Free Republic

The hawkish Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina says he is thinking about running for president in 2016. In an interview with Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, the senator, running for re-election to the Senate this year, said: “If I get through my general election, if nobody steps up in the presidential mix, if nobody’s out there talking — me and McCain have been talking — I may just jump in to get to make these arguments,” Graham said.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2012 election disaster, the Republican Party grew extremely introspective, with many of its key figures postulating that the party needed to shift leftward if it was to have any hope of future successes. This effort was encouraged in part by the liberal media along with Democrats, who readily understood the long term political hegemony they could enjoy if their opposition wallowed in uncertainty, self doubt, and ambiguity. Mitt Romney, we were told, had ultimately been a bad choice to run against Barack Obama specifically because his support of traditional values and personal responsibility in...

Pat Caddell, the Fox News Contributor and Democrat pollster who engineered Jimmy Carter’s 1976 Presidential victory, blew the lid off CPAC on Wednesday with a blistering attack on "racketeering" Republican consultants who play wealthy donors like "marks." "I blame the donors who allow themselves to be played for marks. I blame the people in the grassroots for allowing themselves to be played for suckers....It's time to stop being marks. It's time to stop being suckers. It’s time for you people to get real," he told the audience that included two top Republican consultants. . . . Caddell left no doubt...

Saxby Chambliss is waffling around like a dog off its leash for the first time. He says he does not care about a “twenty year old pledge” he signed. He’s talking about the Americans for Tax Reform pledge that says he pledges not to raise taxes. He has clarified his remarks to mean he wants tax reform that increases revenue through job growth. Everyone knows that Saxby meant he was happy to raise taxes. Now, under pressure back home, he is waffling. He covets his seat in Washington and is fearful of being primaries. Georgia has primary run-offs, whichs means...

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) says he is working to craft an alternative version of the DREAM Act that would allow younger illegal aliens who came to the United States "through no fault of their own" to stay here legally and, if they wished, get in line to become a citizen. "There is nothing that prohibits them from getting citizenship,” Rubio told the Tampa Bay Times in an April 3 interview in which he explained his plan. “We just don't create a new pathway. The bottom line is they would have a visa of some sort and like they...

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that he did not know that the 926-page Defense Department authorization bill that came through his committee and was approved by the Senate last week on a 93-to-7 vote included a provision that would repeal the military’s ban on sodomy and bestiality if the bill becomes law. CNSNews.com asked McCain: “Senator, did you read the Defense authorization bill that was passed last week? Were you aware of the language that repealed the ban on sodomy and bestiality?” “On what?” McCain replied....

"Obama had raised about $89 million for his own re-election campaign. That's nearly 31 times the amount Gingrich raised during the same period. It's even more than 2.7 times the amount raised by Romney..." While he has surged in recent polls, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich may be missing one key ingredient for making a late-stage power play for the GOP presidential nomination: money. In years past, political candidates have certainly been erroneously written off by pundits and the press. Notably, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was widely thought to have fizzled long before he ultimately surged back to life and...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is streamlining the application process for state economic development funds and released a blueprint for regional councils that will compete for cash and tax breaks. Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday announced that he has redesigned the process for the state to distribute $1 billion in economic development money, enabling applicants to fill out just one form when seeking to tap funds from nine separate state agencies. The procedural streamlining is part of the governor's effort to get more bang for the state's economic development dollars by having regions compete for funding. The governor also released a “blueprint”...

As the Rinos Bring DADT to the US, Who Would Not Rather Have O'Donnell voting than any of the politicians we're told have "gravitas"? I know I would. I'd rather have Miller than Murkowski, anyone other than Collins and Snow; and my very own Voinovich hasn't met an opportunity to betray conservatism that he hasn't embraced. Portman, who is replacing him, would not vote this way. This really isn't about O'Donnell. It's about the manipulation of conservatives by those who say that we must vote for "moderates" if we hope to get even a small piece of the pie. Did...

Conservatives are holding their own, while the ranks of independents have skyrocketed since November's presidential election, the latest Pew Research Center poll shows. The poll of 3,013 adults from March 31 to April 21 found that there had been "no consistent movement away from conservatism, nor a shift toward liberalism" since the election. Republican losses are slowing, the poll found, while Democrats have begun losing ground too. And independent and unaffiliated voters are approaching record highs. The implications for the president, Congress and the political parties in the next election could be profound. Among the results: * Thirty-nine percent of...

AUSTIN, Texas — Democrat Tom Schieffer, a former international diplomat with close ties to former President George W. Bush, is moving toward a race for governor. Schieffer is forming an exploratory committee that will allow him to raise money and campaign for the office. If he ultimately runs, his relationship to the former Republican president is sure to be a top issue among Democratic primary voters next year.

President-elect Barack Obama says he and Republican Sen. John McCain plan to work together to "fix up the country." The two former rivals met in Obama's transition office Monday in Chicago. Rahm Emanuel, Obama's incoming White House chief of staff, participated in the meeting, as did McCain's close friend, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain had sharp words for Congress, it the wake of the defeat of the financial system rescue plan. "They wiped out $1.2 trillion today," the Arizona Senator told KARE 11, "Congress's failure to act today is not acceptable." Despite pleas from President Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, lawmakers rejected the bailout bill by a vote of 228-205. By the time the New York Stock Exchange closed, the Dow Industrial average had plummeted 777 points. Answering questions via satellite from Des Moines, Iowa McCain chided those from both sides of the aisle who opposed the plan....

It is my belief that Republicans in the House have committed a major blunder by voting against today's bailout plan. They have given the Democrats a very large club to batter them with over the next six weeks before the election as the stock market crashes and the economy goes into a tailspin. It is my fear that this will lead to a Democrat landslide in the House and Senate and may even cost John McCain the presidency as Democrats and their big media cohorts blame the Republicans for the crisis. Republican Representatives should have heeded the words of their...

That nervous laughter you hear is the sound of party activists responding to speculation that Barack Obama or John McCain might pick a vice presidential candidate from the opposing party. More specifically, it is reaction to talk that Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) is being seriously considered as a running mate for Barack Obama or that Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, is a potential choice for John McCain. Though it’s nothing more than unfounded conjecture at this point, top conservative and liberal activists nevertheless say that any cross-party selection of that kind would...

It's probably no secret to anyone who reads my column regularly that I will not be voting for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton for president. But I also will not be voting for John McCain. I could tell you all the reasons and have expressed them already in a number of columns in recent months. But this time, I'll let someone with whom I seldom agree express them for me. His name is Jonathan Chait, a senior editor at The New Republic. Here's what he wrote in that magazine: "Even though it is in the public record, McCain's voting...

WASHINGTON - Republicans looking at Rudolph Giuliani's campaign for president always ask two questions - is he really running, and is he a "real Republican?" They're probably not going to like the answers found by Newsday in Giuliani's government filings. The ex-mayor still is holding back from submitting the simple one-page form declaring himself a possible candidate, despite raising $1.4 million to run. And asked what party he belongs to on a different form, Giuliani didn't say - he left the answer blank.

Chemical plant technician Steven Lozano really got nailed: speeding, an expired inspection sticker, an expired driver's license and dubious proof of insurance. The cost of his traffic infractions: $675 and a wait in line recently at Houston Municipal Court. What Lozano didn't know — few people do — is that only about half of the hefty fines had anything to do with his traffic conduct. The rest were "surcharges." They included money for a prison-guard training institute at Sam Houston State University and money for a juvenile-crime program at Prairie View A&M, among other things. "A lot of this has...

------------------------------------------------------INVASION USABan on wire transfers by illegals proposedSupporters believe it will remove major incentive for crossing border------------------------------------------------------ Posted: March 6, 2006 2:32 p.m. Eastern James L. Lambert © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com A Republican candidate for a vacated congressional seat in southern California is proposing a ban on wire transfers by illegal aliens from the U.S. to Mexico. The plan "will remove a major incentive for illegal immigration and increase national security," said Howard Kaloogian, a well-known California activist who launched the effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis. Kaloogian is the front-runner for the San Diego-area congressional seat held by Republican Rep....

Democrat for Senate: Kill practicing 'gays' Candidate says incumbent Republican not advocating biblical values enough Posted: March 7, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com A Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio wants to make homosexual behavior a capital crime punishable by the death penalty. Merrill Keiser Jr. is a trucker with no political experience, but he hopes to beat fellow Democrat Rep. Sherrod Brown in the May primary. The winner will try to unseat Republican incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine, assuming he wins the GOP primary. "Just like we have laws against murder, we have laws against stealing,...