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Donald Trump still has a healthy lead, at 33%. But it's become very clear that Ted Cruz is his primary competitor; he's up to 21%, as Ben Carson fades to a mere 12. Rubio is still the establishment's best hope, at 11.4%. Bush is rallying slightly at 7.9%, up from a low of 4.5%. I'm not really bothered by Bush rallying; he'll only steal oxygen from Rubio. Fiorina is at 4.2%; Huckabee at 3.3%; Kasich at 2.5%; Christie at 1.9%; Paul at 0.6% and Graham at 0. That's right, 0.

A new poll shows Ben Carson's net favorability rating has dropped 12 percentage points, while Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz's favorability ratings have each risen nine points. The GOP presidential candidates' favorability rankings have undergone some massive shifts, according to Gallup's Daily tracking poll. Carson has long held the largest net favorability rating among the Republican candidates, but the senators are gaining ground fast. Carson's net favorability rating is 49 percentage points, while Rubio's net favorability rating is 48 points, and Cruz's net rating is at 45 points, according to data collected from a survey conducted since November 6. "For...

Ted Cruz, buoyed by tea party support and the backing of much of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, has surged to a virtual tie with Donald Trump in Iowa, generating the kind of momentum his team thinks will carry him deep into primary season. “Sixty-eight days until Iowa,” said Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier, when asked whether the Texas senator was peaking too soon. “It’s game time.” A Quinnipiac University survey released Tuesday found Cruz essentially deadlocked with longtime poll-leader Donald Trump in Iowa: Trump stood at 25 percent and Cruz at 23 percent, within the margin of error....

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas argued Monday that one line from President Barack Obama encapsulated both Obama's foreign policy and that of his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.Cruz, a Republican presidential candidate, told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that Obama's statement was a "stunning indictment" of the president's policies after last week's terrorist attacks in Paris.Obama made the remark at a news conference in Turkey earlier in the day:What I'm not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of 'American leadership' or 'America winning,' or whatever other slogans they come up with that has no relationship to...

MY wife and I met in 2003, definitely post-9/11. Being patriots, and not wanting the bad guys to "win", we decided to make this date a happy celebratory one. It will always be a date we will absolutely Never Forget.Our relationship is certainly non-traditional. We met on-line at match.com. I proposed to her right here on FR, in the then current Hobbit Hole thread. I love you sweetheart.

Guy Molinari, the Republican power broker and former Staten Island Beep, ripped Newt Gingrich as unfit to be president yesterday — a day before the front-running GOP candidate was set to attend a Tea Party rally in the borough. At least 600 people are expected to pack the Staten Island Hilton Garden Inn today to hear Gingrich speak at a 2 p.m. town-hall meeting. But Molinari, who served with Gingrich in Congress and supports Mitt Romney, rained on the former House speaker’s parade. “God help us if Newt Gingrich is elected president. I won’t vote for him. I love my...

OPINION JULY 13, 2009 Obama Rewrites the Cold War The President has a duty to stand up to the lies of our enemies. By LIZ CHENEY There are two different versions of the story of the end of the Cold War: the Russian version, and the truth. President Barack Obama endorsed the Russian version in Moscow last week. Speaking to a group of students, our president explained it this way: "The American and Soviet armies were still massed in Europe, trained and ready to fight. The ideological trenches of the last century were roughly in place. Competition in everything from...