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Rep. Jim Jordan won’t pursue another speaker vote for now as House looks to empower temporary speaker Rep. Patrick T. McHenry

On Tuesday night’s Hannity show, Trump expressed concern for the direction in which the panel’s hearings are heading in the wake of comments by Committee Chair Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., that the investigation was not focused on Hillary Clinton. “Yesterday, I watched Trey, who I do respect, I think he is a terrific guy, but he seemed to be doing a big pivot,” Trump said. “He said, ‘Well, this isn’t about Hillary Clinton.’ You know, I’m pretty good at figuring this stuff out.” Clinton has claimed the Benghazi investigation is aimed at tarnishing her political future, pointing to comments by...

Barely a week into his 2012 presidential campaign, Rick Perry has already assumed the mantle of the de facto Republican front-runner, emerging in the latest Gallup national poll with a huge, 12-point margin of support over Mitt Romney. The poll, conducted Aug. 17-21, found that 29% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now support the Texas governor, compared with 17% for Mr. Romney, 13% for Texas Rep. Ron Paul and 10% for Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann. “Perry’s official entry has shaken up the Republican race, making him the new leader for the party’s nomination,” the Gallup poll concludes. The survey found...

The latest news from Iowa? According to Zogby’s latest—and I quote: “Sen. Fred Thompson…has seen a late-breaking surge.” (Rich notes the same poll below.) What’s going on here? My guess is that there are whole lot of Iowa Republicans who have about the same attitude that David Limbaugh displayed in his column yesterday: Fred is the only [candidate] I don't have major reservations about….I find his lack of "fire in the belly" refreshing. He strikes me as one of the few presidential candidates since Ronald Reagan whose primary motivation is not personal aggrandizement but rather serving and leading the nation...

“The most important ‘traditional value’ in this election is keeping the Clintons out of the White House,” says Greg Alterton, an evangelical Christian who has “spent my entire professional career considering how my faith impacts, or should impact, the arena in which I work” — government and politics. Alterton writes for SoConsForRudy.com and counts himself among Rudolph W. Giuliani’s social-conservative supporters. People like Alterton are important, if overlooked, in the Republican presidential sweepstakes. Anti-Giuliani Religious Rightists are far more visible. Also conspicuous are pundits whose cartoon version of social conservatism regards abortion and gay rights as “the social issues,” excluding...

South Carolina Likely Republican Primary Voters Dec 06 Feb 07 Apr 07 May 07 Jun 07 Jul 07 Aug 07 Sep 07 Brownback - - 1% 1% 1% - 2% 1% Gilmore - 1% 1% 1% 1% ni ni ni Gingrich 15% 10% 6% 6% 6% 7% 6% 7% Giuliani 28% 29% 23% 23% 22% 28% 26% 23% Hagel - - 1% - - ni ni ni Huckabee 1% 1% 2% 1% 3% 3% 9% 1% Hunter - 1% - 1% 2% 1% - 1% Keyes ni ni ni ni ni ni ni - McCain 35% 35% 36% 32%...

PRINCETON, NJ -- Rudy Giuliani has led the field of Republican candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination in every Gallup Poll since January. In the most recent nationwide poll of Republicans, 30% name Giuliani as their first choice for the party's nomination, giving him an eight-point lead over second place Fred Thompson who registers 22% support. John McCain is in third place at 18% and Mitt Romney is in fourth at 7%, with the five other announced candidates all polling at 4% or less. While nowhere near as dominant as the Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, Giuliani, like Clinton, leads among...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) said Thursday he is asking the New York Times for the "same heavily discounted rate they gave MoveOn.org," for his campaign to run an ad in Friday's paper. Giuliani, calling MoveOn.org's controversial "General Betray Us" ad "abominable," said his campaign is asking the paper for a comparable rate for an ad to run following the President Bush's speech on Iraq. The New York Post reported that MoveOn.org paid less than 40 percent of the regular ad rate. The former mayor said his ad "will obviously take the opposite view" from MoveOn.org, which...

AIKEN, S.C. - Battling charges that he is a supporter of illegal immigrants, Rudy Giuliani Tuesday promised he would "end illegal immigration" through fences, high-tech sensors and a mandatory tamper-proof card for all non-citizens in the United States. "We can end illegal immigration," the national front runner for the Republican presidential nomination told a receptive overflow crowd at a community center here in the first of two stops in this largely agricultural state where illegal immigration is rapidly rising. In his hour-long talk, he did not specifically address charges last week by his rival Mitt Romney that he ran a...

CBS) According to a new CBS News poll out Monday, Rudy Giuliani retains a significant lead nationally among Republican primary voters in the race to become the party’s presidential nominee. In all, 38 percent of Republican primary voters favor the former New York City mayor, a slight increase from last month. Senator-turned-actor Fred Thompson is next; he's favored by 18 percent of Republican primary voters, a seven-point drop from last month. Thompson has yet to officially announce his candidacy. The third choice, at 13 percent, is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who improved five points from one month ago. He...

August 13, 2007 - National Presidential Preferences The following results are based on nationwide samples of 600 likely ... 600 likely Republican primary voters (those saying they will definitely vote in a primary or participate in a caucus in 2008) conducted August 9-12, 2007. The theoretical margin of error for each sample is plus or minus 4 percentage points, 95% of the time. Rudy Giuliani continues to lead the Republican field while Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson are tied for second place. National Primary National Primary Republicans Mar 07 Apr 07 May 07 Jun 07 Jul 07 Aug 07 Brownback 1%...

If Duncan Hunter is a long-shot for the Republican nomination for president in 2008, he's not admitting it. Buoyed by a third-place finish -- and statistical tie for first place -- in a Spartanburg County straw poll over the weekend, Hunter brought his conservative message to about 80 people at the 1st Monday Republican Lunch Group at Aunt Chiladas Restaurant on Hilton Head Island. The California congressman outlined a platform that includes ripping up current trade policies with China, building a double wall along the Mexican border and a steadfast resolve to keep nuclear weapons out of Iranian hands. Hunter's...

Some of the biggest Republican donors to George W Bush's presidential campaigns are backing Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, for the White House as the candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton in 2008.Over a private lunch of sea bass and hamburgers at New York's 21 Club recently, Mr Giuliani addressed nearly three dozen of the men who helped propel Mr Bush to the presidency. They included "Pioneers", who donated more than $100,000 to Bush campaigns, and "Rangers" who gave at least $200,000. Patrick Oxford, a major Bush contributor from Houston who attended the lunch, said that despite having...

(WANE-TV, Washington, D.C.) Indiana Congressman Mike Pence says some conservative leaders have talked with him about possibly running for president in 2008. Though he hasn't ruled it out, Pence downplays the possibility. Pence is an increasingly visible figure on Capitol Hill. He now chairs Congress's largest caucus, the Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 100 conservative members of Congress. He has received national attention for his efforts to offset hurricane relief spending with budget cuts elsewhere and has opposed some of the Bush administration's changes in education and medicare policy. In an interview broadcast on WANE-TV's 6 p.m....

Many people have been burning up the phone lines to the show today, and firing off e-mails, about a radio interview Tom Tancredo did yesterday with WFLA host Pat Campbell. One of the main complaints made against Hugh today has been that Tancredo's comments were not made in context. Here's a link to WFLA's site, where the audio from the original interview is posted. Listen for yourself. Here's the text of what Pat Campbell asked him, and what he said: PC: Now here's the other thing, too, with the possibility of an attack. I had Juval Aviv on the program...

There has been much speculation about what Tom Tancredo said on the now famous interview last Friday on WFLA-AM in Orlando, Fla. From what I am reading here on FR, much of that speculation is wrong. Tancredo was, in fact, suggesting that we consider (not implement, just consider implementing) a strategy similar to the strategy that Reagan used to win the Cold War. Listen for yourself. HERE If you think Tancredo is a nut case, and you don't want to change your thinking, move along, this clip isn't for you. Just post your thoughts without listening.