Party members demonstrate outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 19. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty) According to sources in South Carolina and within the Tea Party, at least two serious challenges to Graham are expected to emerge in the next few weeks. Dustin Stockton, a leading conservative activist and head of Western PAC, told The Daily Beast that he is headed to South Carolina next month to help build a ground...

Matt Bevin is getting a Mitch McConnell welcome in Kentucky: A slashing TV ad seizing on the political newcomer’s problems with his Connecticut-based bell manufacturing business. Bevin, a wealthy Louisville businessman, is slated to announce a primary challenge against McConnell on Wednesday, hoping to tap into tea party anger to pull off a major upset against the wily 28-year Senate veteran in 2014. Continue Reading Text Size -+resetAdvertisement Latest on POLITICO Poll: Obama nears all-time low New Filner accuser goes public Trump: Weiner 'sick puppy' House panel approves deep EPA cuts Tech lobby reports barely touch NSA FDA eyes menthol...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will have a challenger from the right in Matt Bevin, a local businessman and Tea Party candidate who plans to announce his run for Senate this week. Bevin, who has been exploring the race since February, is reportedly already buying airtime and has met with multiple conservative groups about his run. He'll launch a 3-day, 8-stop tour of the state after he formally announces his intentions on Wednesday. Bevin is a partner at a Kentucky investment firm and the owner of Bevin Brothers Manufacturing, a Connecticut bell-making company founded 160 years ago. He previously...

For the last few months, rumors have been swirling the GOP Rep. Peter King (NY) had his eye on the White House. Yesterday, he confirmed that he was considering a 2016 run. Speaking to CBS News, he said “I’m looking at it. I have no committee or anything formed yet.” hen, his pseudo-announcement turned ugly as Peter King proceeded to remind conservatives of everything they can’t stand about Peter King. Essentially, King said there are no potential candidates out there who are hawkish enough for him. Indeed, it appears to King that people are far more concerned about their civil...

Don’t expect to see a big public backlash to the Senate immigration bill on cable news this week: The Republicans who voted for the bill are laying low. None of the Republican members of the Gang of Eight (Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Jeff Flake of Arizona) have any public events scheduled. Rubio is on a long-planned vacation with his family. Graham and McCain are overseas. Flake is traveling and “out of pocket,” an aide said.

Fox News viewers in Florida will see a new commercial in the coming weeks urging them to call Senator Marco Rubio. “Thank him for keeping his promise, and fighting to secure the border,” a narrator says in the ad, which is paid for by the conservative American Action Network. Another group, Americans for a Conservative Direction, led by former Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi and other top Republicans, has been running ads in Iowa lately that implore those watching to “stand with Marco Rubio to end de facto amnesty.”

The U.S. House of Representatives should pass the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform package with a few additional requirements, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush co-wrote in an opinion piece.

The GOP strategist says he tried to signal to the Romney campaign that it should change course, but they didn't follow his lead. A lot has been said about why Mitt Romney lost the presidential election, from his failure to turn out more white working-class voters to his failure to win more of the Latino voters who did turn out. Republican strategist Karl Rove offered the latest take Thursday in remarks detailing how he tried, from his perch at an outside group forbidden by law from coordinating with the campaign, to signal to Romney's team that they should make changes...

The Senate Conservatives Fund, which former Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., founded in 2009 but then left behind when he quit the Senate, went after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (up for re-election next year in Kentucky) with an email missive over the weekend. The group has a history of disregarding partisan concerns — often to the consternation of Republicans. In 2009, when DeMint was still in the Senate and running SCF, he approached former Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., on the Senate floor and told him he’d be backing Pat Toomey against him in a primary. Specter’s party-switch came shortly thereafter,...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, sounding more and more like a presidential candidate in 2016, tore into President Barack Obama, calling his administration “an utter and complete failure.” Bush was the keynote speaker Tuesday night at the Conservative Party of New York State’s 51st Annual Dinner in New York City, where he received the Charles M. Edison Memorial Award, named after inventor Thomas Edison’s son, a former New Jersey governor and secretary of the Navy. Also receiving the Charles M. Edison Award Tuesday night was Christopher Ruddy, the founder and CEO of Newsmax Media Inc. Ruddy called the award “an...

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush is still nursing presidential aspirations, despite Republican unease about the “comprehensive immigration reform” he whole-heartedly supports, after losing an argument with himself and immediately backpedaling from a book he had only just published. Bush chose to deal with this unease by attacking the uneasy, referring to them as “chirpers” in a CBN interview following his appearance before the Faith and Freedom Coalition. ”I will be able to, I think, manage my way through all the ‘chirpers’ out there,” he said, apparently playing off Senator John McCain’s reference to his conservative colleagues Ted Cruz, Rand Paul,...

Jeb Bush says he’s not worried that his work toward comprehensive immigration reform and his ties to the GOP establishment will alienate conservatives and negatively impact a potential 2016 presidential campaign, referring to critics as “the chirpers.” -snip- It’s not the first time, of course, that a Republican establishment figure has coined a new nickname for the outspoken conservative wing of the party. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) a few months ago labeled Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) as “wacko birds.”

In an exclusive sit-down interview with The Brody File, Jeb Bush began to sketch out his case for President of the United States if he decides to run next year. “It will be based on my record. And that record was one of solving problems from completely from a conservative perspective. I cut taxes every year, I shrunk the size of government,” Jeb Bush tells The Brody File. And as for his critics who say he’s too mainstream establishment he offers this: “I will be able to, I think, manage my way through all the chirpers out there.” We sat...

Rush Limbaugh snapped at former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for calling Republicans too reactionary, saying the party lost in 2012 because it “is considered wishy-washy.” “Jeb Bush said that too many Republicans are reactionary,” the conservative radio host said on his program Friday, according to a show transcript. “It’s a code word used by people who aren’t conservative to taint us as extremists.” -snip- “So Jeb Bush, who we really like here, said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition today that he wasn’t gonna be critical of the Obama administration. That really worked out for Romney, didn’t it?” Limbaugh responded.

Republicans considering running for president over the past six years have been delivering red meat to the base at conservative confabs. But Jeb Bush Friday did not fit the mold. The former Florida governor, mulling a 2016 bid, followed the retiring firebrand Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) at the Faith and Freedom Coalition. But while Bachmann and the other speakers here, including Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) -- the 2012 vice-presidential nominee -- treaded familiar turf by railing against government and President Barack Obama, Bush didn’t go there. “I won’t be pointing out the failures of the Obama administration,” Bush said to...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is “the smartest guy, the biggest thinker” in the Republican Party as it looks toward winning the White House in 2016, GOP strategist Karl Rove tells Newsmax TV. “Six months ago, I would have said, ‘No, he's not going to run,’” Rove tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview. “But maybe he is. I certainly hope he keeps a very strong voice.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised to filibuster new gun control legislation, putting up a significant roadblock to Democratic efforts to move forward on the measure this week. ... McConnell is now the 15th Senator to sign on to the Republican gun control filibuster, an effort that has been spearheaded by conservative Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Mike Lee (R-Utah). As the top Senate Republican, McConnell's support gives the filibuster a much higher chance of success, imperiling the already-delicate bipartisan negotiations on new gun control measures. McConnell's promise to filibuster also deflates criticism from the more...

A much-anticipated Republican National Committee Chairman report due out Monday on how to reverse the GOP’s fortunes is expected to call for fewer Republican debates, a condensed primary calendar and an earlier party convention. In an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus outlined those three main recommendations for the 2016 presidential election. The RNC’s so-called “autopsy” — a detailed review of the GOP’s 2012 failures and roadmap going forward — will also include suggestions to improve the party’s digital capabilities and bolster its voter database, among other proposals. Priebus is set to unveil the plan...

Karl Rove wasted no time in hitting back at Sarah Palin after she criticized him for getting involved in Republican primaries last year. "If she can play in primaries, other people can play in primaries," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

Former Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL) spoke at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).