Free Republic

Which shows us all exactly what we need to do with regard to defeating him. Repeat it like a chant. Show it in every way possible. Barack Obama is just another politician. He is no different than a John Kerry or an Al Gore. He will manipulate. He will say what is needed to get elected. He will go negative and attack. He will buy the election if it is possible for him to do so. His past shows him to be nothing extraordinary and quite ordinary. Even if every single one of these points is made and lands in...

Karl Rove dreamed of creating a "permanent Republican majority." But as President Bush's longtime adviser exits the Washington scene, the political landscape he helped chart is already shifting beneath his feet: The era of conservative values -- a tight-fisted approach toward government aid to the poor, traditional positions on social issues and a belief in a muscular foreign policy -- that emerged in the 1990s is coming to a close.

John S. Wilder needs 17 votes to remain Lt. Governor, but there are only 16 Democrats in the Tennessee Senate. That hasn't stopped him before.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Karl Rove, the political mastermind George W. Bush called Boy Genius, was wont to draw an analogy with the election of 1896, in which the Republican William McKinley drubbed William Jennings Bryan. McKinley's election ushered in a 35-year era chiefly characterized by G.O.P. dominance; so, too, Rove argued, would Bush's hasten the progress toward an era of virtual one-party rule. And Rove's bold prediction seemed plausible. Over time, the Republicans have increased their margin in Congress and reversed years of Democratic dominance in statehouses and State Legislatures. The conservative columnist Fred Barnes declared in 2003...

In America, parties enter periods of hegemony when they are seen as having resolved the crisis of the age.Lincoln, the first Republican president, reunited in blood a Union that had sundered over his election and a Southern rebellion against the ascendancy of an industrializing North.With the crushing of the Confederacy by the armies of Sherman and Grant, the assassination of Lincoln on Good Friday, 1865, and the abolition of slavery, the Republican Party appeared to have solved the crisis of the age. The GOP owned the patriotism issue, "waving the bloody shirt," and the morality issue, emancipation, and thus became...

With six months to go until Election Day 2006, are Republicans doomed to defeat? And what of President George W. Bush: If the Democrats win back the congressional majority, will they seek to investigate - even impeach - him? The answers to these two questions are linked. That is, Republican voters, angered, in particular, over Bush's shilly-shallying on the immigration issue, are inclined to let the GOP suffer a little in 2006. But they don't want to see the 2004 presidential election results overturned. After all, this is a conservative country; Republicans have won seven of the last 10 presidential...

I know a little something about adventure. In the late 1970s, the leader of the Republican minority in the U.S. House of Representatives used to greet newly elected Republican members with a white flag of surrender. "Every day I wake up and look in the mirror and say to myself, 'Today you're going to be a loser,'" said the former minority leader. "And after you're here awhile, you'll start to feel the same way. But don't let it bother you. You'll get used to it." A party whose leader would offer such advice deserves to be in the minority --...

Our View: Keep the House Republican Posted Apr 21, 2006In Frank Capra’s oft-watched movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,� the character George Bailey is given a chance to see what his hometown would be like had he never lived. He quickly learns it’s an ugly place. Lucky for Bailey, the transformation of his fictional town was just a trick played on him by an angel. Conservatives cannot count on a similar twist in this year’s elections, which will take place in the real world. If they succumb to the temptation to write off the Republican Congress, sitting on their hands this...

Rep. Tom DeLay says he made the decision to leave Congress after taking a poll in his Texas district which showed he had no better than a 50-50 chance of winning reelection this November. In a long discussion with conservative journalists Tuesday afternoon, DeLay discussed the Republican primary he faced last month, which he won with 62 percent of the vote. While some observers called that an impressive win, given the controversy that surrounds DeLay, the congressman himself said that was when he knew he had a problem. "After the primary — you get a sixth sense about this stuff,"...

Four decades ago, Kevin Phillips, a young political strategist for the Republican Party, began work on what became a remarkable book. In writing "The Emerging Republican Majority" (published in 1969), he asked a very big question about American politics: How would the demographic and economic changes of postwar America shape the long-term future of the two major parties? ...(clip)...A stronger Republican Party, he believed, would restore stability and order to a society experiencing disorienting and at times violent change. Shortly before publishing his book, he joined the Nixon administration to help advance the changes he had foreseen. Phillips has remained...

March 20, 2006, 8:09 a.m. March to the Senate How it’s looking. As we head into spring, this year's Senate races come into sharper focus. Democrats need to gain six seats to secure control of the chamber — a tall order, even as they stand poised for a good fall. Here's a quick tour of nearly two dozen contests, updating a report from January. ARIZONA: Before it's over, developer Jim Pederson, a Democrat who once headed the state party, will spend a bundle to defeat Republican senator Jon Kyl. A Pederson upset is not inconceivable, but it will take an...

Painting the Map Red: The Fight to Create a Permanent Republican Majority At Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0895260026/sr=8-3/qid=1142574815 Book Description Painting the Map Red, the insider's guide to the 2006 elections and the crucial messages GOP candidates and activists will be adopting to foster the spread of Red States, is a must-read from Hugh Hewitt, nationally syndicated talk show host and political strategist. From the Inside Flap How to Win Everywhere Warning: this is the book the Democrats don¹t want you to read. Painting the Map Red is the insider¹s blueprint for achieving a permanent Republican majority. Bestselling author, political strategist, and...

WASHINGTON — Growing Republican dominance of Senate seats in states where George W. Bush has run best looms as the principal obstacle for Democrats hoping to retake the chamber in 2006 or beyond. With the recent struggle over judicial nominations underscoring the stakes, the battle for Senate control could attract unprecedented levels of money and energy next year. Democrats are optimistic about their chances of ousting GOP senators in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, states that voted for Democratic presidential candidates John F. Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. But the Democrats are unlikely to regain a Senate majority...

The Republicans have had the Democrats on the defensive. They have won seven presidential victories in the last 10 elections since 1968; control of the House since 1994; and, recently, control of the Senate, both with increasing majorities. The Democrats have not broken 50 percent in any presidential election since 1976 or 48.5 percent in the six congressional elections since 1994. They have not won a majority of the white votes since 1964, and their geographic base has come to be concentrated on both coasts. You can fly over virtually the entire country without flying over states that voted Democratic....

White House political operative Karl Rove told a Republican rally in Ohio Monday that Democrats faded from national power because the GOP has claimed the "mantle of idealism" over the past 40 years. "It has been a remarkable rise," Rove said, "but it also is a cautionary tale about what can happen to a dominant political party when its thinking becomes ossified." He said the GOP was nearly dead in 1964, after Democrat Lyndon Johnson crushed Barry Goldwater. He predicted it could be on the cusp of a political realignment that will leave it in power for a generation. Rove,...

There is an undeniable fury building among Republican voters coast to coast. It has now been almost six months since that euphoric day last year -- November 2nd -- when Republicans stunned Democrats across the board. Not only did President Bush handily beat John Kerry, but the GOP did what few predicted -- it managed to pick up four seats in the Senate. John Thune's victory over Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle in South Dakota was extra sweet. That seems like six years ago, not six months ago. Talk to your average Republican voter today and you will find a...

It's just that simple. The GOP has been out of the channels of power since FDR's Democratic Party co-opted socialism to remake their party into the "Party of the people" at the end of Hoover's term. That was in 1934, for those keeping track. Previous to 1934 the Republican Party had long stretches of and often a choke hold on political power in Washington for most of the 74 years between the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, was elected in 1860 and Hoover's disastrous last days in office in 1934. The Democrats had to suffice with brief periods during Woodrow...

4/18/05 By Michael Barone The Hardest Numbers Congressional Republicans have some reason to feel under siege. Public opinion polls show that congressional action in the Terri Schiavo case was unpopular. George W. Bush's job ratings have dipped, and Congress's job rating is lower. Many polls show that Bush's proposal for personal retirement accounts in Social Security is unpopular, too. The Washington Post and the New York Times have been hammering away at House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Despite good economic numbers, most voters feel the economy is in trouble and the nation is on the wrong track. But Republicans should...

In trying to sell his reform agenda this year, President Bush must first overcome history. As everyone inside the Beltway seems fond of repeating, parties that control the White House tend to lose seats in Congress in off-year elections. Some Republicans now fear even worse losses should they embrace Social Security reform or any other dramatic change. More than a few congressional Republicans would rather just play it safe and hold onto power. So far, Mr. Bush isn't making much headway. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas and others have already hinted that the president's Social...

In examining the current two-party system, it becomes clear that a growing majority of Americans fit into the conservative movement. It is agreed that both parties are moving further to the right and left, respectively, but it has been Republicans that have grown their base by facing issues realistically, and by spreading hope instead of despair. Republicans are gaining the support of mainstream, rational-thinking people whose party affiliation was previously tenuous.

AGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 30 - After a slow start, voters turned out in very large numbers in Baghdad today, packing polling places and creating a party atmosphere in the streets, which were closed to traffic but full of children playing soccer, and men and women, some carrying babies. American officials were showing confidence that today was going to be a big success, although they were still wary of the possibility of major attacks by insurgents. In the Karada district of central Baghdad, everyone, it seemed, was walking to the polls, where they lined up to vote 50 people deep. They...

When President Bush stands before Congress on Wednesday night to deliver his State of the Union address, it is a safe bet that he will not announce that one of his goals is the long-term enfeeblement of the Democratic Party. But a recurring theme of many items on Bush's second-term domestic agenda is that if enacted, they would weaken political and financial pillars that have propped up Democrats for years, political strategists from both parties say. Legislation putting caps on civil damage awards, for instance, would choke income to trial lawyers, among the most generous contributors to the Democratic Party....

ATLANTA - Republicans took the reins of the state House on Monday for the first time in 135 years, completing a state sweep that began two years ago when the GOP won the governor's office and state Senate. Amid whoops and a few tears, Republicans elected Rep. Glenn Richardson as House Speaker, a vote many saw as the culmination of decades of hard work by Republicans. Richardson became the first member of the GOP to hold the gavel since Reconstruction. "The gravity of this moment is overwhelming to me," said Richardson, who choked up for a moment while giving his...

The Republican Party now seems to have it all: possession of the U.S. presidency and expanded control of Congress. Ironically, however, President Bush’s victory might destroy American conservatism. The GOP and conservative movement have lost their souls. Modern American conservatism grew out of the classical liberal tradition that birthed the U.S. For years Republicans emphasized their commitment to individual liberty and limited constitution government. They believed Washington to possess only specific enumerated powers. The most important domestic issues were matters for the states. Internationally American needed to be strong but responsible: War was a tool to protect U.S. security, not...

The Republicans in the new Congress will hold 232 seats, and the Dems 203. But Bush country held sway in 254 congressional districts per my estimate, which I think has very little margin of error at this point (maybe 255), with Kerry carrying only 181 (maybe 180 depending how CD NC 13 went) congressional districts. (Bush carried 40 CD's that Dem congressmen hold, while Kerry won 18 CD's that GOP congressmen hold.) Moreover, there are 13 seats the Dems will hold in the new Congress which Bush won by 10% or more, or close to it. How many seats are...

A more Republican and more conservative Congress convenes on Tuesday, with Republicans intending to use their greater strength in the House and Senate to help President Bush pursue a second-term agenda of major changes in bedrock programs like Social Security and income taxes. "This is going to probably be the most productive two years of our Republican majority," said Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader. "It's not just Social Security and tax reform, it's tort reform, regulatory reform, restraining spending, redesigning the House, redesigning the government." Nine new senators and 41 House freshmen will be sworn in as...

Welcome to a new era in the Georgia Legislature where the focus will turn to strengthening traditional families, increasing personal responsibility, reducing government, and cutting taxes. If it sounds like a Republican agenda, there's a reason. Republicans have taken over the statehouse after 130 years of Democratic domination. When the new legislative session opens Jan. 10, Republicans will be running the show.

Imagine a country that considers itself at war and which is distinctive among advanced industrial democracies in terms of its pervasive patriotism, religiosity and entrepreneurial spirit. Assume, too, that in this imaginary country there is a political party, Party A, the central tenets of which are support for a strong national defense, free enterprise and family values. Finally, envision an opposing party, Party B, in this country that represents a mixture of anti-war pacifism, watered-down socialism and cultural permissiveness based on secular impulses. Would it be surprising that Party A won more elections in such a country than Party B?...

Following the Republican landslide victories of the 1994 midterm elections, conservatives watched in amazement as Republican “moderates” proceeded to completely squander the ground they had gained, culminating in the defeat of Bob Dole in ‘96. In the aftermath of this year’s elections, ominous signs point towards a repeat performance. Apparently, Republican Party operatives didn’t really comprehend why, in the middle of Bill Clinton’s first term, they won big. And to this day, political analysts still don’t seem to grasp the situation. Among conservatives, the conventional wisdom is that the newly realigned GOP Congressional majority had wrongly presumed too much of...

NEW YORK A new Gallup poll shows that the public values “values” less than November exit polls suggested, but another survey from the same outfit released today shows a historic surge in Republican party affiliation. In Gallup's latest poll this month, those identifying themselves as Republicans jumped to 37% of the public, with Democrats now clearly trailing with 32%. Democrats have long held more party members than Republicans. During the Clinton years, the bulge was about 5% to 6%. As recently as late-October of this year the Democratic edge was 37% to 34%. Gallup noted today: “Post-election shifts in partisanship...

Hopefully this trend will last By E&P Staff Published: December 14, 2004 5:00 PM ET NEW YORK Even as a new Gallup poll shows that the public values “values” less than November exit polls suggested, another survey from the same outfit released today showed a historic surge in Republican party affiliation. In Gallup's latest poll this month, those identifying themselves as Republicans jumped to 37% of the public, with Democrats now clearly trailing with 32%. Democrats have long held more party members than Republicans. During the Clinton years, the bulge was about 5% to 6%. As recently as late-October of...

NEW YORK Even as a new Gallup poll shows that the public values “values” less than November exit polls suggested, another survey from the same outfit released today showed a historic surge in Republican party affiliation. In Gallup's latest poll this month, those identifying themselves as Republicans jumped to 37% of the public, with Democrats now clearly trailing with 32%. Democrats have long held more party members than Republicans. During the Clinton years, the bulge was about 5% to 6%. As recently as late-October of this year the Democratic edge was 37% to 34%. Gallup noted today: “Post-election shifts in...

Despite the endless verbiage expended trying to explain America’s remarkably stable division into Republican and Democratic regions, almost no one has mentioned the obscure demographic factor that correlated uncannily with states’ partisan splits in both 2000 and 2004. Clearly, the issues that so excite political journalists had but a meager impact on most voters. For example, the press spent the last week of the 2004 campaign in a tizzy over the looting of explosives at Iraq’s al-Qaqaa munitions dump, but, if voters even noticed al-Qaqaa, their reactions were predetermined by their party loyalty. The 2000 presidential election, held during peace...

Republicans Outbreed Us, Democrats Fret http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/12/10/114946.shtml Democrats' endless and often clueless stewing over the GOP's latest election triumphs just keeps getting funnier. Have you heard of "natalists"? They’re the left's new boogeyman. These curious Middle American creatures, it seems, care more about having a family than a summer home in the Hamptons. They tend to have conservative moral values. And ... they're reproducing! Now the media elitists are examining this phenomenon of flyover country as if it's some sort of exotic species that must be dissected, though perhaps not exterminated. The New York Times' David Brooks frets: "They are having...

Democrats' endless and often clueless stewing over the GOP's latest election triumphs just keeps getting funnier. Now they’re worried, with some justification, that fertile young conservatives are replacing dried-up old liberals. Have you heard of "natalists"? They’re the left's new boogeyman. These curious Middle American creatures, it seems, care more about having a family than a summer home in the Hamptons. They tend to have conservative moral values. And ... they're reproducing! Now the media elitists are examining this phenomenon of flyover country as if it's some sort of exotic species that must be dissected, though perhaps not exterminated. The...

In the face of the right's 2004 election victories and shrieking triumphalism, the Democrats picked Harry Reid of Nevada, a pro-life, pro-war, anti-flag-burning buddy of President Bush, to be their leader in the Senate. One of Reid's colleagues, Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, had this to say about the new minority leader, who is taking over from Karl Rove's drive-by victim Tom Daschle: "When the conservative talk show hosts start saying bad things about Harry Reid, it will be like attacking Mr. Rogers."This is the Democrats' idea of mounting an opposition to the rightwing takeover of all three branches...

Heretofore, the US Senate was a formidable bump in the road for those defending womb babies. But no longer. Thank you, Mr. President, for bringing in all those long lines of voters who cast their ballots for you in November. Thank you, America, for changing the Congressional voting chemistry. Thank you, America, for standing alongside the biblical ethic rather than handing the nation over to J F Kerry, prime endorser of womb baby killing. Thank you, America, for keeping Ms. T out of the White House for she would have become an arch supporter of womb baby killing, as was...

The news has been filled with giddy Republican talk of the 2004 triumph as a realigning election — one that ushers in, as Newsweek put it, "political dominance that could last for decades, as FDR's New Deal did." The Republicans are living in a fool's paradise. It's true that over the next few years Republicans will have enormous power. In the long run, however, they're doomed. Doomed, I tells ya! Doooomed! OK, I may have gotten slightly carried away there. Perhaps "doomed" overstates things a tad. But President Bush's political formula does carry the seeds of its own demise. The...

Now that President Bush has been re-elected to a second term, Republicans are already looking ahead to the midterm Senate races in 2006 and dreaming of a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority. Some say it's a dream that could come true. Five of the 17 Senate Democrats whose terms expire in 2006 are from states that voted for Bush. If they stay in the Republican column two years from now, the GOP could reach that magic 60 number. For that to happen, however, Republicans have to shore up states where they may be vulnerable. Of the 33 Senate seats that will be...

Republicans control the White House, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court. But the greater their power, the more they have focused on one of its few limits: the Senate filibuster. They are so concerned that Democrats will use the filibuster to block a few far-right judicial nominees that they are talking about ending one of the best-known checks and balances in government. Rather than rewrite the rules of government for a power grab, Republicans should look for ways to work with Democrats, who still represent nearly half the country. The filibuster is almost as old as America itself....

All of the "Red State, Blue State" talk is nonsense, as are the discussions on Blue State secession, the needless worrying by Conservatives, and the whistling past the graveyard by Leftists praying for a miracle. The Election is over and the result is a clear, decisive victory for the Republicans. When the Congress is sworn in next January, Red Nation will be officially in power.There is a reason so many of the Lefties have lost their heads. It's funny, really. Their era is over and they know it. The decades of dominance from FDR on down started to turn our...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 - The once mighty Southern Democrats are an increasingly endangered species on Capitol Hill. In the new Congress, only 4 of the 22 senators from the 11 states of the old Confederacy will be Democrats, the lowest number since Reconstruction; as recently as 1990, 15 of those Southern senators were Democrats. In the House, the Democrats suffered smaller but still significant losses in Texas, where a Republican redistricting plan took down a group of veteran lawmakers, including the paradigmatic Southern conservative: Representative Charles W. Stenholm, a 13-term deficit hawk and longtime leader of the Blue Dog Democrats,...

KARL ROVE SAID LAST YEAR that the question of realignment--whether Republicans have at last become the majority party--would be decided by the election of 2004. And it has. Even by the cautious reckoning of Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, Republicans now have both an operational majority in Washington (control of the White House, Senate, and the House of Representatives) and an ideological majority in the country (51 percent popular vote for a center-right president). They also control a majority of governorships, a plurality of state legislatures, and are at rough parity with Democrats in the number of state legislators....

WASHINGTON - Newt Gingrich is preparing to unfurl a new Contract with America. The last time he did so, the ideas catapulted Republicans to a majority in the House for the first time in a half century. Now the former House speaker is plotting a way to keep conservatives in power "for a generation or more." Yet it is Democrats who are being urged to look to him for inspiration as they contemplate their future in the minority. "A 21st Century Contract with America" is the subject of a book scheduled for release in January.

President Bush says winning elections is refreshing. And losing them? Bitter medicine, indeed. Every political concession speech is a tale of heartache. Over time, though, comes a "you win some; you lose some" equanimity that allows even the most disappointed to go on--to the next campaign, the next candidate, the next cause. But after their dismal showing this year, congressional Democrats face a difficult future. In a painful replay of 2002, they didn't just lose some; they lost almost everything. "I just want to die," confessed one Democratic congressional aide, "or stay drunk for a long time."It's no wonder....

As Senator Kerry rightly noted in his concession speech, now is a time for Americans to come together, accept the results of a hard-fought election and work to heal the wounds of personal bitterness and partisan division. President Bush now has a clearer mandate, having won both the popular vote as well as an Electoral College victory free of litigation. On a practical level, we have a real chance for Congress to move past the relative gridlock of the past few years and govern more effectively. Beyond providing Republicans with a larger majority of 55 votes in the Senate, yesterday’s...

Dear FReepers, I have put together analysis of 2006 Senate Races. Bottom Line: We look STRONG! There are many more retirements on the Democratic side (Feinstein, Byrd, Kohl, Bingaman, and maybe even Ted Kennedy) versus less on the GOP side (Frist plus Lugar, Lott, and Hatch are rumored to be mulling retirement). There are also a lot of other factors: Republicans (15) Solid Win - George Allen of Virginia – Allen’s seat is very safe Win - Conrad Burns of Montana – Democrat Brian Schweitzer gave him a run for his money in 2000, but Schweitzer is the only prominent...

When the press misses a story By John McCormick the deputy editor of the Tribune editorial page November 9, 2004 The four political memos landed at the home office on Sept. 26, a Monday. One was headlined "Sensing a Bloodbath" and warned, "[W]e hope you do appreciate the depth of the antipathy" toward liberal members of Congress. A second, titled "Incumbent Bash," confided that two supposedly secure congressional leaders were imperiled and added that "a lot of other Democrats are in trouble." The memos--their identical timing was serendipitous--were bundled with other story suggestions from bureaus around the U.S. and delivered...

The exodus of rural Georgia conservative Democrats started on Monday, even before their caucus met to elect new leaders. "If you are in the minority and are from rural Georgia, you are not going to have much say in the legislative process," said state Rep. Chuck Sims of Douglas, who was elected as a Democrat to his fifth term last Tuesday. On Monday, he joined the new Republican majority in the Georgia House of Representatives. "You are not in the game if you are in a minority party, and rural Georgia can't afford that," he repeated. State Rep. Hinson Mosley...

Not everything came up roses for Republicans on Election Day. Republicans have much to crow about after last week's election. They have solid control of the White House and both houses of Congress for the first time since before the Depression. But this is still a closely divided country, and while the GOP won the major league pennants, Democrats did well in the AAA league of politics, the state legislatures. Republicans have to pay attention not only to where they are gaining votes, but also to the states and demographic groups where they are losing them. Last week, more than...