Free Republic

With Ted Cruz announcing and Rand Paul and Marco Rubio soon to follow, it’s time to start handicapping the horses and making enemies. No point in wasting time on the Democratic field. There is none. The only thing that can stop Hillary Clinton is an act of God, and he seems otherwise occupied. As does Elizabeth Warren, the only Democrat who could conceivably defeat her. On to the GOP. First Tier: 1. Marco Rubio. Trails badly in current polls, ranking seventh at 5 percent, but high upside potential. Assets: Foreign policy looms uncharacteristically large in the current cycle, and Rubio...

Fearing that Republicans will ultimately nominate an establishment presidential candidate like Jeb Bush, leaders of the nation’s Christian right have mounted an ambitious effort to coalesce their support behind a single social-conservative contender months before the first primary votes are cast. In secret straw polls and exclusive meetings from Iowa to California, the leaders are weighing the relative appeal and liabilities of potential standard-bearers like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and former Govs. Rick Perry of Texas and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker told a private dinner of New Hampshire Republicans this month that he backed the idea of allowing undocumented immigrants to stay in the country and to eventually become eligible for citizenship, a position at odds with his previous public statements on the matter.

With the American electorate shifting solidly in favor of climate action over the last few years, Republican presidential candidates have a tough decision to make: Keep chasing donations from the fossil fuel industry, or follow where the science leads and form an authentically conservative plan for addressing the increasingly pressing problem of global warming. Unfortunately for the planet, it’s not looking pretty. Here’s what the leading 2016 Republican presidential hopefuls have to say about climate change:

“I’m not an expert on the ways of Washington,” Jeb Bush told conservatives last month when he was asked about a funding dispute in Congress. Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, has sounded that theme regularly in his fledgling presidential campaign. But even as he positions himself as a Washington outsider, he seems to have mastered a skill that is crucial in this city: tapping into the money-raising clout of the K Street lobbyists, political operatives, superlawyers and business leaders in Washington’s permanent class.

Ted Cruz vows to repeal “every word” of Obamacare and Common Core if he becomes president. He would “abolish” the IRS, flatten the Tax Code so Americans can fill out their taxes on a postcard, and “finally, finally, finally” secure the border. To which Lindsey Graham says: not going to happen.

It's going to be hard for the Republicans to field a presidential candidate as enthusiastic about the H-1B visa as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Cruz, who announced his presidential bid this morning, once proposed an immediate increase in the base H-1B cap from 65,000 to 325,000. Cruz offered the H-1B increase as an amendment in 2013 to the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill.

With Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) beginning his run for the Presidency today, I should make public the question I've suggested to reporters in private. Senator Cruz is for certain going to be joined by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who will announce in a few weeks. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who I think is underrated in his bid for the Presidency even though Jeb Bush is intent on locking up Florida, will also most likely declare his candidacy. All three of these men would make excellent Presidents. I know them personally. I backed them when they were at single digits in...

Deep in the Haitian countryside, peanut farmer Wismith Moricette epitomizes the success of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s charitable work: Through an innovative program backed by the Clintons, the 23-year-old has doubled the yield from his one-acre plot. Along with all those peanuts, Moricette said, have come visions of a brighter future for his wife and young son. Fifty miles away on Haiti’s Caribbean coast, Anelle Germinal exemplifies another reality of the Clintons’ work here: disappointment. The 33-year-old mother of four has been standing in the baking sun every day for months waiting for work in the struggling Caracol Industrial...

Democrats in a New Hampshire focus group want a third-party arbiter to examine Hillary Clinton’s private emails and would not mind Jeb Bush as a “consolation prize” because of his moderate views on amnesty and Common Core, which may explain why not one Republican in the focus group said they would vote for Bush in the first-in-the-nation primary if it were held today. According to Bloomberg News, Democrats in the focus group reportedly “contradicted claims by Clinton’s team that voters aren’t worrying about her e-mails,”–they reportedly said how Clinton handled the email scandal “disappointed them and made her more vulnerable...

Jeb Bush’s nascent presidential campaign has already won over many of the big-dollar donors and GOP elites. What he needs to prove now is that he can win over the crowds. Until visits to South Carolina and other early states this month, the former Florida governor hadn’t been on the campaign trail for himself in 13 years. He hadn’t sold himself to the deeply conservative, tea party-inspired crowds that have emerged as a driving Republican force in the Obama era. He’d never snapped so many “selfies” with admirers.

Hillary Clinton went before cameras and reporters at the United Nations last week to address the ongoing controversy over her use of a private email system during her time as secretary of state. She was terse, combative, and essentially told the American people to “trust her” when she says that she didn’t do anything wrong and isn’t hiding anything. Clinton’s visceral dislike of the media was obvious and can be summed up by three words (“Go to Hell”), which was how Politico’s John Harris put it after Clinton’s presser.

Hillary Clinton continues to be a dominant force heading into the 2016 presidential election, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. The former secretary of state maintains a broad lead over the field of potential Democratic challengers she could face in a nomination contest and sizable advantages over the leading contenders from the Republican side in general election match-ups. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tops the possible field for the Republican Party's nomination race, followed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson all in a tight cluste

Jeb Bush’s campaign addressed the problem of his mother saying the country doesn’t need another Bush presidency head-on, in a fundraising email signed by Barbara Bush herself. “When the idea of Jeb running for President first came up, I was hesitant,” Mrs. Bush writes. “You may have heard about that. When you see the pounding candidates, their spouses, and even their children take, what mother wouldn’t be? But our problems are so profound that America needs a leader who can renew the promise of this great nation.”

The most popular former president since the Second World War is John Kennedy. The most popular living former president is Bill Clinton. The most popular public figure in America is Pope Francis, whose favorable rating was a towering 78 percent in a recent Pew poll. These three data points reveal the qualities most Americans want in their next president. Along with demographic and electoral state advantages Democrats posses in presidential elections, they explain why Hillary Clinton will enter the 2016 campaign in a powerful position — and with the possibility of winning a mandate victory that would dramatically change the...

At a moment when everybody in Washington is talking about e-mails, former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley (D) wants to talk about Wall Street reform. Indeed, while Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail address at the State Department has created a media frenzy and overshadowed other issues, the past week brought additional news in the Democratic primary: O'Malley is almost certainly running for president. And he's determined to make his voice heard despite some pundits dismissing his ability to mount a "credible" challenge to Clinton for the party's nomination. The swirl of controversy surrounding Clinton has not only called her...

Donald Trump will launch a presidential exploratory committee Wednesday, the eve of the business mogul’s return to New Hampshire. A senior adviser tells the New Hampshire Union Leader that Trump will not be renewing his contract with NBC for the reality television “Apprentice” series. Combined with staff hires, Trump’s announcement that he will form an exploratory committee for the first time is a sign the billionaire is seriously considering running for the Republican nomination. Trump’s statement on forming the exploratory committee hints at the razzle-dazzle to come for a turbo-charged personality known for skewering the political establishment. He refers to...

Jeb Bush has a big expectations problem when it comes to fundraising for his Right to Rise super PAC. All across Wall Street and the rest of the nation, donors who attended high-dollar Bush events are whispering that the former Florida governor could raise as much as $100 million in the first quarter of the year — and maybe $500 million by June, if not significantly more. Either feat would smash records and send shock waves through the rest of the GOP presidential field.

Some Louisiana Republicans have a question for Gov. Bobby Jindal: Who runs the state’s tax policy — the governor or Grover Norquist? Jindal, who is exploring a 2016 presidential run, is fighting with his own party over how to fill a $1.6 billion budget hole. But like many GOP-ers, he is eager to preserve his anti-tax bona fides. Story Continued Below Enter Norquist, the activist who specializes in deciding which revenue hikes should count as tax increases, and which might be labeled with such euphemisms as hiking fees, closing loopholes — or in this case, “cutting spending.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker made another massive misstep on Monday, hiring Liz Mair of Mair Strategies to handle communications and social media for his campaign-in-waiting. Mair’s support for amnesty for illegal aliens, wide-open-borders immigration policies, and public advocacy for the Senate “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill is sure to dog Walker in Iowa, South Carolina, and other early presidential states. During the Senate Gang of Eight bill fight, Mair very publicly and very aggressively promoted the amnesty bill—pushing it to media and making the case for the need for it over and over again. She claims her advocacy was done...