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NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has named anti-Shariah activist Kevin Kookogey as his state chairman for Tennessee. Kookogey, a former chairman of the Williamson County Republican Party, was unsuccessful in his bid to coalesce tea party support for a primary challenge to U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander last year....

Republican heavyweight Haley Barbour said Monday "no true" front-runner exists among the various Republicans announcing for president or those expected to become candidates in 2016. Whoever it is can't just run against the policies of Democratic President Barack Obama but has to "give something to be for" particularly in improving the economy, creating jobs and bringing down the national debt, he said. Barbour made the comments at a news conference before speaking at the annual Lincoln Dinner of the Knox County Republican Party at Rothchild catering center in West Knoxville. Some 325-350 people attended based on table arrangements for 400....

The National Rifle Association’s annual leadership conference is always a treasure trove of GOP smack-talk and an all-out constitutional liturgy — and if Friday night’s viral talking points are any indication, this year’s celebration ranks further right on the political spectrum than usual. Not that that’s surprising: it is the run-up year to a presidential election cycle, which means that the Republican machine was churning out even more harsh allegations than usual. Of course, one of the biggest showboats of the night was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who told political opponent Hillary Clinton to “come and take” away his guns,...

How's this for some political arithmetic: Take a shallower-than-usual Democratic bench for 2016, hypothetically devalue a leading candidate due to an e-mail scandal, then toss in a retro candidate who lost one of the most controversial elections in history and you have the darkest of dark horse possibilities: Al Gore for president. The former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee is headed to Iowa in May for a climate change event, and these days, that's all it takes to fuel speculation that he may be considering another presidential run. At least, according to Ezra Klein, formerly of The Washington...

This clip confirms the extent to which condescension on the left has replaced efforts to convince those skeptical of the medical community’s assessment of Ebola’s communicability of their error. In an appearance on CNN on Thursday, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) sought to assure the viewing audience that everyone (including, presumably, the Democratic governors of California, New Hampshire, and New York) is overreacting to the threat of Ebola. When probed by anchor Carol Costello as to why the president’s freshly appointed “Ebola Czar,” Ron Klain, has not come out publicly and assured the nation that there is no medical need to...

The former vice president believes the politics of global warming are changing.Al Gore says Republicans seeking the White House in 2016 are in a bind on climate change. Asked if it would hurt the GOP nominee to be a climate skeptic or advocate against taking action on global warming, Gore replied: "Oh, yes. Definitely." "In a general election? At the national level, where moderate voters hold the balance? It would be extremely harmful to a Republican candidate," Gore told National Journal in an interview Wednesday. But Gore doubts that a "pro-climate" Republican can get the GOP nod, because "carbon polluters...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)There are 65 prominent people who might run for president in 2016. The Democratic and Republican fields contrast sharply. Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner, while there is no front-runner on the Republican side. Twenty-three Democrats have been mentioned as a candidate or are eyeing a bid, according to an analysis by The Hill. The GOP side has 42. Most of the people on this list won’t run, and some have adamantly claimed that they’re not interested. But many politicians have changed their minds on seeking the White House. Before mounting his 2008 bid, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he...

Five counties out of the 16 in the 4th Congressional District could determine whether U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais' razor-thin lead holds up or whether state Sen. Jim Tracy can overcome. The number of valid provisional ballots in 11 counties had been accounted for late Tuesday, said Blake Fontenay, spokesman for Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett. That left just Bedford, Grundy, Maury, Rutherford and Sequatchie. Their yet-to-be-counted provisional ballots are keeping election officials quiet -- and the candidates in limbo.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)It didn't take long for Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) to embrace amnesty again. As soon as he won his Senate primary election against conservative Joe Carr, Alexander said it was "embarrassing" that Republicans have not yet passed a bill. Never mind that Alexander spent nearly his entire primary campaign trying to convince voters that he was against "amnesty" and would never dare to embrace it before the primary election. “I don’t know how it will affect our politics in the near term," Alexander told Politico of a comprehensive immigration bill. “I think it’s embarrassing for us not to deal with...

Allahpundit touched on this idea briefly this week in an article primarily to do with Mitt Romney in specific and the general question of whether or not there are second acts for losing party nominees in the 21st century. But apparently the idea has taken root in a few places, and as he noted in the article, the Daily Caller (or at least Mark Halperin) talked about it without being entirely tongue in cheek. Mark Halperin, the senior political analyst for “Time” magazine, appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday and boldly reiterated his Wednesday Twitter assertion that Al Gore —...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has yet to endorse a candidate in the Tennessee primary, but incumbent Sen. Lamar Alexander has already recruited him for an event in his state. The two senators will host a healthcare roundtable discussion in Nashville on June 30 with Tennessee healthcare executives and professionals to discuss the effects of Obamacare. Although the discussion is closed to the press, the two senators will hold media availability after the event. As he faces primary challenger Joe Carr in the fall, Alexander has touted his work with Sen. Paul in campaign ads – particularly on the Freedom to...

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) has just unleashed his latest endorsement for re-election. It comes from former Gov. Mike Huckabee. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and 2008 presidential candidate, has a strong following of social conservatives and activists drawn to his populist political message. "He's been your governor, university president, America's secretary of education. He brought the automobile industry to Tennessee," Huckabee explains in the ad. "Lamar Alexander is now a remarkable senator that Tennessee needs to return to office." (VIDEO-AT-LINK)Alexander has released a series of endorsements in recent days, including that of country music star Kix Brooks and former...

Weather concerns are prompting the Sevier County Tea Party to move a high-profile bash next week that will include Sarah Palin to the Sevierville Convention Center. The June 26 event, originally scheduled to take place outdoors at Smokies Stadium, marks the one-time GOP vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor’s first public appearance in the region since she testified at the trial of an email intruder four years ago. Mindful of the possibility of rain, the event is shifting indoors, said Sevier County Tea Party Chairman Steve Osborn. Also set to appear is former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former New York...

There’s one candidate who would make a whole lot of sense—and he’s got history and plenty of experience in his favor.Do you share with me a deep sense that we haven’t spent nearly enough time covering the 2016 presidential race? Oh, sure, Nexis tells is that there have been 520 stories written between January and March, compared with 176 stories at this time four years ago. OK, the National Journal looked at TV coverage, and found that there were 69 mentions between January and March on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, and the PBS News Hour, compared with 31 in...

Today, the Joe Carr for Senate Campaign began a statewide radio buy that continues the campaign’s effort to draw sharp contrasts between Senator Alexander’s liberal record and the strong conservative leadership offered by State Representative Joe Carr. The ad will run on over a dozen stations, over the next few weeks, at a cost of approximately $45,000. Listen to the ad here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emEocXAby1k Excerpts: Lamar says we should be patient about fixing the debt. Joe Carr says the debt bomb must be defused now…. Lamar voted with Democrats to protect Obamacare from conservative Sen. Ted Cruz. Joe Carr stood with...

As some Newtown families, props being used by the very gun grabbers who have set up the kinds of gun-free shooting galleries in which their children were slain, held hands and prayed for more than 60 votes (having been flown in at taxpayer expense to lobby our representatives to take away our natural rights), it occurred to me that, with 16 Republicans voting that a debate on amending an unalienable right is perfectly in keeping with the Constitution, the Republican party then and there died. Went t*ts up. Ceased to be. If John McCain and Lindsay Graham and Lamar Alexander...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Buoyed by overflowing campaign accounts, redrawn legislative districts and an unpopular Democratic president at the top of the ticket, Tennessee Republicans are expecting to add to their already considerable advantage in the state House on Tuesday. While seven Republican incumbents were defeated in the August primaries, there is little reason to expect any spillover into the general election. Gov. Bill Haslam on Friday predicted "a good night for Republicans," with the GOP picking up supermajorities in both chambers. The two-thirds majority would give Republicans the ability to overcome any procedural challenges by Democrats, and prevent the...

Ali A. Akbar@ali 1 Nov 12 BREAKING: RT @rsmccain: Fred Thompson Calls Benghazi 'Biggest Cover-Up in American History' spectator.org/blog/2012/11/0… … Robert Stacy McCain@rsmccain It was weird: @ali and I were the only media in the room. I was nodding off until -- BOOM! Fred makes news. spectator.org/blog/2012/11/0… 1 Nov 12 Reply Retweet FavoriteFred Thompson speaks in West Chester, OhioBLUE ASH, Ohio News happens in weird ways. While we were driving to today’s Americans for Prosperity event in West Chester, Ali Akbar mentioned an article he’d just seen at Foreign Policy about the Benghazi attack. Meanwhile, CBS News was reporting that...

NASHVILLE — Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey says there's a good chance Democrats will be left with just seven seats in the Tennessee state Senate after the Nov. 6 election. House Speaker Beth Harwell's most optimistic Republican scenario has the minority party with just 24 representatives remaining. They and other Republican leaders say there's virtually no doubt that the GOP will hit a new high-water mark in the 2012 elections by gaining a two-thirds "super majority" in both chambers of the Legislature. There is considerable confidence in Republican ranks that they will go beyond that to what some are calling "a...

Breaking with a long tradition of endorsing Democratic candidates for president, The Tennessean (the state of Tennessee's largest daily newspaper) endorsed Mitt Romney today. The normally left-leaning editorial page cited Obama's ram-rod approach to healthcare reform and inability to control spending as reasons to deny the president a second term. For all his efforts, ranging from the stimulus package to green-energy development, to bring us out of recession, he has never found the key. He has generally made poor choices of the people needed to get the job done, such as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. And the number of jobs...