Free Republic

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Ted Cruz arrived in Raleigh Monday to help dig an even deeper foothold with conservative voters. Since the junior senator from Texas announced he was running for president in March, he's shot up in the polls here. PPP, a Democratic pollster in Raleigh, showed a dramatic rise in support from North Carolina Republican voters. Cruz's support rose from 5 percent over the winter to 16 percent now. Cruz found a receptive audience at the North Raleigh Hilton where he addressed a crowd of conservatives from across the state at a $100 a ticket luncheon hosted by the...

Robert Mercer, a Long Island hedge fund magnate, has made some lavish investments over the years: There's his 203-foot super yacht, called the Sea Owl. There's the $2 million model train set he had custom-built in his mansion—and the lawsuit he filed against the builders, saying they'd overcharged him. And now there's the money he's putting behind Ted Cruz's presidential ambitions. Mercer is the main bankroller of a ring of four super-PACs supporting Cruz for president, the New York Times reported Friday. The PACs have collected $31 million in the four weeks since Cruz launched his campaign, giving the freshman...

Presidential bid could be first in US history to make global warming key election issue, highlighting differences with Republicans. John Podesta, who recently quit his job as advisor to President Barack Obama, tweeted this would be “top of the agenda” for Clinton as she prepares her run for the White House. John Podesta ✔ @johnpodesta Helping working families succeed, building small businesses, tackling climate change & clean energy. Top of the agenda. #Hillary2016 3:45 PM - 12 Apr 2015 A Washington veteran who was also advisor to Bill Clinton, Podesta is widely credited as the brains behind Obama’s climate change...

As the ex-secretary of state announces her White House bid, Sky News looks at who she could be up against from both parties.Hillary Clinton is widely seen as a front-runner for Democratic Party's presidential nomination, and her resume makes her a strong rival to any Republican. Here is a look at some of her likely opponents in the White House race. The Republican field is already crowded. :: Ted Cruz Ted Cruz became the first candidate to launch the 2016 White House bid when he announced his campaign last month. The Texas senator, 44, is a conservative firebrand who frequently...

*VIDEO-AT-LINK) They're both Spanish-speaking Republicans from Florida. And they both want to be president. There's a battle brewing between Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush over who is best-positioned to help the GOP make inroads with Latino voters, a crucial voting bloc for the party if it hopes to win the White House in 2016. Rubio will make his case on Monday when he formally announces his presidential campaign. He'll speak from Miami's Freedom Tower, where Cuban exiles who fled Fidel Castro's regime stood in line for processing, and introduce himself as the son of Cuban immigrants whose candidacy is the...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Hillary Clinton announced her second run at the presidency Sunday afternoon in an email message and a video posted on social media. “I’m getting ready to do something, too. I’m running for president,” Clinton said toward the end of the two-minute video. “Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion so you can do more than just get by, you can get ahead and stay ahead. Because when families are strong, America is...

One of the U.S. Senate’s most outspoken conservative leaders, Sen. Ted Cruz, officially confirmed today for the Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC) in Oklahoma City in May. Cruz is the ninth national leader and 2016 presidential candidate to confirm for the conference behind Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, former Sen. Rick Santorum, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Dr. Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Donald Trump and Ambassador John Bolton. OKGOP Chairman Dave Weston noted, "Sen. Cruz’s recent announcement for president has created quite a buzz among Republican voters. We’re excited he’ll be joining us for the SRLC, as...

It’s never been a secret that the politically regressive “progressives” on the New York Times editorial board hate freedom. And so, in last Sunday’s lead editorial, they came out full square for a totalitarian state under the iron boot of Supreme Leader Barack Obama. The Times is concerned that, as the failed Obama presidency heads into the final stretch and his policies become a greater concern to voting Americans, frightened citizens, especially those that have never voted before, will continue replacing tangential establishment Republicans in Congress with robust conservative-libertarian-tea partiers. That is why the Times finds the return of a...

I just love it when a Republican candidate who is currently serving in Congress explains why Republican policies fail. Lindsey Graham did it twice on CNN's State of the Union this morning. First, when asked about Ted Cruz, Graham criticized his decision to shut down the government over Obamacare, saying it "hurt our party." He also intimated that Cruz doesn't have the temperament or experience to bring about consensus on policy issues. He begins by blaming Hillary for everything that's wrong in the Middle East, as though she was a puppetmaster while serving as Secretary of State. When he gets...

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 other night as my wife Kelsey and I were getting ready for bed, we were talking about the 2016 presidential race and discussing how things would shape up for the first-in-the-nation caucus state – our home state – of Iowa. We had both heard that Ted Cruz was set to announce his candidacy at midnight, and were keeping a finger on the pulse of the reaction within our liberty-heavy political circles. My wife’s phone buzzed, and then I heard her groan. Another of our friends had asked her who we would be supporting for president in the state where...

Yesterday, in a somewhat useful exercise, my Democratic friend and sometimes sparring partner Carter Eskew compiled a “Republican Nutcase Check List” for Republican presidential candidates to take. (If you want to see how you’d rank, you can take that survey here.) With his quiz as motivation, and in the same spirit, I wrote a corresponding checklist for Democrats in general, given that their presidential candidate bench is so weak. In order to slant his test and present Republicans as Democrats want them to be, Carter had to scour some remote corners of the country in search of narrow positions and...

Who is the last great hope for Republicans in 2016 as they seek to maintain control of the Senate… and possibly the White House? One surprising answer is coming out of the annual convention of the NRA, and his name is Michael Bloomberg. The well monied former New York mayor and head honcho of Everytown for Gun Safety is holding his own event in Tennessee to focus attention on politicians who aren’t willing to sign on to ever increasing restrictions of the rights of gun owners. And it’s got some Democrats worried with good reason. “Every time a Democrat starts...

At the NRA’s Annual Meeting yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz once again presented his vision for America… and for his presidential campaign. The biggest take-away isn’t that he’s pro-second amendment (we already knew that), but that he’s determined to run a positive campaign. Just watch the video:(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Of course Cruz criticized President Obama and other Democrats for implementing horrendous policies that do tremendous damage to America and the rest of the world, but his message was – overall – very positive. He emphasized time and again that he’s inspired and motivated to fight “for your constitutional rights” and that he still believes...

The National Rifle Association’s annual leadership conference is always a treasure trove of GOP smack-talk and an all-out constitutional liturgy — and if Friday night’s viral talking points are any indication, this year’s celebration ranks further right on the political spectrum than usual. Not that that’s surprising: it is the run-up year to a presidential election cycle, which means that the Republican machine was churning out even more harsh allegations than usual. Of course, one of the biggest showboats of the night was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who told political opponent Hillary Clinton to “come and take” away his guns,...

You probably guessed it...Ted Cruz! At least if we're going solely by the measuring stick of fund raising. Yes Cruz announced his candidacy not much earlier than Paul did, but still he's managed an astounding $31 million in a single week! Which has really turned a lot of heads. Including a good number of people in more traditionally liberal news outlets... (VIDEO-AT-LINK)Notice how they're trying to pin so much of this on the citizens united case? As though that one supreme court decision has allowed for the rise of a principled conservative with real values and beliefs to occur. Only...

Millionaire Robert Mercer helps him raise an 'eye-popping' $31M right off the bat.If other GOP contenders shrugged off Ted Cruz's chances of winning the nomination, it's a safe bet they're reassessing things after four new super PACS announced they'd raised a staggering $31 million to support his new candidacy. "Even in the context of a presidential campaign cycle in which the major party nominees are expected to raise more than $1.5 billion, Cruz’s haul is eye-popping, one that instantly raises the stakes in the Republican fundraising contest," writes Mark Halperin at Bloomberg. The super PACs in question are only a...

The Left has become very devoted to the strategy of defining Republicans with early hits. Conventional wisdom holds such tactics were particularly effective against Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential candidate in 2008, and Mitt Romney on the top of the ticket in 2012. That’s why we have overheated and dishonest attempts to portray Senator Rand Paul as a short-tempered misogyinst, and a crusade to discredit Senator Ted Cruz as a spinner of tall tales, disconnected from reality. The interview between Cruz and CNBC’s John Harwood I mentioned yesterday – in which Harwood asked, “Why shouldn’t somebody listen to you and...

IOWA CITY, Iowa—Rand Paul kicked off his first public appearance in the Hawkeye State since launching his anti-establishment presidential campaign with a question that was meant as a rallying cry. “Do we have any liberty lovers here?” he asked a crowd composed mostly of University of Iowa students, who sported Rand stickers and responded with cheers and whistles. But if Paul’s going to have any chance of contending for his party’s nomination, he better hope their nonlibertarian-leaning parents feel the same way. The Iowa caucus will, of course, be the first major test for the entire GOP field—but the first-in-the-nation...

So far, the 2016 presidential campaign is not about anything very much, excepting issues specific to the leading and emerging candidates. It has been mostly about controversies swirling around Hillary Rodham Clinton, including the legacy question, which she shares with Jeb Bush. And more recently the focus has turned to the qualifications and electability of the emerging GOP newbies, from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who stand in the way of a possible third Bush presidency. In none of this do we see anything that speaks to the general state of...