Free Republic

When a handful of potential Republican presidential hopefuls convene on Thursday for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), there will be one notable absence from the speaking lineup: Nikki Haley. Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a potential 2024 White House contender, has found herself isolated from former President Trump and the populist wing of the GOP that he commands after a scathing interview with Politico in which she denounced her former boss and wrote off his future influence in Republican politics. The fallout from Haley’s remarks underscores the risks associated with her strategy of...

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) blasted President Obama’s executive order on immigration, saying the president needs a “remedial civics 101” course to refresh his understanding of the Constitution's separations of power. “There is an appropriate way to address this, and it’s not amnesty,” Cornyn said on the Senate floor Thursday. “This is really a terrible precedent.”

Sen. John McCain is the least popular senator in the country of those surveyed by Public Policy Polling, with low marks from members of his own party, independents and Democrats. Just 30 percent of Arizona voters approve of the job the Republican senator is doing, while 54 percent disapprove, according to a PPP release Thursday. That is the worst of any senator’s polling in the nation that PPP has found. Among members of his own party, McCain is at 35 percent approval to 55 percent disapproval; the comparable figures among Democrats are 29 percent to 53 percent, and among independents,...

Gov. Chris Christie, who has long avoided wading into the immigration debate, said Thursday in Mexico City that he won't lay out his position on immigration reform unless he decides to run for president. "Until that time I have no role in the immigration debate, except for how it may affect the individual citizens of New Jersey, which I'll deal with as governor," the New Jersey Republican told reporters. "But I won't have anything to say on immigration unless and until I become a candidate for president of the United States," he continued. "If that happens, then I will articulate...

As Congress hurtled toward a government shutdown in the fall of 2013, Rep. Paul Ryan looked around at fellow Republicans who were agitating to shutter national parks, federal agencies and Head Start programs. "This can't be the full measure of our party and our movement," Ryan writes of that moment in his new book, released Tuesday. "If it is, we're dead and the country is lost." Such moments of raw frustration pepper Ryan's "The Way Forward: Renewing the American Idea," a book as much about his front-row seat as Republicans' favorite budget wonk as it is about his political future....

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men will never put Chris Christie together again if New Jersey’s governor fails to refute the accusation that he knew of the George Washington Bridge lane closures as they were taking place. In that event, Christie’s governorship is over and he should prepare to face a federal criminal probe as a private citizen. Resignation would be a must. Otherwise, impeachment would be a snap. Christie stands on the brink of ruin thanks to David Wildstein, the high school pal who, as his Port Authority enforcer, ordered the closures that plunged Fort Lee...

A Republican lawmaker hoping to grab a Senate seat in the next election says the GOP shouldn’t let Obamacare fail — it would be irresponsible.

Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) will retire after two terms in office. The congressman said in a statementthat he's leaving Congress to spend more time with his family, opening up a Republican-leaning district and a coveted spot on the House Ways & Means Committee. "God has blessed me with a wonderful wife, Elizabeth, and two precious children, and for several months Elizabeth and I have been discussing whether to seek a third term in Congress, especially considering the formative ages of Mary Katherine and John. It has been an agonizing and difficult decision involving much prayer, thought and discussion. We have...

Ad Highlights Mitch McConnell’s Long Career Of Making Things Worse In Washington (Washington DC) As part of the ongoing “30 Years Is Too Long Campaign,” a new radio ad launched today highlights the disastrous record of failure and gridlock that Mitch McConnell has racked up in his 10,000 days as a U.S. Senator. Mitch McConnell has had 30 years to make things better in Washington, but instead it’s just gotten worse. After 10,000 days of Mitch McConnell in Washington, we’ve got $16 trillion in debt and he’s out of touch with Kentucky. The ad fights back against the latest misleading...

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst — once a dominant political figure with money, power and position — is now seen after a phone call to Allen police as the one who’s hanging on the line. A Dewhurst spokesman insists that the lieutenant governor did only what anyone else would do when he called police on Aug. 3 to get a relative out of jail. But the just-released audio recording has animated his opponents and created another pothole on what has been a bumpy political path. -snip- In July 2012, Dewhurst lost the U.S. Senate race to political newcomer and tea party...

Former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown told the Herald he is exploring a possible 2016 presidential bid today as he hit a well-worn stomping ground for Oval Office hopefuls – the Iowa State Fair. “I want to get an indication of whether there’s even an interest, in Massachusetts and throughout the country, if there’s room for a bi-partisan problem solver,” said Brown, who has been meeting with top republicans nationally and last week hosted a Fenway event for Republican National Committee members. Brown indicated he isn't close to deciding whether he will run. “It’s 2013 I think it’s premature, but I...

Mitt Romney on Tuesday warned congressional Republicans against shutting down the government in an attempt to defund ObamaCare. “I badly want ObamaCare to go away, and stripping it of funds has appeal,” Romney said at a fundraiser in New Hampshire for the state’s Republican Party, according to prepared remarks. “But we need to exercise great care about any talk of shutting down government. What would come next when soldiers aren't paid, when seniors fear for their Medicare and Social Security, and when the FBI is off duty?” Speaking at the event in Wolfeboro, just miles from his summer vacation home,...

The contenders looking to primary the controversial South Carolina senator in 2014 are starting to come forward. Watch out, Lindsey Graham: the Tea Party says that you are next. Tea Party members demonstrate outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 19. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty) According to sources in South Carolina and within the Tea Party, at least two serious challenges to Graham are expected to emerge in the next few weeks. Dustin Stockton, a leading conservative activist and head of Western PAC, told The Daily Beast that he is headed to South Carolina next month to help build a ground...

CHARLESTON, S.C. – Avery and Susan Burns don’t like the immigration-reform bill in the U.S. Senate one bit. “People come here illegally, and now we’re giving them the red carpet,” grumbled Avery, a 71-year-old doctor, climbing the steps of the public library on a recent morning. His disgust is making him reconsider his support for home-state Sen. Lindsey Graham, the only Republican sponsor of the bill who is up for reelection in 2014. Yet Susan said she’d still vote for Graham because he’s a “strong Republican,” recalling his leadership during former President Clinton’s impeachment. The retired couple’s reaction shows why...

Karl Rove wasted no time in hitting back at Sarah Palin after she criticized him for getting involved in Republican primaries last year. "If she can play in primaries, other people can play in primaries," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

There are 23 names on the Conservative Political Action Conference's much watched 2016 GOP presidential nomination straw poll. And there's one glaring omission: Jeb Bush. It appears the former two-term Florida governor is the reason his name isn't on the ballot. "He requested not to be put on the poll this year," an official with the American Conservative Union, the group that puts on CPAC, told CNN.

Mitt Romney says it "kills" him that he's not president. But he doesn't blame Superstorm Sandy, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or anything else on his loss to President Barack Obama--except his campaign's failure to connect with minority voters. “I lost my election because of my campaign," Romney said on "Fox News Sunday" in his first television interview since his November defeat, "not because of what anyone else did." The former Massachusetts governor refused place blame on Christie, who some Republicans say elevated Obama in his embrace of the president in the wake of the storm. Romney said his inability...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will speak for the first time at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, a clear sign that he is mulling a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. The American Conservative Union, which sponsors the conference, announced Tuesday that Bush will address the group, set for March 14-16 in National Harbor, Md., just outside Washington. Bush has been invited by the group to speak at CPAC several times, but this will be his first appearance. “We are pleased to announce that my friend Gov. Jeb Bush will be a featured speaker at CPAC 2013,”...

Saxby Chambliss, the Republican senator from Georgia, will not seek re-election in 2014, a GOP source said Friday. A conservative voice in the upper chamber since 2002, Chambliss recently drew the ire of some activists to his right who took issue with his support for bipartisan compromise. He was a member of the "Gang of Six," which tried in 2011 to strike a bipartisan deal on reducing the federal debt.

President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talks in the Oval Office following their lunch. Bitter campaign foes just weeks ago, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney met for lunch at the White House on Thursday, sitting down with an eye on overlapping interests rather than the sharp differences that defined their presidential contest. In their first meeting since the election, Obama and the Republican nominee met in the White House's private dining room, fulfilling a promise Obama made in his victory speech the night of Nov. 6. Romney arrived at the White House early Thursday afternoon in...