Free Republic

When it comes to Social Security, Republicans should stop treating seniors like the feeble-minded demographic portrayed in commercials written by 13-year-olds on Madison Avenue. It’s like the home security commercial targeting seniors for a medical alert pendant to be worn around the neck. White-haired “Mom” didn’t want one because “it was for “some old person.” But daughter, seen patting Mom’s hand, “talked Mom into it.” Next we see “Mom” carrying a basket of laundry down a flight of uncarpeted stairs without holding the handrail. Sure enough, Mom’s lying at the bottom of the staircase pressing her alert button because she’s...

Palin moves spark 2012 speculation By: Andy Barr May 25, 2011 07:41 PM EDT Sarah Palin is fond of saying she’ll feel compelled to run for president “if nobody else were to step up.”It just might come to that.The recent departures of Mitch Daniels and Mike Huckabee from the 2012 GOP field, combined with a flurry of recent moves by Palin—staff changes, the purchase of a home in Arizona, the Iowa premiere of a new feature-length film extolling the former Alaska governor—is rekindling speculation that she sees an opportunity in 2012 and may be thinking more seriously than ever about...

Mike Huckabee’s supporters might not rush to the side of Sarah Palin, despite the conventional wisdom that she’ll be the key beneficiary of his decision not to run for president next year. Both the former governor of Arkansas and former governor of Alaska are populist Republicans with strong evangelical credentials. Yet there are some significant differences between the two that suggest Huckabee supporters might not flock to Palin en masse. Style Palin’s and Huckabee’s rhetorical styles couldn’t be more different. Palin mocks her Democratic opponents; Huckabee tends to engage them and look for common ground. When first lady Michelle Obama...

ABC News' Amy Walter reports: A new ABC News/Wash. Post poll finds that in a head to head match-up against President Barack Obama, 70% of those who say they are Tea Party supporters say they'll vote for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for president--compared to 69% for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Seeming Tea Party favorites like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, meanwhile, draw 61% and 60%, respectively....

I came across this article, and wanted to share the good news. If Mitt Romney ever decides to proceed with Mitt's Massachusetts, the producer stands to receive a generous tax credit - provided it's filmed in Massachusetts. On Wednesday, November 23rd, Governor Mitt Romney signed the tax incentive bill that the Boston AFTRA/SAG office, along with numerous other industry members, have been working to enact in Massachusetts. The new law puts the Bay State in the spotlight as a competitive venue for motion picture and commercial production, and not surprisingly is already garnering interest from motion picture studios that would...

Sarah Palin didn't retreat. She reloaded. And she proved, again, that she is a ruinously incompetent politician. Over the weekend, liberal pundits overeagerly speculated that she may have inspired the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). After learning more about alleged shooter Jared Loughner, many of those same commentators restrained their criticism of the former Alaska governor, and polls showed that Americans are skeptical of any connection. People recognized Palin had been unfairly implicated in the Arizona massacre. She didn't even have to mention it in her response to the tragedy and the resulting debate. Everyone would have been thinking...

One prominent Republican calls on his party to drum Palin out of the 2012 race. Here's why he'll be disappointed. "Morning Joe" Scarborough earned a splash of attention within the politerati this week with a Politico column calling on the Republican Party to "man up" and denounce Sarah Palin. His main point is that Palin is poison for the Grand Old Party: The most-talked-about figure in the GOP is a reality show star who cannot be elected. And yet the same leaders who fret that Sarah Palin could devastate their party in 2012 are too scared to say in public...

In the promo fluff for its future flop, CNN calls Kathleen Parker a "conservative" commentator. So what's a "conservative" in CNN's book? Someone who, when accused of taking part in the media assassination of Sarah Palin, brags that she didn't merely take part—she "led it." Supposed conservative Kathleen Parker made her bizarre boast on this evening's Parker Spitzer. It came in the course of her interview of John Ziegler, creator of the documentary "Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted.” While denying she had been "duped" by Obama, Parker admitted that during the campaign she "bought into...

Does this really surprise anyone? Currently, the liberal psuedo-news site the Huffington Post has a gigantic picture of former VP candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and a 99 font size (and all capital letters) "GOTCHA" on the front of their website: The picture, which intentionally tries to mock Palin, links to an article by the Huffington Post that states that Palin "misquoted" a story in the Wall Street Journal. However, if you wade through the article and past the liberal slant, you would realize that Mrs. Palin is telling the truth. If you read the article, Palin stated that...

At their new political high-water mark, Republicans have plenty of reasons to celebrate - and at least one large cause for worry. On Election Day, voters shattered the Obama agenda of expanded public benefits and increased income tax progressivity, leaving the president to reassemble his goals with glue and tape. During this midterm cycle, Republicans became reacquainted with estranged friends: independents, seniors, college-educated voters, working-class voters, rural voters and suburban voters. The Republican Party will benefit from the infusion of diverse, attractive new leaders, including some, such as Florida Sen.-elect Marco Rubio, with Tea Party pedigrees...

With Sarah Palin denouncing my colleagues for veiling the Republicans who want to stop her in anonymity, POLITICO executive editor Jim VandeHei responds: We have promised since the earliest days of POLITICO to pull back the curtain on how Washington really works and to let readers inside the conversations taking place among the people in power. Sometimes that requires extensive use of anonymous sources. This is what GOP insiders in this city are talking about and their concerns are widely known, if not publicly discussed. None of these Republicans would speak on the record for obvious reasons: they fear the...

It's two weeks before the 2010 elections. Which means now's a fine time to start obsessing about the 2012 campaign. The next presidential race will unofficially begin on No. 3 -- the day after the midterm elections. It's possible we may not know the outcome of all the critical House and Senate races by then, and these races could determine which party controls the House and Senate. But once most of the 2010 votes are counted, the politerati will quickly pivot toward the next big thing. So let me get an early jump and tell you this: watch out for...

This tripe from Kathleen Parker is something. She bemoans the loss of privacy and kinship when the Journolist blew up in the faces of some 400+ reporters: It should come as no surprise that self-identifying liberals have liberal thoughts and friends, so no foul there, as Carlson has said. And, indeed, some of the comments are, on their face, condemnable, not to mention banal. But some also have been presented out of context and, besides, were offered as part of an ongoing argument among colleagues who believed they were acting in good faith that theirs was a private conversation. Were...