Free Republic

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Bernie Sanders told veterans in Iowa Friday that unlike some other politicians, he doesn't pay lip service to their concerns. "It is very easy to raise the flag at a troop deployment, it is very easy for a politician to give a moving speech on Veterans Day," Sanders said. "But it is very hard to go down that long road with the men and women who served and make sure that they continue to get all the benefits, all the healthcare, that they are entitled to for the rest of their lives." The Vermont senator told...

If you had to vote in your state primary/caucus today, knowing what you know now about the various declared and probable candidates, who would you vote for? Why? Who would you like to see as the running mate for your preferred candidate? If you could help staff your candidates cabinet and other top appointments, who would you choose? If you could recommend different congressional leaders than we have now, who would they be? And who would you like to see on the Supreme Court and why? And finally, feel free to donate to Free Republic.

Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the funding arm of the political network backed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, wants a lot more hard information from the crowded field of presidential contenders before deciding what to do with its considerable resources. The group is pressing every 2016 candidate to detail on the record their plans for economic growth, deficit reduction, entitlement reform, criminal justice and even foreign policy. The tax-exempt entity, a key node in a constellation of conservative entities that aims to spend $889 million before the next White House election, distributed a detailed survey Thursday to...

Hello, party leaders, potential candidates, lifelong donors, and long-suffering base voters. It’s me, the guy who constantly asks about Pennsylvania. The guy who drives people to muting me on Twitter because I won’t stop talking about Pennsylvania. Who is already showing flashcards of Collar Counties to his seven-week-old son. Recently, I received an email from a follower of the Decision Desk, the gist of which was asking me, yes or no, do I really believe the Keystone State is winnable. Well, here’s my answer: Yes. Yes, this state, which hasn’t gone for a Republican president since H.W. Bush in 1988,...

State Rep. Scott Petri has formed an exploratory committee as he considers running for the 8th District congressional seat currently held by Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick. Petri, a seven-term Republican representing the 178th state House district, said he has been “quite humbled” by the number of people “encouraging me” to seek a seat in the U.S. House. Fitzpatrick, a Republican, has pledged to limit himself to four terms, which would take him out of the running for 2016.

Reigning 2012 Iowa caucus victor and former Sen. Rick Santorum is expected to announce another presidential bid Wednesday, jumping into a 2016 Republican field crowded with candidates just like him — socially conservative current and former U.S. senators. And though Santorum was in many ways the prototype for the wave of tea party lawmakers who went to Washington in 2010 — brash, unapologetically conservative, disliked by his Senate colleagues — he must now distinguish himself from opponents molded in his likeness while simultaneously grappling with issues that defined the Republican establishment a decade ago but look different today, such as...

The field for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination is as flat as any in modern memory—pretty remarkable for a party that usually has a fight but almost invariably ends up nominating whoever's turn it is. While nomination trial-heat polling tells us very little this early, there are some poll questions that are better measurements of at least where these candidates are starting out, before the campaigning, debates, and advertising begin in earnest.An April 26 to April 30 NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll asked Republican primary voters whether they could or could not see themselves voting for each of 10 different...

One of the Senate’s leading liberals is borrowing a page from the playbook of Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is pushing to strike out language from the “cromnibus” spending bill unveiled Tuesday that would roll back restrictions on “swaps” transactions included in the 2010 financial regulatory overhaul known as Dodd-Frank. Repealing the “push-out” provision would mean that certain derivatives could again be held in bank units with federal deposit insurance. Using a strategy sometimes employed by Cruz for entirely different policy reasons, Warren said that with the $1.013 trillion spending package first being considered by the...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has chosen former Secretary of State Matt Schultz to chair his Iowa campaign in his bid for the Republican Party's nomination for president. Schultz, who currently serves as the Madison County attorney, supported Sen. Rick Santorum in his failed 2012 presidential campaign, though he won the Republican Iowa caucuses. "He is a consistent conservative who cares about liberty and won't back down from a fight,"(continued)

Hillary launches her campaign on Sunday – and, some Dems say, it’s about damn time.At long last, the campaign has a candidate. After playing one of the more tedious games of cat and mouse in recent American political history, Hillary Clinton stands now ready to admit that she is what she has been for the last two years: an actual contender for the Democratic nomination for president. The announcement comes as Democrats in DC have fretted that without an organized infrastructure Clinton has been a glutton for Republican attacks, and ill-equipped to respond to the news of the moment, whether...

The latest North Carolina survey from Public Policy Polling suggests that conservative U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz entering the race is stunting Scott Walker's momentum in North Carolina. The PPP poll released on April 10 shows Jeb Bush now leads the GOP field in North Carolina with 19 percent to 16 percent for Walker, with Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Marco Rubio each at 11 percent, Ben Carson at 9 percent, Chris Christie at 7 percent, Rand Paul at 6 percent and Rick Perry at 2 percent. Cruz is up 8 points from his 3 percent standing a month ago, while Walker...

Walker 15 Bush 12 Carson 11 Cruz 10 Huckabee 10 Paul 9 Rubio 8 Christie 4 Perry 3 Santorum 2 Jindal 2 Kasich 1

Nearly a week since Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), igniting a nationwide debate about whether the controversial law invites discrimination based on sexual orientation, most potential Republican presidential candidates have taken the opportunity to bolster their conservative credentials. "Governor Pence has done the right thing," said former Florida Governor Jeb Bush on Monday. “I want to commend Governor Mike Pence for his support of religious freedom, especially in the face of fierce opposition,” Texas Senator Ted Cruz said in a written statement. “Governor Pence is holding the line to protect religious liberty in the...

Martina White made history Tuesday night by winning a special election for a Pennsylvania House seat — the first time a Republican won an open General Assembly seat in Philadelphia in 25 years. White, 26, became the 120th Republican in the House, part of the largest GOP majority in the state since 1958 and including a state Senate that increased its majority in historic numbers in 2014. Down-ballot races matter. These elected officials are the most attuned politicians with whom average people ever interact; they focus on voters' core values, and are far removed from the harsher rhetoric of national...

A question I often am asked is: "Who would you bet on to win the presidency?" Personally, I don't bet on politics, but here's my current take on the 2016 presidential race—with, of course, the caveat that we don't know which campaigns will turn out the best in terms of organization, strategy, tactics, or execution, much less which candidates will step on land mines along the way. The Democratic nomination appears fairly straightforward. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now the prohibitive favorite. If her early stumbles during her book tour, or remarks like the one she made about...

With 2016 rumblings abounding, we forgot about Rick Santorum. The former Pennsylvania Senator threw some early punches last week at his potential rivals, calling Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “bomb throwers,” who had no real accomplishments on their resumes (via NYT): Discussing Mr. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses, Mr. Santorum raised four policy issues that he said would prompt questions about Mr. Huckabee’s fealty to conservative principles. Mr. Santorum was even harsher when discussing Mr. Paul of Kentucky and Mr. Cruz of Texas, both first-term senators, dismissing them as...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Rick Santorum says he's in for 2016. Rick Santorum has invited former aides to Washington next week for a "private briefing" on his plans for a possible 2016 presidential bid. The "Personal Invitation from Senator Santorum," provided to CNN by a Republican who received it, was sent by a Santorum aide to more than two dozen "friends and former colleagues" from past campaigns and his time in the U.S. House and Senate. "As you probably know, RJS is seriously considering a run for the White House in 2016," Santorum adviser Matt Beynon wrote in the email, using Santorum's initials. "With...

From the first day of 2011, Mitt Romney was the favorite to win the 2012 Republican presidential primary campaign. No one else was even close. The 2016 outlook could not be more different. Offered the choice to bet on one single candidate to win the nomination versus the rest of the field, the choice would have to be "the field." For the first time in years, there is no one next in line. And without a former vice president or powerhouse former candidate looking likely to run, Republicans are shaping up to spend the next year and a half fighting...

The Hill reports: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) will headline the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention this month, joining a pair of other potential presidential candidate[s] also weighing bids to enter the 2016 field. . . . The roster of speakers also includes former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who ran for president in 2012, and Ben Carson, the Tea Party favorite and former neurosurgeon who’s debating entering the fray. It’s not uncommon for Cruz to play to this sort of crowd. He is a favorite among the most conservative members of the GOP, where he doles out one-liners (Abolish the...

In a new poll of likely Republican primary voters nationwide by Zogby Analytics, 2012 GOP nominee Romney leads the pack with 14%, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (12%), Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (10%), New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (8%), former Arkansas Governor and now Fox News Host Mike Huckabee (7%), Florida Senator Marco Rubio (7%), Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (5%), Rep. and former Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan (4%), Texas Governor Rick Perry (4%), Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (3%), Texas Senator Ted Cruz (3%), South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (2%), former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (1%), and both...