Free Republic

Many leading Republicans and conservatives want someone other than Donald Trump to run for President in 2024. But this judgment requires an assessment of Trump’s vices and virtues in the context of our current political and cultural circumstances, as well as an assessment of other prospective Republican presidential candidates. Tom Klingenstein, Chairman of the Claremont Institute, explains Trump's Virtues.

Daniel Johnston, whose guileless, homemade recordings inspired dozens of musicians from Kurt Cobain to Lana Del Rey, has died at the age of 58. The songwriter and artist "passed away of natural causes" at his home in Texas, said his family in a statement.

Months after President Trump’s victory in November 2016, Jon Ossoff mounted a long-shot congressional campaign in a historically red Georgia district — and unexpectedly became a symbol of hope for demoralized Democrats as he racked up millions from small donors. When he narrowly lost one of the most expensive House races in history in June 2017, Ossoff promised to return. “I launched this campaign believing that America can become stronger, more prosperous and more secure only if we stay true to the values that unite us,” Ossoff wrote in The Washington Post days after his loss. “I still believe that,...

on Ossoff, the 30-year-old Democrat candidate for Georgia's special election runoff this coming Tuesday, reported having nine times as many donors from California than from Georgia in the past two months. Between March 29 and May 31, Ossoff reported 7,218 donations from California and only 808 donations from Georgia, The Mercury News reported. This means he took 8.9 times as many gifts from the Golden State. In the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area alone, Ossoff reported receiving 3,063 donations in the same period, nearly four times his Georgia total. These are only the donations he is required...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has decided he may want some help from Washington after all to stop Trump. But alas, his entreaties to his Senate colleagues aren't going very well. Cruz is facing varied and dynamic obstacles in his quest to build support on the Hill. Some senators are stubbornly nursing grudges against the freshman senator's 2013 government shutdown gambit or any other number of slights and affronts he committed as a freshman senator that made him deeply unpopular. Other senators endorsed candidates who already dropped out of the race and are unwilling to repeat that mistake with Donald Trump...

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump held rallies today in Racine, Wausau and Eau Claire, Wisconsin. During his Eau Claire speech Donald Trump lashed out at the Republican party apparatus, “Soon they will say Trump will be the future of the Republican Party… They want to knock out the outside. They want to keep their little party going…”https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5436&v=Ofp0vWhaWng  

There are lots of political machinations going on with the GOP presidential primary. Word is that former Florida Governor and presidential candidate Jeb Bush will be meeting with remaining candidates Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich. We know Neil Bush is a Cruz campaign finance committeeman. And after what can only be referred to as poor performances this past Tuesday, I surmise there are growing behind-the-scenes calls for Rubio and Kasich to exit. Man, there are probably some serious “Godfather”-type discussions going on. Here’s what’s at risk. If Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Ohio Governor John Kasich remain in...

The GOP race is not over yet. There is still some time to slow and then stop Trump's march to the nomination. But that probably won't happen if numerous prominent conservatives remain under the delusion that Trump is leading a conservative revolt against the establishment. Some conservative commentators - notably Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham - have been cheering on both Senator Ted Cruz and Donald Trump in the GOP presidential-nomination fight. These commentators like to lump Cruz and Trump together because this allows them to explain the Trump phenomenon as emanating from the same source they say has been...

As a sitting Senator who worked for George W. Bush, Ted Cruz is not an outsider as he likes to claim, he’s an insider. His DC insider connections go back to 1997 when he began working to prepare testimony for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. During that period of time he also served as legal counsel for former Rep John Boehner. Cruz joined the George W. Bush Campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser and worked in 2000 for the Bush team in the Bush v. Gore Florida recount. He also recruited future Chief Justice John Roberts to the...

While Jeb Bush feuds Donald Trump and others kowtow to him, only one candidate is seriously gaining on him. Ben Carson is now tied with Trump in one Iowa poll and is close in others, an especially notable result given that The Donald has jammed a lifetime's worth of free media into the past couple of months. Carson's rise suggests that it's possible to catch the populist wave roiling Republican politics and yet not be an obnoxious braggart who abuses anyone who crosses him and will say or do anything as long as he's getting attention. Ben Carson is a...

HOUSTON — Ted Cruz, an insurgent backed by the Tea Party, defeated the candidate favored by Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday in a runoff election for the Republican Senate nomination that revealed a wide rift in Texas between the party establishment and restless, anti-incumbent activists on the right. With the come-from-behind victory, he is heavily favored to win the Senate seat being vacated in November by Kay Bailey Hutchison and appears likely to become a star of the national conservative movement. Mr. Cruz, 41, is the latest conservative rebel to bring down an established party leader, tapping into simmering anger...

RelatedCRESTON, Iowa — Rick Perry began his final push in the Iowa Republican caucuses Tuesday by sharpening his claim to be the sort of leader the country badly needs, and which his rivals decidedly are not. “You need to ask yourself: If we replace the Democrat insider with a Republican insider, is that going to change Washington, D.C.? No, it’s not,” he told 150 or so Iowans crammed into a coffee shop a week ahead of caucuses likely to winnow the presidential field. “I will go to Washington to be an anti-establishment outsider.” At one stop after another, he jabbed...

WASHINGTON — It could prove an awkward encounter for Gov. Rick Perry as he heads to Washington on Wednesday to appear at a presidential candidate forum and meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill — lawmakers whose work hours and salaries he has proposed slashing. Perry's campaign will hit the city he vows to shake up this week, and it remains unclear just how warm the reception will be from the lawmakers who have borne the brunt of his campaign rhetoric. His trip will include at least one Capitol Hill appearance. At the invitation of U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, Perry...

In his latest campaign ad, Texas Gov. Rick Perry calls himself an "outsider." "I want to force Congress to balance the budget, and if they don't, I say we cut their pay in half, send them home. Replacing one Washington insider with another won't change a thing. If you want an outsider who will overhaul Washington, then I'm your guy."

WASHINGTON – So much for changing how Washington works. Crimping his carefully crafted outsider image and undercutting a centerpiece of his 2008 campaign, President Barack Obama got caught playing the usual politics — dangling a job offer for a political favor in the hunt for power. His lawyer admitted as much in a Friday report. It detailed how Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, sent former President Bill Clinton on a mission: try to persuade Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., to abandon his primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., by offering an executive branch post. Sestak said no, stayed in...

o anti-establishment outlet for California GOP voters' anger By Rob Hotakainen rhotakainen@mcclatchydc.com Published: Saturday, May. 29, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1A WASHINGTON – Angry at politicians and deeply disillusioned about the future, California's GOP voters are clearly in an anti-establishment mood. But they will have little chance to express it in the June 8 election, experts say. "The sentiment is genuine, but it doesn't have an obvious outlet," said Jack Pitney, political science professor at Claremont-McKenna College. Despite their claims to the contrary, the candidates seeking to become governor or senator are all political or corporate insiders. In...

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) -- The Libertarian Party is considering running a candidate in Kentucky's U.S. Senate race, saying GOP nominee Rand Paul -- the son of a former Libertarian presidential candidate -- has betrayed the party's values. Party Vice Chairman Joshua Koch said Wednesday that Paul has been a black eye for Libertarians because of stands he's taken on issues, including his criticism of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Koch said Paul is not a Libertarian. He called Paul and his Democratic opponent, Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, "faces of the same bad coin."

WASHINGTON - Democratic governors, determined to grab control of their party, said Thursday they will jointly support moderate candidates from outside Washington to lead the Democrats. No sitting governor is interested in heading the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites), said the governors who gathered for the first major meeting of party officials since widespread Democratic losses in the presidential and congressional elections last month. The Democratic governors said their party must move geographically from Washington and philosophically to the middle to attract moderate voters. That move starts with the party leadership, they said. "This for us is our...

Howard Dean, Serious Threat Christopher Ruddy Monday, Nov. 10, 2003 Howard Dean is not to be dismissed. He is a serious candidate who will most certainly give George Bush a run for his money next year. The former Vermont governor is the all-but-certain Democratic nominee – unless Hillary enters the race at the last minute. This past week, Dean had some good news and some bad news. The good news came from two of the nation’s largest unions. The Service Employees International Union, the largest AFL-CIO affiliate, with 1.6 million members, endorsed Dean. He also won the support of AFSCME...

<p>The controlling theme of the recall is that we the people will reshape politics by replacing one of them, an insider, with one of us, a citizen outsider. And from the moment he sat down on Jay Leno's couch last month and announced himself a candidate, Arnold Schwarzenegger has cast himself for that outsider's role. "I'm going to go to Sacramento and reform politics as we know it," the actor says.</p>