Free Republic

When Donald Trump looks back at the wasted time and money he put forward in producing the biggest flame-out in Presidential nominating history, he's going to easily be able to point to exactly where he lost it.I've long thought of elections as similar to prize fights or NFL football match-ups. And if that's the case Trump keeps complaining that he doesn't get acknowledged for gaining yardage, when the purpose of the game is to score points.For the third or fourth time in a row now, Trump basically abandoned his team on the ground in a state where he presumably wishes...

Mitt Romney will give a speech on the state of the 2016 presidential race on Thursday, his office said. Romney is scheduled to address the Hinckley Institute of Politics Forum at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Thursday morning, according to an advisory sent to reporters. Utah holds its Republican caucuses on March 22, a day after the last scheduled debate in Salt Lake City announced last month. Romney has been outspoken in denouncing frontrunner Donald Trump, calling on him to release his tax returns and questioning his fitness to be commander in chief.

<p>Mitt Romney is expected to speak out about the Republican presidential race.</p> <p>The 2012 GOP presidential nominee announced plans to deliver speech about the 2016 race on Thursday at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.</p> <p>Romney has been critical of 2016 front-runner Donald Trump on Twitter in recent weeks and has yet to endorse any of the candidates.</p>

In order to defeat Donald Trump, The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol admits he is prepared to hand Hillary Clinton the Oval Office. On Wednesday’s “Morning Joe,” the Republican Establishment leader laid out his plot to deprive Trump of the 50% of delegates necessary to secure the nomination. From there, the idea is to go into a brokered convention and cut a kamikaze deal that awards enough delegates to an “acceptable” candidate (who will have won far fewer votes, states, and delegates than Trump). The problem with the Establishment brokering a behind-closed-door deal that hands the nomination to a Sen. Marco...

I rarely agree with Frank Bruni of the New York Times about much, but he's spot-on today: Over the last few months and even weeks, the question among many flabbergasted Republican traditionalists and incredulous political analysts was when the forces of gravity would catch up with Donald Trump and send him tumbling to earth. It was going to happen. Of course it was going to happen. You just had to be patient. You just had to be strong. But in the wake of his victories in New Hampshire and now South Carolina, the question is no longer "when." It's "if."...

Newt Gingrich has a message for the GOP in Washington: Start taking Donald Trump seriously. Appearing on Fox News after Trump's Saturday win in South Carolina, the former speaker of the House argued that nobody in the Washington Republican political class should kid themselves about Trump's chances any longer. It is a huge night for Donald Trump and nobody should kid themselves. Here's a guy who seven months ago for the first time entered electoral politics, has learned at an extraordinary rate, Gingrich said, pointing to his second-place finish in Iowa and victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina. By...

It was weird that an angry Code Pink-style protester interrupted last night's Republican presidential debate with a barrage of familiar Democratic talking points about George W. Bush - that he lied the country into a disastrous war in Iraq, failed to prevent the September 11 attacks, and even whiffed on an opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden. It was especially weird that the protestor was one Donald J. Trump, who happens to be the front-runner for the Republican nomination. Trump didn't just call the Iraq war a mistake. He called it "a big fat mistake." And he didn't call it...

Few professional analysts seriously expected six months ago that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination. But after Tuesday night, it is a clear possibility. How much of a possibility? To get that answer right, it is important to understand some things about the Trump phenomenon. Perhaps most important, Trump's campaign is not a Tea Party phenomenon. While there's been a tendency to try to lump Trump in with various G.O.P. insurgencies of the last few years, that role is best filled by Sen. Ted Cruz, who really occupies the "Tea Party lane" of the G.O.P. primary more cleanly. Instead,...

(CNN)The national spokesman for Ted Cruz's presidential campaign is calling the Donald Trump campaign "the Seinfeld candidacy," because as he puts it, "The whole campaign is about nothing." Rick Tyler told CNN's Erin Burnett that Trump says "nothing about immigration, nothing about job creation, nothing about what's going on in North Korea, nothing about ISIS. I mean this is amazing." Tyler said Cruz is running a campaign about conservative issues and that Trump fails to discuss the issues because he isn't a true conservative. Both Trump and Cruz are eying key primaries in southern states starting with South Carolina, which...

...In real life, expletives are often used as a form of aggression or cruelty. A co-worker who tells you to Trump yourself is usually being unpleasant. A co-worker who does this every day is often creating a hostile or demeaning work environment. Language suitable for decent company is a form of politeness, which is a species of respect, which is an expression of morality. And if I am the last holdout on this issue, so be it. I don't really give a damn. Win or lose, Trump has brought the language and sensibilities of cable TV to presidential politics...

The most politically active members of the Republican Party have warmed to Donald Trump’s bid for the party’s presidential nomination since last summer, according to a new YouGov poll, which finds 68 percent now think he could win the general election. While most surveys attempt to reflect the entire electorate, this one is the latest in a trio of polls focusing solely on Republican activists: well-informed party stalwarts who've run for or held office, served as party officials, worked on campaigns or volunteered their time before elections. They provide some insight into the role of GOP political leaders in an...

I have had more than one medical professional warn me that Donald Trump is a pathological narcissistic sociopath. I do not say that lightly nor to smear him. Look the terms up and talk to psychiatric professionals. A few have already written about this and spoken out. While, I want to be clear as do they, no one can officially diagnosis this with out private sessions, I have had more than one professional have laugh at me when I suggested in Trumps defense that maybe he “wasn’t a sociopath”. I warn you with as much conviction as I warned in...

One of the interesting assumptions infecting this election season is that a self-funded wealthy candidate is less likely to make corrupt deals. If a candidate doesn't solicit money from the public (which, by the way, every candidate for president does), so the story goes, he won't be beholden to do favors. But what if a candidate had a ready reserve of millions? Could that candidate buy off media outlets, public figures and educational institutions? Answer: probably, if he knows how to do the deal. Expenditures on behalf of a campaign, of course, must be reported to the Federal Election Commission....

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump began his Thursday-night charity event by touting all of the people --including himself -- who wrote big checks for it. Trump announced that he would suddenly host a fundraiser for veterans as an alternative to going to the Fox News primary debate. Trump boycotted the event after repeatedly complaining about Fox host Megyn Kelly, one of the moderators at the debate, as well as the network overall. "First, we have to talk about people that made a lot of money," Trump began. "They wouldn't have made a lot of money, they wouldn't even be here,...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The story here at TheHill.com: "Trump: I'll work with Democrats." I saw that headline, I said, "Now, wait just a minute. What's this?" So I read the story. "Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is stressing his bona fides as a dealmaker who'd be able to enter the White House and work with congressional Democrats to hammer out agreements. 'I think I'm going to be able to get along with Pelosi -- I've always had a good relationship with Nancy Pelosi,' Trump said Tuesday on MSNBC. ... 'Reid's going to be gone. I've always had a decent relationship...

My late friend and colleague Hilton Kramer used to tell the story about how Time magazine (remember Time?) would prep its photographers before sending them off to snap the likeness of someone they were profiling. The magazine didn't just want a portrait. It was always "Good guy" or "Bad guy." This was well known. So when Time sent someone to photograph Norman Podhoretz, the former editor of Commentary who had lately shed his left-wing opinions and emerged as a powerful voice on the Right, Norman had the wit to ask "Good guy or bad guy?" The photographer shook his head...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump used a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC to tout the fact that, as president, he would work with Democratic leaders in Congress to get things done. He specifically talked about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and asserted he was "close" to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is expected to replace outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) "I've always had a good relationship with Nancy Pelosi. I've never had a problem. Reid will be gone," Trump said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Tuesday. He continued: "I always had a decent relationship with Reid, although lately, obviously,...

"They say I have the most loyal people - did you ever see that? - where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters," Trump said, illustrating his point by pulling his fingers into a gun shape. "Okay? It's like incredible." The crowd laughed and clapped, and someone in the audience shouted out love for the candidate. "We love you, too, man," Trump said. Trump's comment came during a campaign rally Saturday at Dordt College in northwest Iowa. The 1,500-seat theater completely filled, hundreds more watched his speech from an...

In 2013, the tea party rallied to Matt Bevin against Donald Trump. RedState and tea party groups around the country swung into action in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to get Matt Bevin through the primary against Mitch McConnell. We were completely out-funded by establishment interests and Washington lobbyists. It turns out, one of those establishment interests was Donald J. Trump. In 2013, Donald Trump gave $220,000.00 to organizations, many of them dedicated to stamping out the Tea Party. From Karl Rove’s American Crossroads to Mitch McConnell’s Super PAC, Trump spread out money. Rove got $50,000.00 and McConnell got $60,000.00. Trump...

Since joining the Trump campaign as a national spokeswoman in November, Katrina Pierson has served as an attack dog of sorts for Donald Trump, attempting to expose his critics and opponents as faux conservatives who are simply pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people. And yet, Ms. Pierson's own statements reveal she is a self-proclaimed devotee of Malcolm X (whom she has referred to as her "idol") and has a history of attacking conservatives as racists, sneering at Christians who are unable to "handle the truth" and mocking candidates who open up about their faith on the...