Free Republic

A think tank founded by GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich collected at least $37 million over the past eight years from major health-care companies and industry groups, offering special access to the former House speaker and other perks, according to records and interviews. The Center for Health Transformation, which opened in 2003, brought in dues of as much as $200,000 per year from insurers and other health-care firms, offering some of them “access to Newt Gingrich” and “direct Newt interaction,” according to promotional materials. The biggest funders, including firms such as AstraZeneca, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Novo Nordisk, were...

Despite an instant, commanding lead in the polls, newly-minted GOP presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry is already being viewed as “unelectable.” The panel of reporters on Sunday’s The Chris Matthews Show reached a general consensus that Perry’s loose talk and extreme views will eventually lead the Republican establishment to choose the more moderate, more electable Mitt Romney to challenge President Obama in the general election. Barely a week into his campaign, the Texas Governor has talked himself into trouble, and not just with liberals and Democrats. While John Heilemann sees Perry’s smashmouth certitude as an advantage over Mitt Romney, The...

Herman Cain defies the stereotype of blacks as liberal. And his embrace of conservatism and rugged individualism might make him the Republicans' best salesman – and counter to Obama. Black candidates must be especially image savvy to navigate the delicate contours of today’s racial politics. They must cultivate racial appeal, without provoking racial resentment, and expend their racial capital, without succumbing to the litany of stereotypes whites associate with them. We thought Barack Obama mastered this art, believing future black candidates must learn at his feet. But Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain might prove more teacher than apprentice. My co-author,...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Herman Cain says he has three people in mind for who he’d choose as his running mate if he wins the Republican nomination for president. “Two of them are in Washington now,” he said. “But they sort of buck the establishment a lot.” Cain, a Republican running for president, made the comments in response to a question from one of several dozen customers at Sal’s Pizza here on Sunday. He said type of person he would want as his vice president is “somebody who is courageous” and “not afraid to go against the establishment.” “They’ll need to...

By the time they're done with him, GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich will look like a leading Democratic spokesman as the party moves quickly to harness his attacks on Republican plans to change Medicare. According to party sources, they plan to use Gingrich's assault on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan in a bid to knock down every Republican who voted for it. "By calling Paul Ryan's budget 'radical' and 'right-wing social engineering,' Newt merely echoed criticisms millions of Americans across the political spectrum have voiced at house Republicans' budget for weeks now," says Ryan Rudominer, a Democratic consultant...

Sound off in this open thread. I’ve been thinking about the concept of electability for the past couple of days. I tend to look at policy positions and leadership qualities more than personal backgrounds and style. It’s not that the other stuff is unimportant, rather I tend to look for a conservative leader that can move us in the right direction. No limit on the comment length for this post, but come up with some good stuff instead of fluff OK? Try to keep your answers to less than a couple of paragraphs and there is no need to restate...

AP-GfK poll of Palin's F/UF (likely voters)yesterday: 49/50 Gallup poll of Obama's F/UF today: 47/50 Also from Gallup: Would vote to re-elect Obama: 39% No: 54% Avg. job approval for 3rd qtr: 44.7% So Obama has the triple whammy going for him: 1) His F/UF is declining 2) Consistently poll after poll is showing now that only 40% will vote to re-elect President Obama, meaning he would lose in a landslide in 2012 3) And his job approval is slowly dropping closer to the 40% mark as well. And then his primary rival Sarah Palin who has been attacked, demeaned...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee continued to insist on Sunday that he won’t make a decision on another presidential run until after this fall's midterm elections. “I haven’t closed the door. I think that would be foolish on my part, especially when poll after poll shows that there is strong sentiment out there. I end up leading a lot of the polls. I’m the Republican that clearly, at this point, does better against Obama than any other Republican,” said Huckabee, a Fox News contributor, on "Fox News Sunday."

SALT LAKE CITY - Over the course of two weeks, Utah Republicans had the chance to see the two most talked-about potential presidential candidates in their party. Mitt Romney attended an event for ADX security systems and Sarah Palin visited to sign her bestselling book. The Utahpolicy.com, Fox 13 Insider Poll finds that Mitt Romney is taken far more seriously as a potential presidential candidate. 53.5 percent of Republicans say they expect Romney to be the Republican party candidate to face Barack Obama. 31.3 percent of Democrats think Romney will be the candidate. Only 4.7 percent of Republicans and 6.3...

Newt Gingrich Eyes 2012 Run Susan Davis reports on politics. Newt Gingrich is keeping an eye towards 2012, the former speaker of the House told reporters Thursday evening before a speaking engagement at Randolph Macon College. Gingrich said he and his wife, Callista, “will look seriously and we’ll probably get our family totally engaged, including our two grandchildren, probably in January 2011, and we’ll look seriously at whether or not we think it’s necessary to do it,” he said, according to the Richmond Times Dispatch. “And if we think it’s necessary we’ll probably do it. And if it isn’t necessary...

Celebs did some serious political partying last night at the Black & White Gala for Barack Obama. Although the presidential nominee wasn't in attendance, plenty of stars were there to show their support, like Lucy Liu and Nia Long. VIP tickets to the fancy fete were $2,300 a person, which included munchies like crudités, olives and eggplant and musical stylings from a seven-person gospel choir. So who else hit the bash for Barack, held at a private estate in Bel-Air? Find out in our Party Pics: Hollywood gallery!

OBAMA: We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality, uh, we can send 15,000 more troops; 20,000 more troops; 30,000 more troops. Uh, I don't know any, uh, expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to, uh, privately that believes that that is gonna make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.

• Obama enacts stronger “federal hate crimes legislation” to “reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice's Criminal Section.” • Obama creates “a fund to help people refinance their mortgages and provide comprehensive supports to innocent homeowners.” • Obama, following through on his pledge to “meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe,” signs a non-agression pact with the Hitler of Iran. • Obama doubles foreign aid to $50 billion to cut “poverty around the world in half by 2015.” • Obama removes our troops from Iraq, leaving a power vacuum filled by Iran. • Obama enacts socialized medicine,...

This is a pretty good collection of links on why Obama is garbage in the general election. In my opinion the video on the top left says it all.

Senator Barack Obama fought back Saturday against accusations from his rivals that he had displayed a profound misunderstanding of small-town values, in a flare-up that left him on the defensive before a series of primaries that could test his ability to win over white voters in economically distressed communities. For a second day, Mr. Obama sought to explain his remarks at a recent San Francisco fund-raiser that small-town Pennsylvania voters, bitter over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations. Acknowledging Saturday that “I didn’t...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVBtPIrEleM Thanks to Nsmje Please remove thread if this has already posted.

Sunday, February 25, 2007 -- East County Congressman Duncan Hunter drew a sellout crowd to his first major campaign breakfast in San Diego. KUSI's Doug Curlee shows us how the presidential candidate is trying to reel in local voters.

WASHINGTON – Morris Udall. Dick Gephardt. John Kasich. Bob Dornan. Jack Kemp. James Garfield. Dennis Kucinich. What these gentlemen have in common – other than having all served in the House of Representatives – is that each ran for the White House while he was still a congressman. Only one of them made it. Morris Udall Dick Gephardt John Kasich Bob Dornan Jack Kemp James Garfield Dennis Kucinich Duncan Hunter And he got shot. Now that Duncan Hunter has taken the plunge for the Republican presidential nomination official, the Alpine congressman may soon encounter the peculiar challenges that face a...

When Bob Hunter, a Riverside, Calif., businessman, would hear of a conservative's campaign that needed volunteers, he would pile his family into the station wagon and drive off to ring doorbells. Hunter's son Duncan grew up believing in retail politics. When Hunter returned home after serving as an alternate Goldwater delegate at the 1964 Republican convention in San Francisco, he told Duncan about chatting with another alternate, an amiable fellow, some actor, named Reagan. Who two years later was elected governor. Duncan learned early on about rapid upward mobility in politics. In 1969, he dropped out of college, joined the...

Make sure to check out Conservative Grapevine today, where you'll find links like: GOPUSA online poll with 12,841 responses: "Which candidate has the best chance of winning the 2008 Republican presidential nomination?" Newt Gingrich 19%, Duncan Hunter 16%, Rudy Giuliani 11%, Mitt Romney 11%, Tom Tancredo 8%, Sam Brownback 7%, John McCain 6%. Mark Steyn: "The Murtha plan" is to deny the president the possibility of victory while making sure Democrats don't have to share the blame for the defeat. Hit and Run: A blogger, the Liberal Avenger, altered a conservative commenters' post on his blog to try to make...