Free Republic

Do you think that it's impossible for politicians to give you even less respect than they have for you now? Of course they can! And by following these steps, you can go from Joe Citizen to Joe Nobody in no time! I present to you my seven-step program for becoming totally irrelevant as a voter. Step 1: Commit unconditionally The first thing you need to do is realize that are no covenant relationships in life more sacred than marriage and political party affiliation. You have to make a decision here. What's more important to you - your undying commitment to...

New video feature will zero in on the issues and events - an online video series to keep you up to date on the election. Host Stuart Shepard gets insights on the presidential race from Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy at Focus Action. Family advocates from across the nation will appear in upcoming episodes. "This is a challenging year for Christian conservatives to sort through where the leading candidates stand on pro-family issues," Shepard said. "We'll cut through the hype and the campaign ads and shine a light on how they view the sanctity of...

Watching the two presidential candidates court "evangelicals" by way of the Saddleback Church Civil Forum Saturday night was an exercise of perplexing proportions. While both senators clearly have very distinct delivery styles and vastly different approaches to addressing the issues of our day, John McCain undoubtedly restored faith among the faithful. As eloquent and smooth as Barack Obama can be (and he had his impressive moments that left me moved), his vague and ambiguous answers to the most innocuous questions on faith and American politics were at best disappointing. The forum's audience consisted of a voting bloc Mr. Obama needs...

I started focusing on the political process in the mid-to-late 80's. For as long as I've been involved, it has been generally accepted that Ronald Reagan's success was keyed to his ability to bring the three legs of the conservative movement to stand together -- the foreign policy, economic, and social conservatives. Today, I believe the Republican and Democrat establishments would love nothing more than for the social conservatives to sit down and shut up, but they know this demographic can still really impact an election. It is harder for social conservatives to win elections by themselves these days. They...

Primary turnout and recent surveys show conservative "values" voters have abandoned the Republican Party. Illustrating a dramatic about face from past elections, a recent study shows that if the election were held today, 40% of all evangelical Christian voters would choose the Democratic candidate and just 29% would choose the Republican candidate. The remaining 28% are undecided, saying they would make their selection without respect to party affiliation. A Barna Group release titled: Born Again Voters No Longer Favor Republican Candidates cites figures that spell doom for the Republican Party, given that "in the past couple of elections, the born...

A few weeks ago, Fred Thompson exited the race for President. In the wake of that decision, the FredHeads and the members of DraftFredThompson.com engaged in a whole lot of soul-searching and vigorous discussion as to what to do next. Fred's candidacy may have come to an end, but our faith in the principles that originally drew us to Fred was as strong as ever. The product of that soul-searching and vigorous discussion is Conservatives for the Advancement of the Reagan Coalition, a new organization formed to advance the key conservative principles articulated by men like Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan...

On behalf of the Texas Credit Union League, Public Opinion Strategies and Hamilton Campaigns conducted two Texas statewide surveys... • Senator McCain garners 45% of the Republican primary vote while Governor Huckabee shores up support from 41% of the primary electorate, making this race a statistical tie within the margin of error. Texas Congressman Ron Paul claims 6% of the vote and 5% say they are undecided. • McCain’s image is 75% favorable, 22% unfavorable, while Huckabee’s is 75% favorable, 15% unfavorable. Huckabee has a 36% strong favorable rating compared to McCain’s 29%. • McCain leads 49% to 36% among...

By far, the most significant story of the 2008 Republican primaries has been the unlikely candidacy of Mike Huckabee and his_single-handed_resuscitation of Christian conservatives as a force to be reckoned with in the Republican_Party. Yet, regardless of how he fares on Super_Tuesday_and_beyond, Mr. Huckabee will perhaps be best remembered as the man who, however unintentionally, helped persuade evangelicals to vote a Democrat into the White House in 2008 – and possibly in future races, as well. Since the 1970s, conventional_wisdom has held that evangelicals are driven by a single-minded_concern with defending "moral values," while mainline Protestants focus on issues of...

Commentary by Daniel Zanoza, Executive Director It has been an amazing experience. I have watched this year's race for the Republican presidential nomination with jaw-dropping awe. The Republican Party's elite, the dominant media and supposed conservative talk radio have done everything possible to marginalize Mike Huckabee--the only true pro-family Republican in the race--while doing so with a straight face. Here's a message I hope no pro-family voter will ignore or mistake for political gamesmanship. There is a movement at hand in the GOP to marginalize the pro-family element of the Republican Party. The attack is coming from the Republican elite...

While John McCain has risen to the top of the heap among contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson remains adamant that he will not support McCain’s bid for the White House. Dobson, one of the nation’s most influential evangelical Christians, declared more than a year ago that he wouldn't support McCain under any circumstances, saying McCain didn't support traditional marriage values. A Dobson spokesman told the New York Times’ David Kirkpatrick Wednesday that he stood by that position, and as a matter of conscience could never vote for the Arizona Senator. According to...

Oh boy one has to believe that Huckabee will be getting some blow-back from this. These push polls have even brought out the South Carolina Attorney General to make this statement: “Last evening the Associated Press reported that that an out-of-state special interest group, Common Sense Issues, had launched a massive push polling effort disparaging John McCain and other candidates for president. In their push poll, Common Sense Issues makes several misleading claims regarding John McCain’s record.“Allow me to set the record straight. In the U.S. Senate, John McCain has been an unwavering voice for the rights of the unborn....

Senator Fred Thompson is far and away the best conservative candidate to represent those who live in Jesusland, according to David Jeffers, author of Understanding Evangelicals: A Guide to Jesusland. "Evangelicals are looking for a candidate who is strongly pro-life, is for traditional families, and who is an actual Reagan Conservative." Jeffers explains, "Every GOP candidate is espousing Reagan-like characteristics, but only Thompson has the record to back it up." Jeffers claims that many in Jesusland are enamored with Governor Mike Huckabee because of his Southern Baptist roots and strong social conservative values. "There are three important agendas in the...

The Economist on the grand coalition of the Republican Party: Business conservatives can never win a majority without the support of “values voters” (there just are not enough people around who look like Mr Romney). “Values voters” can never produce a viable governing coalition without the help of the business elite. The Republicans have seen revolts against their ruling coalition before—remember Pat Buchanan’s pitchfork rebellion against George Bush senior—and they have always succeeded in putting it back together again. They need to do the same now. Enough Republicans believe enough of the Reagan mantra—less government, traditional values and strong defence—to...

Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister-turned-politician who was almost unknown outside his home state of Arkansas as recently as last summer, drew the votes of thousands of self-described evangelical Christians to win the Iowa Republican caucuses. Sure. Sixty percent of those who participated in the Iowa Republican caucuses identified themselves as Evangelical Christians. Mr. Huckabee billed himself as a "Christian Leader" and is one of them. In addition, he can be amusing, entertaining and glib and he had made himself look presentable and self-controlled by losing more than 100 pounds. But Mr. Huckabee's political record is not generally known and as...

(NOTE: From FRC action E-MAIL; link is to their home page. I've broken it into paragraphs, and added emphasis): Washington is reeling from last night's Iowa caucuses. A loud and clear message was delivered, but whether it will be heard is yet to be seen. On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee's huge victory can be attributed to two primary reasons. First, he is real and his style reflects it. He is engaging and he talks with people, not at them. He is a great campaigner; he is the communicator in this presidential election cycle. Second, evangelicals, dispirited by Republican indifference...

Ok, yeah I have small children. But that’s beside the point. I think Fred Thompson has a strong shot at 2nd place in Iowa. I don’t want to get my hopes up too high because it is more likely that he will finish 3rd. But if, as I am getting from the news coverage, this McCain, Huckabee, Romney food fight on the airwaves in Iowa is souring voters to those candidates, Fred Thompson could be the beneficiary of that sentiment. Going negative in Iowa has always carried risks and Iowa is the place where dark horses rise to the top....

Choosing a person for the office of president of the United States is the most difficult decision that a citizen of America must make. The person I chose is of high quality in character, integrity, wisdom, knowledge, education, experience, and a love for our Creator, [the people] and for our nation—[some]one of obvious moral and ethical character ... including unimpaired soundness in [such] qualities as honesty, reliability, faithfulness and maturity. And, of course, wisdom. Knowledge is also a requirement, and that is acquired from tried-and-true hard work, using the tools of a fine education and experience from the trails of...

Mitt Romney said last year that it would be “akin to a nightmare” to have to fund his presidential campaign out of his personal fortune. But I can think of worse things. One would be spending $20 million of your money . . . and then losing. Forget “akin to” - that would be the politician’s ultimate nightmare. So now Mitt Romney is about to find out how much it costs to buy - or fail to buy - an election in 2008. A lot more than the $6 million it cost him to buy the Massachusetts governorship in 2002,...

David Yepsen has a horrifically bad column in the Sunday Des Moines Register. In it, he distills each candidate down to the usual cliches of the leftist/"centrist" newspaper agenda: Mike Huckabee The former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister has soared in the GOP race following his second-place finish in the Iowa Republican straw poll in August. He has rallied party social and religious conservatives as well as supporters of a big national sales tax to replace the income tax. He's a witty speaker and an affable politician whose criticisms of the nation's economic policies sound a lot like the populist...

Here's an interesting analysis by WaPo's Dan Balz of Huckabee's closing-round Iowa speech, which Balz, a veteran political reporter, says is unlike anything he's ever heard in politics. Excerpts from the Balz analysis. Boldface mine: Most candidates in the final days before a crucial election offer a vision of what their leadership would mean to the lives of ordinary people. They include lists of issue priorities of the kind Hillary Clinton offers. They can wrap policy with an inspirational frame of the type Barack Obama presents or sound a call to arms in the way John Edwards is doing. They...

It was a simple commercial, with Mike Huckabee posed in front of a set of scandalously empty white bookshelves that, when framed just right beside a Christmas tree, formed a glowing cross behind the candidate. And, lo, the former Southern Baptist pastor told the voters: "Are you about worn out by all the television commercials you've been seeing, mostly about politics? I don't blame you. At this time of year, sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is a celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family...

DES MOINES - With thousands of undecided voters still up for grabs in the final week before voting begins, the leading presidential contenders yesterday aimed their closing arguments at those still settling on a candidate or just tuning into the most wide-open nomination races in decades.

The Christmas ads that showed up in Iowa and New Hampshire — and here, on the Internet — are mostly just more ads, but with a new and disturbing twist. There is Barack Obama, being sensitive by letting his wife, Michelle, speak first; Rudy Giuliani, softening his image by joking with Santa, and Ron Paul grinning in the midst of family pandemonium. John McCain reminds us he was a prisoner of war, Fred Thompson offers heart-warming snapshots of the troops and John Edwards promises not to forget the poor. The hullabaloo has come over the ad for Mike Huckabee. He...

With Mike Huckabee's continuing surge, the Republican Party now has an Iowa front-runner whose religious beliefs are virtually identical to those of George Bush. He's anti-choice, born-again, against gay-marriage, and gets political advice directly from God. So why is the Republican establishment suddenly in a state of near-apoplexy about Mike Huckabee? Shouldn't they be happy? They've been cultivating evangelicals and fundamentalists for 30 years. Now they finally have a candidate who's truly part of the movement. So what's the problem? Actually, that is the problem. The evangelical crowd was fine when it was just a resource to be cynically exploited...

Why does the GOP Establishment fear Huck? Juan Cole's got a bad case of left-wing Huckenfreude: I simply can not tell you how much I am enjoying this. The GOP has been pandering to these stupid bastards for years, and every time I pointed it out I was called “anti-Christian” or something or other. Those of us who saw what the party was becoming were told to shut up, that it was good politics. Enjoy your new GOP, folks. And here is something else to think about- are the evangelicals going to support Romney or Giuliani if you do manage...

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter says GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is the “Republican Jimmy Carter” and nominating him would be a big mistake for the party. Appearing with John Gibson and Heather Nauert on Fox News’ “The Big Story,” Coulter was asked about Huckabee’s recent surge in the polls. “I’m getting tired of this being blamed on the evangelicals,” said Coulter. Huckabee’s rise is actually “bad for the evangelicals,” she asserted. “Mike Huckabee is the Republican Jimmy Carter.” Nominating the ordained Baptist minister “would be a big mistake,” Coulter opined. “He has many good qualities. Unfortunately, the things that are...

Today Senator Fred Thompson received the endorsement of the California ProLife Council. "There are so many pro-life candidates in the race," said Lawrence Lehr, PAC Chairman. "But Fred Thompson is clearly the one, consistently pro-life candidate with the ability to win in November. It is important that pro-life voters rally around a candidate that can make a difference." The California ProLife Council is the state affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee. CPLC is a non-profit, non-partisan, non-sectarian grassroots organization dedicated to the cessation of the perceived need for abortion, euthanasia and infanticide. California ProLife Council believes this goal...

Hard to conjure up that image but it's true. Thomspon sends out an e-mail blast taking issue with Romney's statement today on MTP that "every piece of legislation which came to my desk in the coming years as a Governor, I came down on the side of preserving the sanctity of life." The "fact check" includes this: "Romney's health care legislation provides taxpayer-funded abortions for a co-pay of just $50. Romney vetoed EIGHT provisions in his health care bill that he deemed objectionable, including the expansion of dental benefits to Medicaid recipients. He did not veto Planned Parenthoods' guaranteed position...

WASHINGTON — Fred Thompson received an important endorsement recently from the National Right to Life Committee, although enthusiasm for his campaign has faded since his high poll numbers in September. The pro-life organization announced its endorsement in November based on the Republican presidential candidate’s pro-life voting record as a former Tennessee senator. “Fred Thompson has had a strong, consistent pro-life record throughout his political career,” said Wanda Franz, president of National Right to Life. Franz also mentioned that Thompson has consistently opposed Roe v. Wade, federally funded abortions, and embryonic stem-cell research. The endorsement attracted additional interest in the Thompson...

Memo to readers: With his superb performance in Wednesday's debate in Iowa, Fred Thompson_has made a monkey out of me. By early afternoon on Tuesday, the column that appears below, one which posits that Thompson's presidential campaign might still find a way to win, was ready in exactly the form it appears here. But I thought the column would still remain exactly on target throughout the week, so (for various reasons) I aimed for a Friday release. At the time, I thought that until Thompson began his Iowa bus tour on Monday the 17th, my_contention that he "ain't dead" yet...

DAVENPORT, Iowa -- With 27 days left until the caucuses, presidential candidates are hitting the campaign trail in Iowa and promise to be here from now through the holidays. This afternoon Republican Fred Thompson was at Thunderbay Grill in Davenport reaching out to conservative voters and dismissing the importance of polls that show him trailing behind both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. An Associated Press poll released today shows Thompson with just 10-percent of the vote in Iowa and Huckabee taking the majority with 39-percent. But Thompson's not slowing down. While Thompson trails in the polls, many of the people...

Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Mitt Romney tout their pro-life credentials. But Fred Thompson keeps getting key endorsements. Check this out below from the Christian News Wire: Today, at a press conference in Columbia, South Carolina, Fred Thompson received the endorsement of South Carolina Citizens for Life. "South Carolina Citizens for Life is pleased to join in National Right to Life's endorsement of Fred Thompson for President of the United States," said Holly Gatling, executive director. "We believe Fred Thompson is the pro-life candidate in the strongest position to defeat pro-abortion Rudy Giuliani and then to defeat the pro-abortion Democrat...

COLUMBIA, SC (AP) - The South Carolina affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee has endorsed Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson. South Carolina Citizens for Life on Wednesday praised the former Tennessee senator's voting record on abortion issues. In a news release, the group cited Thompson's vote against so-called partial-birth abortion and his stance for adult stem cell research but not embryonic stem cell research. Thompson has touted his anti-abortion voting record during his campaign. He has already been endorsed by the committee's national group.

In addition to his solid policy proposals and committment to federalism, here’s another feather in Fred Thomspon’s cap for me, ‘Right With God’ But Not Churchgoer Says Thompson Asked about his religious beliefs during an appearance before about 500 Republicans in South Carolina yesterday, Fred Thompson said he attends church when he visits his mother in Tennessee but does not belong to a church or attend regularly at his home in McLean, Va., just outside Washington. The actor and former senator, who was baptized in the Church of Christ, said he gained his values from “sitting around the kitchen table”...

In one of the toughest mailers to hit yet, Fred Thompson is going after Mike Huckabee on taxes in a piece that is hitting Iowa households. And he's doing so by using the ultimate GOP insult: comparing Huckabee to his fellow Hope native and former Arkansas governor. Thompson badly needs to move the needle in Iowa, and he and Huck are targeting the same voters. Voters who, to put it mildly, have minimal regard for the 42nd president.

In the final Election Day reckoning, the race did not go to the loudest or most passionate religious voices. Instead, the judgments of moderate Catholics and Protestants were more influential than an impressive turnout by religious liberals and conservatives, according to the University of Akron's fourth national survey of religion and politics released this week.The post-election survey of 2,730 adult respondents showed an increasingly polarized religious electorate, with nearly 90 percent of conservative evangelical Protestants voting for President Bush and nearly four in five liberal mainline Protestants choosing Sen. John Kerry. But it was in the center, among moderate Protestants...

SPARTANBURG, SC (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson says Americans need to choose a president next year that will get the country back on the right track. The former Tennessee senator told an overflow crowd of about 100 people at a Spartanburg restaurant that the nation needs a true conservative as president to help lessen the influence of liberals in Congress. Thompson also emphasized his Southern roots and says he is an example of the true American story. Thompson also talked about his bedrock conservative values and said he is unique among Republican candidates in that his stance on...

It is very rare, if not unheard of, to catch a presidential candidate, especially a Republican, in the act of saying he or she would be willing to sign any tax increase that lawmakers wished for. But that's what happened to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has rocketed to a statistical tie in Iowa with Mitt Romney, largely as a result of the former Baptist minister's support from evangelical voters in the nation's first caucus state. The Club for Growth, an effective tax-cut advocacy group, has been on Huckabee's back almost from the beginning of his candidacy, sending out...

According to The Politico, New York Post columnist and FOX News contributor Dick Morris has been secretly advising former client Mike Huckabee on his Presidential campaign. Morris claims he is acting in an entirely voluntary capacity by simply offering free advice. Keep in mind that nationally syndicated columnist George Will was pilloried by the media when it became public that he had secretly and voluntarily helped Ronald Reagan prepare for his Presidential debates in 1980. A prominent national GOP insider tells Politics1 that he believes Morris -- despite his claims to the contrary -- is paid for his services through...

I was proud to host Senator Fred Thompson to the 70th Assembly District today to an enthusiastic crowd of 700 people in Laguna Woods. According to my wife, Diane, Senator Thompson, “Covered all the bases. He hit all the conservative themes and he covered them articulately and with passion.” I was very glad to hear that as Diane is very tough to impress (she had a weak moment when she met me, for which I am eternally grateful). Greeting Senator Thompson at the rally were his state chairman, Sen. Tom McClintock, radio personality John Ziegler emceed the event while former...

CNN is defending its job in vetting questions for last night's debate, reports Politico's Kenneth Vogel: The retired general who quizzed Republican presidential candidates about gays and lesbians in the military was not the only person linked to a Democratic presidential candidate who got to ask a question at Wednesday’s CNN/YouTube debate. CNN also aired questions from supporters of Democratic candidates John Edwards and Barack Obama. And that’s fine by the network, which is standing by its question selection process and lashing out at critics who say the debate demonstrated CNN’s liberal bias. “We’re focused on the questions, not the...

With word that the FairTax political operation has run out of money, the talk in Iowa is that a new organization may be coming to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's aid. A 501c4 organization is said to be forming to help Huckabee in the 30 or so days leading up to the Iowa Republican caucus. Huckabee has been leveraging the support of two semi-obscure groups in Iowa, the FairTax group, a one-time offshoot of the Church of Scientology, and a second-tier home-schooling coalition, which operates a 501c4 and has been attempting to organize support for Huckabee in Iowa, South Carolina,...

According to MSNBC host Chris Matthews, 2008 Republican candidate Mike Huckabee has been given "the biggest free ride from the liberal media that I have ever seen in my life." Appearing on Monday's edition of "Morning Joe," the "Hardball" anchor speculated that left-wingers would enjoy seeing the GOP "chaos" that a Huckabee victory in Iowa would produce and, as a result, are ignoring the Republican's "crazy" views on gun control. Matthews derided as "black helicopter stuff," the former Arkansas governor's assertion that owning a gun gives Americans the ability to fight tyranny. "It sounds crazy," he told "Morning Joe" host...

Presidential Race: The war for the soul of the Republican Party was won in 1980 by Ronald Reagan. Presidential candidates who want to re-wage the conflict in 2008 will only weaken the GOP against the Democrats' nominee. In the aftermath of Vietnam, Watergate and a Jimmy Carter presidency that rendered America an economic and foreign policy basket case, Republicans discovered a tried-and-true recipe for electoral success. They would stand for three sets of principles: • Lowering high taxes and stemming the growth of government in order to revive the private economy, lower inflation and interest rates, and generate jobs. •...

Former professional basketball player Jason Caffey had two children with his wife, and at least six other children with women in metro Atlanta, Alabama, Louisiana and Illinois. Professional football player Travis Henry, a Denver Broncos running back with a $25 million contract, has nine children by nine women in four Southern states, including a Lithonia boy fathered out of wedlock three years ago. Caffey, who earned as much as $5 million a season in a 10-year NBA career with the Chicago Bulls, Golden State Warriors and Milwaukee Bucks, filed for bankruptcy in Alabama in August. His wife, who lives in...

You can thank me (or throw eggs at me), not the miscounting in Florida, for Al Gore not being the president of the United States. You see, Tennessee did not vote for its favorite son in 2000. I was a voter in Tennessee in 2000. Had Gore been able to carry the state that knew him best, there would have been no need for recounts in Florida. Throughout the three weeks of recounting, the media descended upon Florida. No one came to Tennessee to ask us why we had not voted for our own former U.S. Senator. We did not...

Fred Thompson's campaign got some good news in the polls this week as a new survey shows him tied with Mitt Romney in the early primary battleground of South Carolina. A new survey released Friday also shows him almost in a tie with pro-abortion New York Sen. Hillary Clinton nationally. The Rasmussen poll, conducted on Tuesday, finds both Thompson and Romney at 21 percent in the southern state among likely primary voters. The bad news for Thompson is the poll shows a decline of four percent and Romney increasing his percentage, but it shows his campaign continuing its strategy of...

The presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told Cybercast News Service on Wednesday that Romney does not favor punishing women who have abortions but does favor punishing abortionists, perhaps even with incarceration. The description of Romney's abortion policy was made in a statement that Romney Communications Director Matt Rhoades issued to Cybercast News Service after Cybercast News Service asked a Romney spokesman about an answer Romney had given in a Nov. 19 interview with Human Events. "Several of your rivals said they opposed criminalizing abortion, by putting the women or the doctors involved in jail. Do you agree?"...

Here are some recent statements on the character and background of recent conservative favorite Mike Huckabee: Phyllis Shlafly, president of Eagle Forum: "He destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles ... Yet some of the same evangelicals who sold us on George W. Bush as a 'compassionate conservative' are now trying to sell us on Mike Huckabee." Betsy Hagan, Arkansas director of the Eagle Forum and a key backer of his early runs for office: "He was pro-life and pro-gun, but otherwise a liberal ... Just like Bill Clinton he will charm you, but...

This Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone November 14-18, 2007, among a random sample of 400 Iowans likely to vote in the Republican caucus. The results have a five percentage point margin of sampling error. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by TNS of Horsham, Pa. *= less than 0.5 percent --snip-- 4. (FOR SCREENING PURPOSES) If the caucuses were being held today, would you attend the (Democratic Party caucus) or the (Republican Party caucus) in your precinct? Democratic caucus Republican caucus 11/18/07 0 100 7/31/07 0 100 5. If the Republican caucus were being held today, and the...