Free Republic

One word, my friends: RINOgeddon. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that Christie earns 21% support when Republican voters are asked whom they would vote for if the party’s primary in their state were held today. Florida Senator Marco Rubio runs a close second with 18% of the GOP vote, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush at 16% and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul with 15% of the vote. Congressman Paul Ryan, the unsuccessful Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012, picks up 13% of the Republican vote, with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker dead last at six percent (6%)....

Last week we ran a story analyzing an op-ed piece that one-time Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean wrote for the Wall Street Journal in which the former Governor of Vermont conceded that the Independent Payment Advisory Board was “essentially a health-care rationing body.” ObamaCare has been controversial from long before it passed by the narrowest of margins and probably no facet has drawn more critics that the IPAB. National Right to Life laid out the rationing problems that are part and parcel of the IPAB from the very beginning (www.nrlc.org/HealthCareRationing/ObamaHCRationingBasicDOCUMENTATION.pdf). Thus it was helpful that Dean admitted there really was...

Mickey: Stay down, Stay down Rocky 1974 John Rambo: Live for nothing or Die for Something Rambo 2008 I was watching Morning Joe today and as usual the entire table was united in asserting that Ted Cruz and the Tea Party caucus was wrong to consider fighting to de-fund Obamacare highlighting a piece by Krauthammer This is about tactics. If I thought this would work, I would support it. But I don’t fancy suicide. It has a tendency to be fatal. They stressed the wisdom of Krauthammer’s assertion that the GOP should not fight. It seemed an odd assertion since...

Gotta figure her lead would be even bigger without Joe Miller in the field here. Her nomination for the taking? Alaska should be a top tier pick up opportunity for Senate Republicans next year…but their top choice of a candidate is Sarah Palin. 36% of GOP primary voters in the state say they’d like Palin to be their standard bearer against Mark Begich to 26% for Mead Treadwell, 15% for Dan Sullivan, and 12% for Joe Miller. Palin leads mostly based on her strength with ‘very conservative’ voters where she gets 43% to 20% for Treadwell, but she also leads...

In a preview of the debate to come within the Republican Party ahead of the 2016 presidential election, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie denounced Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and other libertarians as having "dangerous" views on foreign policy. At a Republican governors forum in Aspen, Colo., Christie railed against opposition to the National Security Agency surveillance programs. On Wednesday, the House narrowly voted to defeat an amendment that would have curtailed the NSA's ability to collect data on telephone calls. Lumping Paul in with those House members, Christie suggested that Paul and other libertarians should explain their positions to widows...

Des Moines, Iowa — The front line of the Republican civil war may be Grand Avenue, a hilly road that cuts through the heart of Iowa’s biggest city. On one side of the street is the gold-domed state capitol, home to Republican Terry Branstad, Iowa’s longest-serving governor. On the other side is a weathered brick building housing the Iowa GOP, which is chaired by A. J. Spiker and David Fischer. Both men are faithful allies of Ron Paul, the retired Texas congressman who twice ran for the Republican presidential nomination. These days, relations between the two camps are as messy...

In a veiled shot at influential neoconservatives within the Republican Party, Sen. Rand Paul tells The Brody File the following: “There are people who will do or say anything who are your enemies,” Paul said. “Those who believe in perpetual war are some of the most dangerous to our country, and I think they will do everything they can to try and vilify people who are trying to find a more reasoned approach where war is the last resort not the first resort.” While he didn’t mention any names, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Paul...

Dear Sarah, I have never asked you for anything, but I am asking you to please lead the charge in helping us stop the Amnesty Bill from passing in the House. RUBIO is R.I.P. for me, so is McCain and the rest of the Gang of 8. Their careers mean nothing. Our country does. We’re stuck cleaning the damage they did by passing Amnesty in the Senate. As if that was not enough, they have the gall to continue working against us by targeting House Republicans to pass it there (see link below). They are disrespecting Americans and disregarding the...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Some Republicans are accusing the party’s neoconservative hawks of playing dirty pool in an attempt to smear Sen. Rand Paul as a bigot for having an aide who once expressed admiration for Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. The aide, Jack Hunter, who quit on Monday, was eased out by Mr. Paul after a neoconservative publication revealed that, as a radio “shock jock” some years ago, Mr. Hunter advocated that the Southern states secede once again from the union. Saying he had become more libertarian and broad-minded since his days as the “Southern Avenger,” Mr. Hunter revealed...

Senator Ted Cruz ✔ @SenTedCruz Reaganomics: You start a business in your parents' garage. Obamanomics: You move into your parents' garage. 6:51 PM - 20 Jul 2013 2,115 Retweets 695 favorites....

In the latest poll out regarding the Wyoming GOP primary for senate, incumbent Senator Mike Enzi holds a strong lead over challenger Liz Cheney. After announcing she would run for the Republican nomination in the 2014 Wyoming senate race, many Republicans had opinions of the choice. But in the latest poll out of Wyoming, Mike Enzi leads the former VP’s daughter by over 30 points. If the race were held today 55 percent said they would support Senator Enzi, whereas only 21 percent support Cheney’s efforts. Just over three-quarters of the state’s voters view Enzi favorably, compared with just 6...

Near the end of March 2010, as Republicans outside Kentucky realized that Rand Paul might actually become a senator, Paul’s opponent received an unexpected and important-looking endorsement. “I’m a lifelong conservative, and I can tell the real thing when I see it,” announced Dick Cheney. “I have looked at the records of both candidates in the race, and it is clear to me that Trey Grayson is right on the issues that matter—both on fiscal responsibility and on national security.” Paul’s campaign was half-unsurprised, half-amused. They’d seen this coming a week before, when former Cheney policy adviser Cesar Conda emailed...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi said Thursday he will continue to do what he believes is right, even if it's not popular, as he faces a Republican primary challenge from Liz Cheney. Enzi has kept a low profile since the daughter of the former vice president announced her campaign Tuesday. In a news release Thursday, Enzi said many people have been calling and emailing to offer their support. He said his focus remains on the job he was elected to do. "When the time comes, I am confident the people of Wyoming will vote for my results, dedication,...

For the first time this year, Republican strategists believe they're within striking distance of taking back control of the Senate, thanks to untimely Democratic Senate retirements and red-state Democratic recruits deciding not to run for Congress. The latest blow to Democrats: former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer's surprising decision Saturday to pass up a campaign. Republican recognize that they only need to win three Senate seats in the most of conservative of states -- Arkansas, Louisiana and Alaska -- and Mitch McConnell could be a Majority Leader in 2015. (That is, if McConnell can hold onto his own Kentucky seat.) The...

And so it begins: Sarah Palin suggested she would run for the U.S. Senate seat in Alaska, and 72 hours later has fired the first volley against her potential opponent, one Sen. Mark Begich — a Democrat, former Anchorage mayor and spirited Palin-basher. He’s already questioned whether the former governor was even a resident of Alaska, then dismissed her as a viable candidate. Naturally, Mrs. Palin was charmed by the challenge, immediately deeming Mr. Begich the “Alaska chameleon” for his political track record. “You have voted for Obamacare, for massive tax increases, for carbon taxes which could cost Alaskans 21,000...

Sen. Marco Rubio took to the floor of the U.S. Senate Wednesday afternoon, to address concerns that have arisen from some grassroots conservatives over his support of immigration reform. “I have received numerous emails and calls from conservatives and tea party activists,” he said at the beginning of his remarks. “To hear the worry, anxiety, and growing anger in the voices of so many people who helped me get elected to the Senate, who I agree with on virtually every other issue, has been a real trial for me,” he confessed. But he said he told them that he would...

Perhaps we should no longer be surprised when the former half-term Alaska governor jabs at GOP colleagues weighs in on public policy. And yet... It's easy and tiresome to trash Sarah Palin as an uneducated embarrassment to the Republican Party (a party of which I am a member). But when the great anti-intellectual takes ridiculously simple-minded shots at Marco Rubio for supporting immigration reform, something needs to be said. The Sunshine State News asked the former Alaska governor to comment on immigration reform. She took the opportunity to take a giant swing at Marco Rubio: Just like they did with...

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio understood he was taking considerable risk by putting his name on the immigration reform bill currently being crafted by the so-called “Gang of Eight.” He expected to alienate some conservatives, but did he anticipate Sarah Palin to be among them? The former Republican governor of Alaska took to Twitter on Sunday to call Rubio out for his “flip-flop” on immigration reform. Sarah Palin ✔ @SarahPalinUSA Politicians wonder why we can't trust them? Campaign flip-flops like this and carve-out bribes in the Amnesty... http://fb.me/2IsL1uspC 11:30 AM - 23 Jun 2013 497 Retweets 143 favorites As noted by...

Back in January and February, Marco Rubio stood at the top of the heap among prospective 2016 Republican presidential contenders. Sen. Marco Rubio Today? Not so much. In the recently released Ipsos – Reuters poll, for example, Rubio has lost one third of the support he had earlier this spring and is now not even in the top three in the latest poll Ipsos conducted for Reuters. Marco now registers below Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul and Jeb Bush. Another poll in Iowa, a key early voting state in the Republican presidential sweepstakes (conducted by Illinois-based pollster McKeon &...

Two Republicans came to Washington as United States Senators. Both were immediately haled as being the future of the Party. Both were young, charismatic and claimed they were devoted to the conservative cause. Both have been talked about as potential Presidential candidates. The problem is, only one of them is a conservative. One is Ted Cruz and the other is Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz burst on to the scene last year in Texas, defeating a RINO Establishment candidate. He has quickly become a superstar. He has stood steadfastly against Amnesty. Yesterday, after the Supreme Court ruled that states could not...

Sarah Palin, now and always, has the instinct for grass roots; and as consummate strivers in our times see the presidency merely as a stepping stone to $100 million trips abroad and a globalist future with 50 gold watches like Bill Clinton’s, Palin slips in with the crowd to get down with the people. She's not at “Versailles” — as Tom Brokaw called the annual collection of strivers at The White House Correspondents' Association dinner of journalists, apologists, preachers, propagandists and pirates — just a little high school in the hills, where Palin gave a high school graduation speech. And...

Remember all the build-up around the Facebook IPO? Investors wondered when it would happen and how they could get in on it. People were scrambling to be part of the action. Then, it happened, and it flopped. Marco Rubio is fast turning into the Facebook IPO of the United States Senate. There was hype, there was hope, there was sizzle…but there’s been no steak. In his first year in the Senate, Marco Rubio did … what exactly? He was sworn in on Jan. 3, 2011, and didn’t even deliver his first Senate floor speech until June 14. Conversely, Rand Paul...

Republican lawmakers say they anticipate a flood of questions in the coming months from constituents on the implementation of ObamaCare, which will pose a dilemma for the GOP. [WATCH VIDEO] People regularly call their representatives for help with Medicare, Social Security and other government programs. Yet, Republicans believe healthcare reform spells doom for the federal budget, private businesses and the U.S. healthcare system. They're also enormously frustrated that the law has persevered through two elections and a Supreme Court challenge and believe a botched implementation could help build momentum for the repeal movement. Some Republicans indicated to The Hill they...

Freshman Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has become an increasingly controversial figure in American politics as evidenced by comments MSNBC’s Chris Matthews made this week comparing Cruz to Nazi sympathizer Father Coughlin. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly laid into Matthews last night for equating his “black Irish” looks with Cruz’s and today Megyn Kelly picked up the thread by asking what it is about the senator that makes liberals so angry. Conservative radio host Mike Gallagher said people are only attacking Cruz because he’s “effective.” He said people are “impressed” with the “tea party darling” who “rose out of nowhere” and used this...

As a long time Senator from the border state of Arizona, John McCain knows all too well the immense negative ramifications that illegal immigration has had on his state. Still, today, as the Senate held discussions on the controversial ‘Gang of Eight’ immigration bill, one that both he and his fellow Arizona Senator Jeff Flake support and developed, McCain accidentally let the cat out of the bag. Though he meant to say “the rest of this legislation”, he clearly stated “path to citizenship” before realizing he revealed a truth that he meant to hide. Watch. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)

In a recent column we discussed the sad state of the Republican Party. Today’s Republicans lack original ideas and a positive agenda. The leading Tea Party politicians — such as Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint and Michele Bachmann — don’t seem to like to do the work of staying in office. Despite more than a decade of war, Republicans keep trying to get us into more wars. They like to restrict individual freedoms, except for any restraints on buying guns. And Republicans want businesses to be able to do just about whatever they want to do. Now let’s turn our attention...

Sarah Palin and Hillary Rodham Clinton are not similar people. The people they appeal to, the way they dress, what they believe about politics and policy, could not be further away from one another. But they do have something in common: They're successful female politicians. (Yes, we can debate over how we define the term "successful" here. But at the very least, both were voted by a state's electorate to a prominent role—governor for Palin, senator for Clinton.) But it's not so easy to conjure up an image of a female politician. While male leaders are easily labeled "ambitious," or...

Michele Bachmann’s decision last week to leave Congress at the end of this term silences the Republican’s best-known female voice on the national political stage. It’s not a secret that her undisciplined style made her unpopular with the party’s leadership. But with women making up just 8 percent of the Republican majority in the House, Bachmann’s Tea Party populism, her run for the White House and her wide-eyed, often inaccurate claims, still made her a GOP stand out. At the moment, the best-known Republican woman at the national level has never run for office – that’s former Secretary of State...

David Axelrod is pushing — again — the meme that the GOP is all about to “overreach” on the collective Obama scandals. There are clearly serious things that ought to be looked at, and the Congress has the right to look at them. And the question is just, will they overplay their hand? You know, if, Darrell Issa has torqued this thing up so high that he threatens to take the party over the cliff. And if I were Republicans, I would say to Issa, in the parlance of his old business, ‘please step away from that car.’ I think...

On the third-to-last day that Senator Frank Lautenberg ever voted in the Senate, he joined with 53 of his colleagues to support a compromise on new gun regulations. His vote wasn't enough. Now, Lautenberg's death makes the prospect of revisiting that issue — and a number of other Democratic priorities — substantially trickier. Take the gun legislation. The compromise proposal, which would have expanded background checks to include gun show and online sales, was part of a package that was postponed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid after the failed vote. It's expected to come back before the Senate at...

As a new effort at comprehensive immigration reform inches its way forward in the Senate, dissent from many conservatives is revealing their true contempt for, and fear of, the possibility that demographic groups who look different from their base will accrue power. The questions are: Is providing a pathway to citizenship (or at least permanent residency) for the 11 million people in this country illegally an act of humanity and practicality? Or is it an electoral imperative to which opposition ultimately guarantees political suicide? The answer probably is “yes” to both, although many Republicans seem to think the opposite. President...

Some disappointed activists say they are yanking their support for the Democratic Party after Senate Democrats opposed a proposal in an immigration bill that would have allowed citizens to bring their foreign-born, same-sex spouses to the United States. Jonathan Lewis, a Miami philanthropist who donated more than $35,000 in 2012, has stopped giving and is urging others to do the same until President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats stop breaking promises to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. "Now is the time to stop investing in Democratic cowardice and stand proud by withholding donations until we see our...

With the scent of scandal encircling the White House, some Republicans are already licking their chops over the 2014 midterm elections, while some Democrats are pre-emptively licking their wounds. Not so fast, folks. Retract those tongues. While it is impossible to predict what might drive voter attitudes in an election 18 months away, there are quite a few signs that 2014 will be nothing like 2010, which produced tremendous success for Republicans. First, the electorate is less conservative. In May 2009, the Tea Party had just begun to flex its muscle and feel its power on a national level. Now,...

For the far right, dreams die hard and delusions never end. As Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who represents a congressional GOP with unpopularity of 75 percent, prepares to summon former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with popularity above 60 percent, to testify, the overreach of House Republicans now threatens Republican control of the House. The triumph of the Tea Party within Republican politics is a gift to Democrats in 2014, as the disastrous vice presidential nomination of Sarah Palin in 2008 helped propelled Barack Obama to a two-term presidency. In the latest poll I've seen about 2014, a generic poll...

One bonus for Republicans in the trifecta of pseudo-scandals ensnaring the Obama White House this month is that it distracted the party from its looming civil war. It’s even possible that the Senate immigration reform got as far as it did partly because wingnut radio talkers and Tea Party xenophobes were consumed by their hatred of Obama, and paying less attention to GOP immigration sellouts. But with the easing of scandal fever on the Potomac, Republicans are back to fighting one another, and the week-long Senate clash between freshman Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. John McCain over the budget is...

On her Wednesday radio show, conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham attacked a number of Republican senators that voted to support the immigration reform bill on Tuesday, saying that she was thinking about moving to Arizona to primary Sen. Jeff Flake, who is up for re-election in 2018. “Let me tell you — I am thinking of moving to Arizona,” Ingraham said. “You know why? I will primary challenge Sen. Jeff Flake myself, if that’s why this requires. Jeff Flake, living up to his last name, backed down from a previous promise his spokeswoman made to Breitbart. This is just...

Conservative activist and political pundit Gary Bauer believes former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would make a "fantastic" United States senator. A recent Republican survey showed the high-profile former GOP vice-presidential nominee with a two-percent edge (32% to 30%) over Alaska Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell for the right to challenge incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Begich next year. Joe Miller, the tea party-backed nominee in 2010, finished a distant third with 14 percent. The poll was commissioned by the Tea Party Leadership Fund, which is hoping to convince Palin to enter the race. Thus far she has not expressed any public interest...

Forget background checks and gun control, divisions within the GOP on immigration, and Republican intransigence on negotiating a budget deal with the president. The current triple play of Benghazi, the IRS and now the Justice Department’s seizure of journalists’ phone records has the potential to be a political game changer for 2014. It’s hard to overstate the potential significance of the past week. What we are witnessing is nothing less than a dramatic reversal of the nation’s political narrative — from how bad the Republican brand is and how President Barack Obama is going to mobilize public opinion against the...

If you are a Conservative, you may have gotten a few e-mails from a Washington, D.C. based group called the Tea Party Leadership Fund. These letters will be signed by a man named Todd Cefaratti. The letter states they are looking to “Draft Sarah Palin” into making a run at Alaska’s Senate seat in 2014, a seat now held by democrat Mark Begich. This of course has caused quite a stir, and unfortunately many have sent their hard earned money to this crew. Recently, the group commissioned a poll of Alaskans, looking to legitimize their efforts. Harper Polling found these...

A new Harper Polling poll shows a plurality of likely Alaskan Republican voters support their former Governor, Sarah Palin, as a U.S. Senate candidate in the 2014 GOP primary over Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and 2010 Senate candidate Joe Miller. The survey of 379 likely Republican voters found that 32 percent support Palin, whereas 30 percent support Treadwell and 14 percent support Miller. The Harper Polling poll, conducted via telephone on May 6 and May 7 on behalf of the Tea Party Leadership Fund, found that 45 percent of likely GOP voters think Palin would “fight hardest for conservative values,”...

Disgusted and fed up like the rest of us, Sarah Palin rips members of the Republican Party a new one over their support for the so-called “Marketplace Fairness Act” a sales tax on internet purchases. More new taxes? How can we be divided on new taxes? In this horribly weak economy with an over-reaching, over-spending, anti-small-business government continually making the wrong decisions, Republicans can’t even stay committed to “No New Taxes”? Please step away from your Washington, DC bubble and get back in touch with the hard working people who sent you there. Read the planks in our party’s platform...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s aides met recently with staffers of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to warn them: Targeting vulnerable Democrats like Arkansas’s Mark Pryor on gun control could backfire on the party, several sources told POLITICO. It didn’t work. Ads from the Bloomberg-funded Mayors Against Illegal Guns are going up soon in Alaska, Arkansas and North Dakota — three states with Democratic senators who broke with the White House on last month’s background checks vote. The group is also moving as many as 60 field organizers into about a dozen states where senators — Democrats and Republicans —...

The Center for American Progress says the Senate’s pending immigration bill will help legalize 32.5 million migrants over the next 10 years. The estimate is only slightly less than the initial 33.5 million estimate prepared by NumbersUSA, which opposes the bill. Both groups produced similar estimates, but couched them very differently, for very different political purposes. The NumbersUSA group said their estimates were cautious, while the Center for American Progress (CAP) group said their April 30 study shows the Senate bill will actually reduce the current inflow of immigrants. Their similar estimates match the May 3 prediction of a 32.7...

There will almost certainly be an aspect of the National Rifle Association's convention — which opens today in Houston — that feels like a victory celebration. By organizing and agitating its members, the organization was able to kill a Senate compromise on background checks, steamrolling over an ineffectual Organizing For Action. But as discussion of reviving that deal heats up, the NRA may finally face a real roadblock: public opinion. Prior to the April 17th vote — which failed to end a Republican-led filibuster on a bipartisan compromise to expand background checks — there were certainly coordinated organizing efforts. Mayors...

Prominent tea party members are preparing for big wins in 2014 due to negative fallout from President Obama’s signature health care reform. Now that Democratic Party leaders, along with White House officials, are predicting some glitches in the law’s implementation, 2014 elections are shaping in conservatives’ favor — and tea partiers are hoping to capitalize, United Press International reported. The GOP is especially eyeing the Senate as a possible gold mine. “Information has already shown itself to be a series of political time bombs,” said Matt Kibbe, the president and chief executive of FreedomWorks, in UPI. “The only way you...

Yesterday, I noted Sen. John McCain’s recent comments, where he lamented: “There are times these days when I feel that I have more in common on foreign policy with President Obama than I do with some in my own party.” Today, my bloggingheads colleague Bill Scher ups the ante, positing the theory that a Rand Paul nomination for president might cause the McCains of the world to jump on the Hillary bandwagon. From his column at The Week, Scher asks: Where might the “new Republican internationalists” go if Paul wins this intra-party battle? Considering that likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton...

When former President Bill Clinton spoke at Georgetown University on April 30, he told Democrats to keep pushing gun control because it's a winner. This is strange advice coming from a man who watched his party endure a loss of historic proportions in 1994; a loss attributed in large part to the fact that he and his fellow Democrats pushed an "assault weapons" ban onto the American people. Clinton spoke of this loss while at Georgetown, telling the audience, "The fact that we had majority support didn't amount to anything, it's always the intensity of support that you have to...

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) told Boston’s conservative radio host Howie Carr on Wednesday that the political momentum is starting to turn against the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill. When Carr asked the senator if this process behind the push for this bill is the “same thing as Obamacare” where “we have to pass it so we can read it,” Sessions replied: “Absolutely, it really is.” “That is exactly what it is,” Sessions said. “They’re selling the sizzle. They’re selling the smell. And it’s a shoe leather instead of a steak.” Carr said that though everyone...

Last night in Washington, Joe Biden stated that abused women fear getting "raped again by the system." He also made the push that Washington, D.C. should be its own state, with two U.S. senators. Via the pool report: Piles of Bidens are here. In addition to Kathleen [Biden's daughter], VP Biden's wife Jill, his sons Beau and Hunter, and his granddaughters Maisy and Finnegan are also here. VP Biden began his remarks by praising Kathleen for the passion she brings to the cause. He described his initial push for VAWA in the early 90s, when "nobody thought very much of...

During the 2012 election cycle I occasionally ran stories declaring that various Republicans being touted as White House material “will never be president.” Sarah Palin after her narcissistic Gabby Giffords meltdown; Newt Gingrich early in his race-baiting campaign; Mitt Romney after his British Olympics screw-up. I batted 1.000 for that cycle, but it was easy. In 2016, Republicans won’t be facing a Democratic incumbent, so somebody has a shot. I recently wrote that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will never be president, due to his out-of-control anger issues, but candidly, I think that’s my riskiest one yet. I feel no...