Free Republic

When Fox Business News decided not to include Gov. Chris Christie or Mike Huckabee in the main Republican debate on Tuesday, several news reports blamed the latest IBD/TIPP Poll, which Fox used along with three other polls to determine who made the cut.

...I was concerned the event would degenerate into a petulant verbal battle between Gingrich and Romney. However, Rick Santorum drew applause - both from the live audience and probably from viewers around the country - when he called on both of the candidates to stop their petty personal politics. "The bigger issue here is, these two gentlemen, who are out distracting from the most important issues -- we have been playing petty personal politics, can we set aside that Newt was a member of Congress and used the skills that he developed as a member of Congress to go out...

Gingrich a star on Reagan team: Romney "work product" as conservative at issue. Mitt Romney has raised the issue of Newt Gingrich's "work product." Wow. Intended to prod the former Speaker on the issue of his work for Freddie Mac (Gingrich last night released his contract with Freddie), the question, as seems to be a Romney characteristic, has clumsily backfired. It raises an all-too obvious question that is becoming increasingly revealing. What is Mitt Romney's "work product" for the conservative cause? The closest Mitt Romney ever got to the Reagan Revolution is apparently because he reads about it 30 years...

One of the deans of Conservative columnists says Thad McCotter SHOULD be in the debates.

"Former First Lady Nancy Reagan announced Monday that the first debate of the 2012 Republican primary contest will be held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif., on May 2, 2011."

But the most electric energy in the debate hall was reserved by the man not on stage, Sen. Fred Thompson. In a bit of brilliant tactical maneuvering, Team Thompson scheduled their candidate to appear with Sean Hannity to offer post-debate analysis from the comfort of the Fox News studios. Not only did this in effect make Thompson a “participant” in the debate, it allowed him to contrast himself against the candidates and their responses without the strictures of time limits or spirited counterattacks from rival candidates. Better still for Thompson, his appearance...

Michigan Republican Party chairman Saul Anuzis plans to circulate a petition among Republican National Committee members asking debate sponsors and broadcasters to bar Rep. Ron Paul from future GOP presidential debates. At the GOP candidates' debate in South Carolina Tuesday night, Paul put forth the proposition that that the Sept. 11 terror attacks were the result of misguided U.S. foreign policy, which Anuzis characterizes as being "off the wall and out of whack."According to The Associated Press, Anuzis told attendees at an RNC state leadership meeting: "I think he would have felt much more comfortable on the stage with the...

Mike Huckabee is confident Republican primary voters will buy his conservative message. The question is whether he can stick around the presidential race long enough for them to have a chance to hear it. With only $544,157 raised during the first quarter and $373,918 cash on hand, the former Arkansas governor's campaign account pales compared with the three best-heeled GOP candidates -- former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain of Arizona. But Huckabee suggests the Big Three aren't anywhere close to having a lock on the nomination because his natural constituency...