Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Representative Michele Bachmann has rapidly gained ground in a new poll of New Hampshire voters, tapping her popularity with Tea Party activists and potentially causing problems for Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor, who has long dominated polls in the Granite State, had his lead cut to single-digits in a new survey done by Public Policy Polling. Although polls taken six months before voters head to the polls can be unreliable, they can also provide a window into a volatile Republican electorate. Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican, would get 18 percent of the vote, according to the...

My niece saved a woman's life last month. She was in a pool outside Denver when she noticed that a woman who had been doing laps had vanished. She enlisted the aid of a panicked, 17-yearold lifeguard to get the drowning woman out of the pool, then administered CPR until the woman brought forth a geyser of pool water just as the ambulance technicians arrived. Despite the near-death experience, the woman was sufficiently aware to protest. "I didn't drown," she told the technicians. "You don't need to take me in the ambulance. I can't afford it." That is America in...

In the wake of the official premiere in Pella, Iowa, of her biographical film "The Undefeated," former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is still keeping people guessing. "Will she or won't she?" Run for president, that is. The fact that the question is even asked should contain within it an answer. But to further elaborate, Nicole Coulter (no relation to Ann_Coulter) offers "Six Clues Palin is Running for President." The clues are: "1 -- For what reason would Mrs. Palin insert herself into the 2010 election cycle? Why go out of her way to 'endorse' local candidates all over the United...

Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are veteran politicians with strong conservative views that attract Republican activists, especially tea party types. Both are good communicators but prone to controversial statements, including some rewriting of American history. This week, both visited Iowa, further spurring speculation they may yet become GOP presidential rivals. But their contrasting events - Bachmann formally announcing her candidacy in her childhood home of Waterloo and Palin reiterating that she might run at the Pella premiere of a friendly biopic - underscored differences in how they have pursued their growing political celebrity. They explain why the Minnesota congresswoman is...

Last night in Pella, Iowa – a town of 10,000 citizens – Steve Bannon’s documentary “The Undefeated” was finally premiered. Far from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, nowhere close to the social elites in Manhattan, and an eternity away from the beltway insiders of DC, 340 people sat and watched an honest presentation of the left’s relentless (and often vulgar) attacks on Palin, with a subsequent portrayal of the fact that Palin has withstood those attacks – has weathered their storm – and in spite of them, remains undefeated in her spirit and her convictions. For those who are...

Reporting from Concord, N.H.— As Democratic and Republican leaders in Washington struggled to find agreement on spending cuts and extending the debt limit, Mitt Romney struck a conciliatory note in New Hampshire on Monday by lamenting partisan feuding while touting his record of working with Democrats -- even the Senate's onetime liberal lion Edward M. Kennedy. Taking a pause from a fundraising tour for two campaign appearances, Romney faced questions from voters that reflected frustration with the gridlock in Washington. During a business roundtable at a technology company in Salem, state Sen. Chuck Morse pressed Romney to explain how he...

Who is the Tea Party candidate for president? If a gathering of about 100 Tea Party leaders in Washington on Monday gives any indication, it’s Representative Michele Bachmann (who just announced her candidacy), with Representative Ron Paul and Gov. Rick Perry vying for a close second (and probably edging her out on fervency of support). Leaders from Tea Party groups in about 40 states gathered in the Washington offices of FreedomWorks, the libertarian advocacy group that cultivated the Tea Party movement. (snip) A (completely unscientific) voice-vote straw poll of the (possibly unrepresentative) group, conducted by reporters, found almost no support...

SALT LAKE CITY — A majority of Utah voters believe Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has been in office too long and should be replaced, a new Deseret News/KSL-TV poll shows. The poll by Dan Jones & Associates found only 38 percent of registered voters agree that it's important to re-elect Hatch in 2012 because of his seniority. Fifty-nine percent said after 36 years, it's time for someone new.(snip) Hatch's most likely GOP challenger appears to be Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. In a primary race, 40 percent of poll respondents said they would vote for Hatch and 41 percent for Chaffetz....

MINNEAPOLIS — A documentary portraying mainstream Republican leaders as villains and Sarah Palin as an inspirational heroine for the Tea Party received an enthusiastic reception from grass-roots conservatives at the film’s first public screening here on Friday night. “The Undefeated,” an unapologetically partisan documentary meant to advocate for Ms. Palin’s potential candidacy for president, makes the case that she was the original Tea Party inspiration. It will make its premiere in Iowa in a couple of weeks but was shown to several hundred activists attending Right Online, a convention of conservative bloggers. The two-hour film does not spare usual conservative...

NEW ORLEANS -- Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told a crowd of conservative activists at the Republican Leadership Conference Friday that they should not "get hung up on purity" when it comes to the Republican nominee for president. "In politics, purity is a loser," said Barbour, a well-connected GOP insider who earlier this year decided to forgo a presidential run in 2012. (snip) Barbour said that this was the first time in his decades in politics that people are regularly telling him that "I'm afraid my children and grandchildren are not going to inherent the same country I inherited." "Those are...

From dynamic presidential hopefuls such as Rep. Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain to rank-and-file party activists from across the country, Republicans who gathered in New Orleans Friday all pledged their fealty to the cause of defeating President Barack Obama in 2012. But Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former national party chairman, delivered a stern warning to Republican Leadership Conference delegates: Don't look for perfection in the potential nominees and don't even think about drafting a third-party candidate when the nomination fight is done. "Don't get hung up on purity," he said. "In politics, purity is a loser. ... In this...

Sahil Kapur has a good piece up at TNR about the Tea Party’s plans to go after Mitt Romney because he’s not the “rock-solid fiscal conservative” they want. According to Kapur, FreedomWorks, the Dick Armey-led Tea Party organization, is threatening to “uneash part of its $25 million treasure trove in an attempt to sink his candidacy.” Meanwhile, Joe Miller, the Tea Party candidate who took on Lisa Murkowski in Alaska and lost last November, has his own political action committee dedicated to going after Mitt Romney where it matters most: New Hampshire. Last November, the Tea Party swept into state...

Sarah Palin 7,692 21% Herman Cain 7,681 21% Michelle Bachmann 5,143 14% Ron Paul 5,106 14% Mitt Romney 3,441 10% Gary Johnson 1,979 6% John Huntsman 1,828 5% Rick Santorum 1,605 4% Others 5%

Breaking! The bill stands.

DERRY, N.H. — Mitt Romney says he can appeal to Tea Partiers, even though activists and groups aligned with the movement are stressing that they need to defeat him in 2012. “I think I line up pretty well with the Tea Party,” he said in response to a question from The Daily Caller after touring the Derry Feed and Supply store. “They want to see smaller government. So do I.” But not everyone associated with the movement see Romney as one of them. Joe Miller, a former U.S. Senate candidate in Alaska and a Tea Party darling, is now running...

--snip-- With new laws and regulations being passed by the Obama Administration and the lack of oversight as to the constitutionality of new laws (as Obamacare), I believe it is extremely important for us to educate ourselves on our Constitution and to contact our legislators whenever a new law is not in keeping with our Constitution. With this goal in mind, Vista Tea Party Patriots are hosting an event from 6-8 p.m. June 13 at the Elks Lodge in Vista. Dr. Kimber, the director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for Constitutional Studies, will be speaking about the constitutionality of new...

If Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination for president, Tea Party activists may not show up at all to vote in the general election, one leading group associated with the Tea Party movement is warning. “I think that’s a potential problem,” said Matt Kibbe, FreedomWorks’ president, during a wide-ranging interview with reporters at The Daily Caller. He also warned that if Republicans nominate another “John McCain,” activists might even vote third party in 2012. “I believe in redemption, but at some point, you sort of give up,” he said. “And we’ve given up on Mitt Romney.”

Washington can be a heady place for a freshman, especially when you share a home state with a tea party kingpin who can make or break a conservative rookie. The South Carolina freshmen — Tim Scott, Mick Mulvaney, Trey Gowdy and Jeff Duncan — have leaned on one another as they navigate Congress, but they’ve also gotten some help from one of the most well-known and iconoclastic members of the Senate: Jim DeMint. The freshmen give DeMint’s guidance positive reviews, but they don’t deny that the senator’s an outsize figure in South Carolina. The unspoken reality is that no South...

This could be some of the early shots in the contest for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. On Tuesday’s “Kilmeade and Friends” on the Fox News Radio network, former Huckabee campaign manager Ed Rollins, who signed up with potential presidential candidate Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann on Monday, explained why he decided to join the Bachmann camp. “Well I’m going to work for Michele Bachmann if she runs,” Rollins said. “That’s the one that intrigues me the most at this point and I think to a certain extent she’s articulate, she’s a conservative. She’s got a great story to tell....

Sarah Palin has burst back onto the national stage at the time when her brand of combative, small-government conservatism is reeling from its first political defeat of the Obama era, when Republicans lost what was considered a safe seat in a byelection where Medicare reform was a major issue. Clad in a black leather jacket, the former Alaska governor and Tea Party darling rumbled through Washington over the Memorial Day weekend on the back of a Harley-Davidson, part of Rolling Thunder, an annual motorcycle rally to honour fallen troops, and then posed for pictures with burly men in leather vests...