Free Republic

Mitt Romney, whose liberal past and questionable conservative credentials are at the heart of his problems securing the Republican presidential nomination, is being supported by three prior Republican nominees--all of whom lost their bids for the presidency while running as moderates.Sen. John McCain, the 2008 nominee who lost to Barack Obama, endorsed Romney on January 4 heading into the New Hampshire primary.Former Sen. Bob Dole, the 1996 nomineee who lost to Bill Clinton, endorsed Romney in December before the Iowa caucus.Former President George H.W. Bush, who lost to Bill Clinton in 1992, 'unofficially' endorsed Romney in December in remarks to...

Fading into the background Let us pause a moment to recall that Congress busies itself with matters other than Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Some of them, in fact, affect quite a lot of people. One vote you might have missed last week said a lot about what the next couple of years will be like on Capitol Hill. The vote involved the fundamental question of how Congress balances tax cuts against spending. During the Senate's annual budget debate, which sets guidelines for the year's spending bills, some senators pushed a measure to require that any new tax cuts be...

It was 6 p.m. when the call arrived, an hour after actor Arnold Schwarzenegger had stunned California's political establishment by announcing on "The Tonight Show" that he would run to replace Gov. Gray Davis in the Oct. 7 recall election. Schwarzenegger was on the line, calling potential supporters at the New Majority, the Orange County-based group of more than 100 wealthy, moderate Republicans who'd backed Richard Riordan for governor last year and encouraged the actor to take a stab at public office. Schwarzenegger, the star attraction at a New Majority gala last year, arranged for a speaker phone to be...

With Rep. Marge Roukema (N.J.) retiring, Rep. Ben Gilman (N.Y.) finding himself without a district and Reps. Connie Morella (Md.), Nancy Johnson (Conn.), Charles Bass (N.H.), Rob Simmons (Conn.) and Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) facing tough challenges, Republican House moderates once again find their future uncertain. For some rank-and-file Republican conservatives, that's just fine. They refer to the moderates as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and would be just as happy to see liberal Democrats representing those districts. But without those moderate Republican legislators, Democrat Richard Gephardt (Mo.) would be Speaker, and President Bush would find himself in an even...