Free Republic

Patriotism: Joseph Lieberman will be called a Judas for speaking to the Republican Convention, but he was betrayed by his own party for refusing to support losing a war for political gain. It's only a matter of time before the long knives are unsheathed for Connecticut's "independent Democrat." Al Gore's 2000 running mate still caucuses with the Democrats, which lets the four-term senator maintain his seniority in committee assignments. Lieberman serves in the plum post of chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, where earlier this year he published a powerful and fascinating report on how terrorist groups such as...

Have you seen this delicious little quote from Pennsylvania Democrat Congressman Paul Jankorski? Why it would seem that Mr. Jankorski is admitting that the Democrats lied about what was going on in Iraq during the 2006 mid-term elections? Here's his quote: "I'll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we ... the Democrats ... that if we won the Congressional elections we could stop the war. Now anybody who was a good student of government would know that wasn't true. "But you know ... the temptation to want to win back the Congress ......

Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) has been a fairly undistinguished member of the House of Representatives for nearly a quarter of a century. He is a career member of the Financial Services Committee who has made little or no name for himself since his first electoral victory, and has maintained incumbency through the funneling of pork back to his district. Even his Wikipedia entry says that Kanjorski "usually plays behind-the-scenes roles in the advocacy or defeat of legislation and steers appropriations money toward improving the infrastructure and economic needs of his district." “But [in] the temptation to want to win back...

Data from the Defense Intelligence Agency indicates that enemy-initiated attacks on U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and Iraqi civilians peaked in October 2006, the month leading up to the U.S. midterm elections. At the time, Vice President Dick Cheney said the insurgents were "very sensitive to the fact that we've got an election scheduled" and were trying to "break the will of the American people." Democrats, who cast the 2006 midterm election as a referendum on Iraq, ended up taking control of both the House and the Senate. The DIA data shows that between November 2006 and May 2007, attacks...

On Election Day 2006, American voters did almost exactly what history would predict: giving a president in the sixth year of his administration a serious smackdown, as an electorate wary of politicians and parties hedged its bets and chose a divided government. Since World War II, the parties that controlled the White House for two terms have lost an average of 29 House seats and six Senate seats in their second midterm elections. This election fits tidily into that pattern. President Bush bucked another ubiquitous trap of modern presidents when he actually picked up Congressional seats for his party in...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is discovering the cold truth about governing with a slim majority: It's much easier to promise behavioral change for Congress than to deliver it. Pelosi vowed that five-day workweeks would be a hallmark of a harder-working Democratic majority. So far, the House has logged only one. Lawmakers plan to clock three days this week. The speaker has denied Republicans a vote on their proposals during congressional debates -- a tactic she previously declared oppressive and promised to end. Pelosi has opened the floor to a Republican alternative just once. Pelosi set a high standard for herself...

Former congressional candidate Vernon Robinson sounds resigned, and more than a little tired, when you ask him to explain his defeat. "The 2006 election was not a referendum on immigration," he says. "I would have liked it to be, but it didn't happen." That's an understatement. In the tumultuous political year of 2006, Robinson, a former city councilman from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, became one of the country's most notorious voices for a crackdown on illegal immigration. In March, as the Republican-led House of Representatives wrestled with a harsh reform bill that would build a wall on the border and classify...

Support for embryonic stem cell research played an important role for voters in the 2006 election. The Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative passed in Missouri, and candidates who used support for stem cell research as a central campaign issue were quite successful - 62 percent of races between an opponent and supporter of stem cell research went to the supporter. The key stem cell candidate victories occurred in Missouri and Wisconsin. Sen. Claire McCaskill's support of stem cell research and the embryonic stem cell ballot initiative helped her defeat incumbent Jim Talent in Missouri. And Gov. Jim Doyle won...

Thank you for publishing Paula Morris' guest column (The Star, Nov. 30). Make her a regular, please. Her articulate statement of the liberal position made this almost 72-year-old crone jump up and down and yell. (My dog thinks I'm demented but he has lots of company). Ms. Morris is correct about the backlash. It can be vicious. As I drive to my office each day I pass a building with a sign in flashing light bulbs which has the statement ever since the mid-term election, "al-Qaida celebrates!" Whoever is behind it has a right to his or her opinion but...

A runoff between Republican U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla and his Democratic challenger will be held Dec. 12, Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday. Bonilla finished with 49 percent of the vote in the Nov. 7 special election. He will face former U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, who got about 20 percent of the vote. Early voting will begin Dec. 4. Eight candidates participated in the special election that was called after the U.S. Supreme Court found a portion of the congressional district boundaries unconstitutional.

'Free to lose' isn't good philosophy for the right wing November 19, 2006 BY MARK STEYN Sun-Times Columnist If Milton Friedman had to die, then a week after the defeat of a Republican Congress that had apparently forgotten every lesson Friedman taught in Free To Choose is eerily apt timing. As it happens, had ill health not intervened, Professor Friedman would have been disembarking round about now from a National Review post-election cruise with yours truly and various other pundits and commentators. Instead, we were obliged to sail without him, and in the days that followed I found myself wondering...

11/18/06 Buchanan still ahead after second recount SARASOTA -- Republican Vernon Buchanan's lead stood at 400 votes as the race's second recount ended Friday at a secure warehouse just outside of town. Buchanan's battle with Democrat Christine Jennings for the 13th District Congressional seat next moved to the Supervisor of Elections office at 2001 Adams Lane for a count of overseas military ballots. The count was to be completed by 5 p.m. Saturday. Veterans Lee Kichen and Rich Swier were on hand to observe the count. Swier represented the Sarasota County Veterans Commission, which comprises "over 50 military, veterans and...

For most of the press and pundits and, certainly, the party establishments, last week's election was a numbers game. It wasn't so much about personalities and candidates and ideas as it was about how many seats it took for a change in power in the House and Senate. For many, lost in the power politics of Election Day was the fact that some very good men lost their jobs – and with those lost seats, the American people lost dedication, experience and principle. Anyone who knows me understands that I do not suffer fools nor have much patience with politicians....

In the past week, there are 476 documents on Nexis heralding the magnificent achievement of Nancy Pelosi becoming the FIRST WOMAN speaker of the House. I thought we had moved beyond such multicultural milestones. The media yawned when Condoleezza Rice became the first black female secretary of state (and when Lincoln Chaffee became the first developmentally disabled senator). There were only 77 documents noting that Rice was the first black woman to be the secretary of state, and half of them were issues of Jet, Essence, Ebony or Black Entrepreneur magazine. A New York Times profile of Rice at the...

As Democrats take control of the House and Senate, many wonder whether it makes a difference. The corporate lobbies aren't gong anywhere -- they started to hedge their bets by contributing to Democrats late in the election. The foreign policy establishment that led us into Iraq and continues to support a global economic posture that benefits the capital but undermines work isn't going anywhere. Does it make a difference? Yes, it does, in ways that are big and small. First, the agenda of the country will change. Consider the six-point agenda that Democrats will pass through the House in the...

As George Bush put it, the Republicans took a “thumpin’” on November 7th. By the time the counting and recounting is finished, the balance of power in the House of Representatives will have essentially flip-flopped, giving the Democrats approximately the same numerical strength that the Republicans had prior to the election. In the Senate, they will hold a one vote majority, providing that recently exiled Joe Lieberman makes good on his word to continue to caucus with the party that abandoned him. That’s the result of what happened on Tuesday, but what actually happened? Well, a lot of things. To...

Two months after Germany's surrender in World War II, British voters dumped the Conservative prime minister who had led the nation to victory -- Winston Churchill -- and replaced him with Clement Attlee, whose Labor Party had won the election in a landslide. Embittered by his defeat, Churchill spurned King George's offer of a knighthood. "I could not accept the Order of the Garter from my sovereign," he said, "when I have received the order of the boot from his people." Last week, American voters gave Republicans the order of the boot, stripping them of at least 29 seats in...

Few election results were less surprising than last Tuesday?s. It?s not as if there was no reason for a general backlash against Republican Party dominance in Washington, D.C. There were, in fact, more reasons to vote against Republicans than for them. The Grand Old Party, in actual operation as a ruling party, had stood by just a few principles. Most people could only name two: Republicans had stuck to their guns on gun ownership rights and on a few tax cuts. But general tax cuts? No. A general tax simplification reform? No. Spending cuts? A resounding no, no, no, echoing...

"Ballot-bag problems may slow counting of 8th District votes" ?King County Elections staff said about 100 bags -- containing up to 20,000 absentee ballots that had been dropped off at polling sites on Election Day -- remain uncounted because of an array of problems caused by the bags' being overstuffed. ?Jim Buck, King County's interim elections director, acknowledged that the problems -- including broken zippers and unclosed bag seals -- could potentially have allowed ballots to be cast after voting ended. Not clear yet whether any of the ballots are actually ineligible, and it's unlikely there could be nearly...

Reason Magazine Blogger Finds Pleasure in Tears of Rick Santorum's 8-year-old Daughter Because the libertarian universe has no place for the vulnerable, weak, or the dependent--since none are autonomous adult-choosers in search of virtual kiddie porn--it has no qualms in providing a forum in which children and their families can be verbally abused and have profanities hurled at them. Read and weep Julian Sanchez's "Your Tears Are So Yummy and Sweet" in which the writer says he finds joy in the tears of Rick Santorum's eight-year-old daughter, who is pictured crying next to her father as he gives his concession...

On the radio a couple of weeks ago, Hugh Hewitt suggested to me the terrorists might try to pull a Spain on the U.S. elections. You'll recall (though evidently many Americans don't) that in 2004 hundreds of commuters were slaughtered in multiple train bombings in Madrid. The Spaniards responded with a huge street demonstration of supposed solidarity with the dead, all teary passivity and signs saying "Basta!" -- "Enough!" By which they meant not "enough!" of these murderers but "enough!" of the government of Prime Minister Aznar, and of Bush and Blair, and troops in Iraq. A couple of days...

At the White House senior staff meeting in the Roosevelt Room at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Chief of Staff Josh Bolten thanked Karl Rove for his hard work in the elections, and the group around the big table burst into spontaneous applause. It was a much-needed moment of cheer for Rove, the President's chief strategist, after Republicans lost the House and were headed toward the same fate in the Senate in midterm congressional elections that turned into a blue rip tide of voter ire. "The profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I'd expected," Rove tells TIME....

There's already plenty of punditry about what went wrong. What did the president and the Republican Party do and when did they do it? Robert Novak summed up the consensus view of the Republican wipeout well, writing that "opposition to the war and the president had produced a virulent anti-Republican mood." My point of departure from most of the analysis that I've read would be to disagree that this election was about any single issue. I think this election was about trust. Trust is the glue that holds relationships together. The war, rather than being THE issue, was more a...

NPR Complains About John Kerry Coverage, Post Political Editor Boasts He Buried It Posted by Tim Graham on November 9, 2006 - 08:48. On the weekend before the election, the NPR show "On The Media" brought their usual liberal criticism of the media to bear, with co-host Brooke Gladstone complaining how the national media was somehow an over-enthusiastic puppy in?coverage of Kerry's don't-be-stupid-and-get-stuck-in-Iraq comment: "But the media can't stop masticating on this latest liberal gaffe like a Washington Monument-sized Snausage." (As in "scrumptious" doggie treat.) Her guest was Washington Post national political editor John F. Harris, who boasted he?succeeded in...

The country is buzzing about Rush Limbaugh's post-election comments that he felt liberated now that he would no longer have to shill for those who had not earned his unequivocal support. Limbaugh said, "I feel liberated, ladies and gentlemen, because I feel like I don't have to carry the water for people that I think don't deserve to have their water carried." Limbaugh's success as a talk-radio host comes from his incredible talent at analyzing the lay of the land, breaking down the issues of the day for his audience and seeing things that most people miss when sizing up...

Living in Italy, one often has the challenge of explaining the workings of American politics to Italians, a people whose own political system can sometimes admittedly resemble a psychedelic jigsaw puzzle of ever-changing design. For such an endeavor, the Italians have a unique way of wishing one luck. They say ?In bocca al lupo?, or ?into the mouth of the wolf.? Tuesday, an evening that henceforth many will think upon as ?the night of long teeth?, the Democrats effected a sweeping re-balance of Congress ? although it should be said that the Democrats did not so much win this week...

I've been thinking a lot about our devastating losses in the Midterm Election, and trying to ask myself, "Where do we go from here?" In order to properly answer that question, we need to determine HOW we get into this situation where we have lost both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The mainstream media would like you to believe that the 2006 Election signals the end of the so-called "Reagan Coalition" and the beginning of a move to the Left in American politics. I do NOT agree. The Reagan coalition has NOT been destroyed, but I do think...

(In my article on "The Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party" in the Fall, 2006 issue of The New Individualist I analyzed the likely results of a GOP turning more and more to big government, interventionist policies. In that issue TNI editor Robert Bidinotto's piece on "Back to the Future?" looked at the philosophical degeneration of the Republican Party. The results of the party's direction were seen at the polls in the 2006 elections.) November 8, 2006 -- Months of prognostication about the predicted pitiful performance at the polls by Republicans has now given way to prescriptions about...

YES, I THOUGHT the GOP would do better Tuesday -- I certainly didn't see 28 (as of this writing) House seats going to the Democrats. I thought the GOP was sure to retain the Senate. Democrats beware, however, if you think this was a victory for your party. As Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen noted in a conference call Wednesday morning, Dems won the House by picking candidates who were "running away" from liberal Democratic positions. Independents, who rejected President Bush and congressional GOP leaders, have not signed on to soon-to-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi's agenda. Yes, I am disappointed. I strongly...

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, likely new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and the media will portray Tuesday's takeover as a repudiation of President Bush's leadership on the war in Iraq. The public's media-tinted perception of U.S. progress in Iraq, and its subsequent willingness to vote for Democratic House and Senate candidates does not, however, fully explain the switch in party control. No explanation of the Democrats' takeover is complete without laying partial blame on President Bush's so-called compassionate conservative agenda. The term compassionate conservatism was coined by University of Texas professor and...

KOKOMO, Ind. (AP) -- The Democratic challengers considered most likely to unseat incumbent Republican congressmen in Indiana next month are all running as conservatives. Former Congressman Baron Hill's Web site mentions "My Faith in God," "The Sanctity of Marriage," and opposition to late-term abortions. Joe Donnelly says he opposes abortion and wants no part of a mandated troop withdrawal from Iraq. Vanderburgh County Sheriff Brad Ellsworth campaigns on his career in law enforcement and appears on his Web site carrying a hunting rifle. Ellsworth is running against incumbent John Hostettler in the Eighth District, Donnelly against Chris Chocola in the...

Democrats win control of Senate with Jim Webb victory in Virginia.

The midterm elections are over and those who hoped for a Republican victory are still digesting the results. The usual pre-election mainstream media hype led many to the mistaken impression that the Democratic Party's much-vaunted success might not pan out. But in fact, the Democrats did much better than expected, taking the House and possibly the Senate as well. So what does it all mean? Clearly, the Republican Party has in some respects lost its way. The dissension within the ranks over the last few years over issues such as runaway federal spending, illegal immigration, the Dubai ports deal, and...

President Bush struck a businesslike tone Tuesday night as the Republicans lost control of the House, making plans to call the woman poised to become speaker of a Democratic House majority. Bush, unaccustomed to political defeat, planned a morning phone call to Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi and made plans to give his take on the midterm election results at an afternoon news conference. Asked if the president was surprised that the House was headed for Democratic control, Snow said it wasn‘t "a slap-on-the-forehead kind of shock."

Democrat Harold Ford Jr. talks to the reporters outside the Little Rebel Bar and Grill during his campaign for U.S. Senate in Jackson, Tenn. Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2006. Ford is running against Republican candidate Bob Corker. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The RNC is sending this memo to surrogates this afternoon. NATIONAL Of the precincts that the RNC is monitoring turnout, we have a ?% turnout advantage over the 2004 turnout (GOP precincts are turning out at 32.9% of 2004 vote while DEM precincts are turning out at 32.5% of 2004 vote) Many states like Colorado, Nevada, Arizona have 25% of votes cast before election day. ARIZONA There were 60K more ballots submitted by Republicans before Election Day ? and 41% of the state has already voted. In 2004 Exit Polling was off by 3.5% (they had it at 7%, actual...

<p>Here?s how the 2006 mid-term election was stolen.</p> <p>Note the past tense. And I?m not kidding.</p> <p>And shoot me for saying this, but it won?t be stolen by jerking with the touch-screen machines (though they?ll do their nasty part). While progressives panic over the viral spread of suspect computer black boxes, the Karl Rove-bots have been tunneling into the vote vaults through entirely different means.</p>

Many believe that Sen. John Kerry's Halloween eve statement calling our military personnel ignorant, uneducated failures who have no opportunity for anything other than – gasp – can you believe it – service to their country, is further evidence of the Democrat Party's contemptuous loathing of our military men and women. I believe Kerry's so-called "botched joke" is a deviant pathology of sensus plenior that is emblematic of elitists – particularly those who hold public office – regardless of their party affiliation. This is why liberal Democrats cannot be trusted, and it is why the conservative base is disgusted with...

A series of late-October, early November surprises has turned the midterm elections into a real horse race. The bullish stock markets of recent months have been saying all along that a Democratic tsunami will not materialize, but now even a decent Dem wave seems a long shot. First we have the John Kerry blunder: The Massachusetts senator badmouthed American troops in Iraq as a bunch of uneducated losers. This was typical anti-war elitism from Kerry, but his timing was impeccable. In a scorched-earth negative response, undecided and independent voters are flocking into the Republican camp, according to late-breaking polls from...

Do not, under any circumstances, believe any exit polls you hear. Just don't listen. Tell your friends not to listen. Exit polls are always wrong, and they always favor Democrats. The are---or appear to be---designed specifically to dampen GOP turnout by creating a "why bother, it's over" kind of mood. Don't let them get away with it. Don't talk about exit polls. If you hear other people talking about them, set them straight. Don't post them in forums, or on your blog, or anywhere. Don't think about them... don't even poke them with a stick. On a similar matter: Do...

Democrats will stop at nothing to hike taxes - even trying to seize hard-earned dollars "when you die," President Bush needled yesterday in his final pre-election push to rally the GOP faithful. "The Democrat philosophy is this: If it breathes, tax it, and if it stops breathing, find its children and tax them," Bush said to laughs at a GOP rally in the Florida panhandle town of Pensacola. "The Democrats want to raise taxes when you're born, when you're working, when you're retired, and when you die," he charged. "Our philosophy is, we want you to have more of your...

"Nought man could do, have I left undone." The line from Robert Browning's poem "The Patriot" springs to mind as Pennsylvania's Senator Rick Santorum talks quietly but passionately during a last swing through the heart of Pennsylvania. The crowd in Carlisle, the county seat of vote-rich Cumberland County, filled with a decided mix of seniors, mullet-wearing young men, parents with squirming kids (including Santorum's six), and enthusiastic twenty-somethings. They are witnesses to one of the most remarkable Senate candidates in the country as well as in Pennsylvania's long history, and they clearly know it. While Santorum has long-since emerged as...

Do you need some motivation to get you to the polls today? I do. And here's mine. As you know, I've been extremely disappointed by the Republicans who have been in control of Congress and the presidency since 2001. They waited far too long to act on border security. They increased spending beyond imagination. Far too often, they talked and acted like Democrats. I've been a strong advocate of not voting for the lesser to two evils as a means of stimulating more competition in the political marketplace. But I'd like to present the other side of that story today,...

Going into Election Day 2004, Bush was apparently down about two points, give or take a few depending on which survey you read. He ended up winning by three points. In other words, he out-performed surveys by about five percent. What would the Senate look like if they Republicans as a whole out-performed current poll data by a consistent five points? Here's a hint: If you have a soft spot for any liberals, you may want to keep them away from sharp objects, tall buildings, etc. The following are NOT predictions. They are simply a representation of what MAY happen...

Seven very BIG reasons to vote Republican tomorrow: 1) The war against global jihadism. There is no reason whatsoever to trust the Democrat Party with our national security against the global jihadists. They don't even recognize the threat, much less possess the spine to actually fight the enemy. And the cut and run Democrat Party will not stop at surrender. Make no bones about it, their overall objective includes making the US completely defenseless. 2) The ongoing battle for the constitution and against liberal judicial activism. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to trust the liberal/socialist Democrat Party with majority...

The Republicans were deploying their legendary machine last night to rouse the faithful and drive up turnout for midterm elections today, with activists buoyed by polls suggesting the party had recovered some lost ground in the final hours of the campaign. In a contest that will help write the legacy of George Bush - as well as that of the man called his brain, the political strategist Karl Rove - thousands of party activists fanned out to battleground states, immersed in a $30m (£15.8m) drive to retain Republican control of Congress. For Mr Bush, yesterday was also a day of...

DON'T VOTE ... until you visit Robyn Nordell's conservative election guide for California and Federal campaigns. She provides excellent evaluations and ratings for judges, propositions and candidates. http://www.robynnordell.com/

Oh No, Massa! N.Y. Democrat Candidate Faced with Foley-Style Problem Posted by Tim Graham on November 4, 2006 - 11:39. Via the Sixers blog on NRO, we learn that the George Stephanopoulos pledge that the Mark Foley scandal would resonate in every congressional race sometimes comes true. Consider that in upstate New York, the shoe is on other foot, the Democratic foot, embarrassing the challenger to first-term Congressman Randy Kuhl. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports: (November 2, 2006) — CORNING — Democratic congressional candidate Eric Massa fired his campaign manager in June and has accused him of providing alcohol to...

"Question: If your last name were Abortion would you name any of your children Alternative? Probably not! So a more pertinent question is this: If you saw the name Alternative Abortion on a voter registration form, complete with an address and a social security number, you’d be suspicious, right? You’d think somebody was playing a tasteless joke. Or maybe even committing a crime, because that’s what fraudulently filling out a voter registration form is, a crime. This one is currently under investigation by Delaware County District Attorney’s office, along with hundreds of other suspicious voter registration forms turned into the...

(AP) NASHUA, N.H. -- Democratic Party leaders in New Hampshire are disavowing a legislative candidate in Nashua who identified himself on a questionnaire as a Democrat and a Communist. Twenty-two-year-old Daniel Keating is one of five candidates running for three seats House District 25, in the Nashua area. Keating is listed on the ballot as a Democrat, but in a questionnaire for The Nashua Telegraph's online voter guide, he also described his party affiliation as Communist Party of the United States of America. Keating said Monday that he joined the Communist Party USA about a year ago because it promotes...