Free Republic

The war on women was used as an effective rallying cry during the 2012 elections, which mobilized single, college-educated, and urban-based women to flock to the polls for Democrats. Yet, Democrats never moved beyond this fundraising ploy, which saw it backfire on them in the 2014 midterms. Now, we have a former Clinton spokesperson saying there isn't a Republican war on women, though he also reminded conservatives that there isn't a war on religion or the military; I'll let you debate the latter amongst yourselves (via Inside Sources): "I do not believe that there's any sort of Republican war on women,"...

PHILADELPHIA -- President Obama urged Republicans to embrace his forthcoming budget proposal Thursday night by saying that his plan would contribute to the nation's ongoing economic recovery. The White House budget plan set for release next week is expected to cost $74 billion more in discretionary investments than is currently allowed by spending caps mandated by Congress four years ago in an attempt to reduce the federal deficit. The proposal, a 7 percent increase over levels set by what's known as "sequestration," includes $530 billion on the non-defense discretionary side, an increase of $37 billion over the spending caps; and...

Looking over the final voter tallies, the winners and losers for state and federal offices, there remains one undecided gubernatorial contest: Vermont. Unlike other states, if a gubernatorial candidate, whether incumbent of challenger, fails to win a simple majority, the state legislature appoints the next governor out of the top three contenders. Incumbent Democrat Peter Shumlin, won by 2,000 votes, yet got less than half the total vote in the 2014 election. Presently, the legislature sits firmly in the Democratic camp, although Republican gained a few seats. Still, Shumlin has weathered some troubling controversies in Vermont. In his 2014 State...

Republicans clinched their 247th U.S. House seat on Wednesday when GOP challenger Martha McSally officially unseated Rep. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.), bringing to an end the final unresolved congressional election of the midterms and handing the GOP its largest majority in the chamber since the Great Depression. McSally's narrow win, which came after a recount, means that House Republicans will begin the 114th Congress with a 247-188 advantage over Democrats. It is the largest GOP majority since Republicans claimed 270 seats in the 1928 election.

Martha McSally (R) has been officially declared the winner in Arizona's second congressional district by a razor-thin 167-vote margin over incumbent Rep. Ron Barber (D). This was the final race of the 2014 election that was yet to be decided, as Arizona law mandates a recount if an election is decided by fewer than 200 votes.Member-elect McSally released the following statement thanking everyone who worked on her campaign and the people of southern Arizona: "We're grateful to everyone who devoted their time and resources, especially during the extended vote and recount processes, to get us over the finish line," said...

Saturday's Louisiana runoff election closed the book on the 2014 election cycle (with one small exception noted below); as the dust settles, the GOP achieved a net gain of nine Senate seats, and will command a healthy 54-46 majority in the upper chamber come January. Republicans controlled just 40 Senate seats as recently as early 2010.  A few notes on Bill Cassidy's lopsided defeat of Sen. Mary Landrieu, as well as the larger national picture, starting with a look at Cassidy's 56/44 victory margin: All votes in. #LASen Cassidy 712,330 55.94% Landrieu 561,099 44.06%— AoSHQ Decision Desk (@AoSHQDD) December 7, 2014 A visualization of Landrieu's downfall,...

The values that are pre-eminent for Republican Party voters are probably freedom, independence, autonomy, limited government and self-reliance, and a strong belief in the powers of capitalism and a free market,” Cross said. “We see them in the South: the calls or less government, the call for people to take personal responsibility, the inveighing against the dependent class.” And in Louisiana and other energy-producing states, he said, the perceived antipathy of national Democrats for the oil and gas industry helps swell Republican ranks. “We’re looking at something more than just a bad year,” said Charlie Cook, the Shreveport native who...

Who's up for a fresh addition to the ever-expanding "voter fraud is a Republican myth" file?  Democratic officials and campaign operatives have been caught on tape encouraging illegal voting on several occasions in recent election cycles, and anti-voter ID activists have literally cheered a swing-state poll worker who was convicted of the practice. Our latest installment comes to us from the Bayou State and features a Democratic mayor and former State Senator, who dispensed some pro tips on voting at a rally in advance of Saturday's run-off election: Video of Opelousas, Louisiana Mayor Don Cravins Sr.'s Nov. 3 remarks show him telling a crowd in his home town that 'if you early...

Last week Dana Milbank, the noted Op-Ed writer for the Washington Post, recovered himself admirably after the baleful events of November 4th, and picked through the post-election wreckage, presumably looking to assign blame. Milbank’s studied conclusion was that President Obama should be tagged with the blame for the electoral debacle, which is not, in itself, a particularly startling finding. Milbank, however, does not pin the onus on Obama for his lack of leadership, his wrong-headed policies, or his general disinterest in his job. He reasons that Obama brought this defeat on himself by delaying his amnesty executive order until after...

Following the 2014 GOP shellacking which expanded Republican numbers in the House and gained the US Senate, left-wing contrarian William Saletan for Slate went to work dumbing down repudiation of Obama’s economic policies. The title could not be more explicit (and misleading):The US Is Moving Left Despite Republican GainsReally? The basis for William Saletan’s argument? Republicans campaigned, effectively and successfully, on income inequality, as though the issue belonged only to the Left.Excerpts defending Saletan’s untenable position include:Republicans also zeroed in on blacks and other underserved populations. In Louisiana right-wing candidate Rob Maness pointed out, “Unemployment for young black men in...

Were the polls wrong? It's a question asked after every election. Sometimes, as in 1948, the answer seems as obvious as the answer to the question, "Why did Custer lose at Little Bighorn?" Sometimes the answer is less obvious, as it is this year. "The polls were skewed toward the Democrats," writes Nate Silver, who as proprietor of FiveThirtyEight has earned the distinction of being the nation's most assiduous polling analyst. Silver gives short shrift to partisans -- Democrats this year, Republicans in 2012 -- who complained that polls were systematically biased against their side. The skew varies unpredictably, he...

This mid-term election was clearly a repudiation of President Obama's"transformational" agenda. The majority of voting Americans were not pleased with the America the Obama administration has created. Americans weren't anti-incumbent; it was Democrat incumbents who felt the wave of voter anger. Democrats lost governorships in Illinois, MA, and Maryland where President Obama helped campaign. The GOP owns majorities in 70 percent of the state legislators. They control both houses of Congress in Washington. America has had enough of this Democrat nightmare.This election landslide was not a GOP endorsement but a challenge for them to lead in establishing a national agenda...

WASHINGTON — President Obama emerged from last week’s midterm election rejected by voters, hobbled politically and doomed to a final two years in office suffering from early lame-duck syndrome. That, at least, was the consensus in both parties. No one seems to have told Mr. Obama. In the 10 days since “we got beat,” as he put it, by Republicans who captured the Senate and bolstered control over the House, Mr. Obama has flexed his muscles on immigration, climate change and the Internet, demonstrating that he still aspires to enact sweeping policies that could help define his legacy.

The words "deportation relief" jumped out at me from Greg Sargent's Washington Post blog posting titled "Get ready for a titanic battle over immigration." Those two words seem so benign compared with "amnesty" -- the preferred usage in the GOP lexicon -- but that is their meaning. President Barack Obama was dangling a promise to issue an executive order to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation before the end of the summer; the order would be so big, an aide boasted, that Republicans might try to impeach Obama. Then the White House had to revise the promise -- with...

In the week following the shellacking of his party in the midterm elections, one might think that President Barack Obama would be conciliatory and humble. Instead, he has continued to be audacious -- but with arrogance rather than hope. The day after the elections, during a White House news conference, Obama said this in response to a reporter's questions about the possibility of changing focus based on the mid-term election results: "The key is to find areas where the agenda that I've put forward, one that I believe will help strengthen the middle class and create more ladders of opportunity...

The 2014 election is over! And, before the 2016 presidential race begins in earnest -- oh, who are we kidding, that's already happened -- we wanted to give out some Fix superlatives for the best (and worst) of the 2014 campaign. Today kicks off the Fix's award season with our pick for the best candidate of the cycle. Tomorrow, we "award" the worst candidate. First, the nominees (in alphabetical order by last name): * Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia Senate) * Joni Ernst (Iowa Senate) * Al Franken (Minnesota Senate) * Cory Gardner (Colorado Senate) * Ed Gillespie (Virginia Senate)...

Der Furher found out what happened ... and was not amused

This is liberalism at its finest. Get really angry with someone who holds views different from your own, and then berate that person with hyper-emotional drivel. In this case, the victim was Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who received sexually explicit questions from Dartmouth's student body regarding anal sex during a visit to the college. Perry is a social conservative. According to the Dartmouth, the student newspaper, Perry was there to discuss the midterms, border security, energy initiatives and foreign policy. There was a Q&A session–and that’s when things devolved. Both presidents of the College Democrats and Republicans condemned the actions of...

It's been almost a week and I am still giggling like a women-gendered schoolchild as I gaze out over the smoking ruins of the Obama dream. The voters spoke, and what they said to Obama was, “You suck.” But we need to move on from our glorious festival of schadenfreude and strike while the enemy is in disarray. This is an opportunity we must seize. This elections’ utter and complete repudiation of everything these progressive punks proclaim must be Viagra for an impotent GOP establishment. Time to run up the score on these liberal twerps. We have already seen the...

It’s one of life’s little ironies that the political party most often screaming about “democracy!” is also the party least likely to care what the majority of citizens actually vote for. Tuesday’s election sent a clear message: We don’t like what the Democrats have been doing. What did Democrats hear? Well, one senior Democratic aide told Politico, “As a party, we need to change. [Voters] like our policies. All this leftie [talk], the country likes, but somehow the message about us as individual members of the conference isn’t breaking through.” Yes, people love the policies of the past six years....