Dear Friend:
I wanted you to be among the first to know of my decision regarding running for Congress in the Seventh District of Georgia. The following statement will be released to the public shortly but I wanted you to have it first:
“After much thought and prayer, I have decided not to [...]

rick-santorum
WINDSOR HEIGHTS, Iowa – As he speaks to hundreds of Iowa evangelicals about his “faith walk,” it’s clear former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is connecting with the audience.
Santorum may have been trounced in his 2006 re-election bid, but on Tuesday night at a suburban Des Moines church the crowd of about 500 people seemed to [...]

By Dick Morris
And now the House Democrats line up at the instruction of their blind commanders for a final charge into glory as they battle to foist a health care system on a country that neither wants it nor can afford it. The charge may or may not reach its objective. But one thing is [...]

The Iowa Christian Alliance is hosting an event this evening at a church in Windsor Heights and what follows is a live blog of the festivities. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is the keynote speaker. Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition, is the emcee. Neither were able to fly into the [...]

The former leader of the Christian Coalition was in Iowa tonight, urging members of the Iowa Christian Alliance to help launch a new, “sister” organization in the state. Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition, said the “Iowa Faith and Freedom” organization will make sure “God’s people” know where the candidates stand.
“We’re [...]

PLCLGOP21_5759
Colorado looks like it’s settling in for a closely contested race for governor.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds former Republican Congressman Scott McInnis leading Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper 48% to 42%. Just three percent (3%) of Colorado voters opt for some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are [...]

Support for Charlie Crist from conservative voters has pretty much evaporated, and that’s allowed Marco Rubio to build a 32 point lead in the Republican primary for Senate.
Rubio now leads Crist 60-28, including a staggering 71-17 lead with conservatives. Crist has a 49-36 advantage with party moderates, but they account for just 31% of likely [...]

Ralph backstage at Fox News with Fox News contributor Bob Beckel and country music singer and Air National Guard and the National Guard Youth Foundation celebrity spokesperson Laura Bryna.

Ralph on Hannity

President Obama
Despite his decisions to surge troops to Afghanistan, delay the closure of the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, and perhaps reverse himself by endorsing military commissions for terror suspects, President Obama is still losing ground in polls related to national security.
Such is the finding of a new major survey released Monday by leading Democratic [...]

A majority of Americans say the United States is less respected in the world than it was two years ago and think President Obama and other Democrats fall short of Republicans on the issue of national security, a new poll finds.
The Democracy Corps-Third Way survey released Monday finds that by a 10-point margin — 51 [...]

John Kasich 2005
Republican challenger John Kasich has extended his lead over incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland to 11 points in Ohio’s gubernatorial race.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Ohio voters finds Kasich leading Strickland 49% to 38%. Six percent (6%) prefer another candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.
Last month, Kasich held a six-point [...]

When Joe Scarborough and I talk each week on the radio, we frequently mention that former Congressman Pat Toomey is the model candidate for the Republican Party.
Though Pat Toomey is pro-life, his campaign focuses on jobs, business, regulation, and the free market. Back at the RedState Gathering in August (the next one will be announced [...]

Perry
“Stop messing with Texas!” That was the message Gov. Rick Perry bellowed on election night as he celebrated his victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary for governor. In his reference to Texas’ anti-littering slogan, Perry was making a point applicable to national as well as Texas politics and addressed to Democratic [...]

Washington, DC – Today the Susan B. Anthony List announced the results of a series of polls conducted in congressional districts by the polling company,inc/WomanTrend. The surveys asked registered voters about abortion funding and healthcare reform in the following members’ districts: Jason Altmire (PA-04), Paul Kanjorski (PA-11), Brad Ellsworth (IN-08), Baron Hill (IN-09), Steve [...]

Rapper Jay-Z’s apparent visit to the White House Situation Room Wednesday reveals a radical departure from the last eight years of security policy, according to a senior Bush administration official.
According to photos released by an anonymous twitter user, Jay-Z, along with his entourage and his wife Beyonce, visited the White House Wednesday before a concert [...]

By Larry Kudlow
Rather than a post-partisan olive branch to congressional Republicans and the American public, President Obama’s latest health-care speech was a declaration of war. He’s more than willing to use a 51-vote reconciliation majority to jam through a roughly $2 trillion health-care plan that amounts to a government takeover of nearly one-fifth of the [...]

By Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON — So the yearlong production, set to close after Massachusetts’ devastatingly negative Jan. 19 review, saw the curtain raised one last time. Obamacare lives.
After 34 speeches, three sharp electoral rebukes (Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts) and a seven-hour seminar, the president announced Wednesday his determination to make one last push to pass [...]

By Ken Blackwell
My colleague Tony Perkins has just been banned from addressing the Andrews Air Force Base prayer luncheon. His invitation has been withdrawn. Tony is president of the Family Research Council. He’s a Christian minister. And he’s an honorably discharged veteran of the Marine Corps. None of this mattered. Tony had spoken out in [...]

Last night a slew of pro-family ballot initiatives passed overwhelmingly in Texas. Congratulations to the conservative patriots who made these victories possible.
GOP Proposition 2 — Controlling Government Growth – PASS (91.9% – 8.1%)
Every government body in Texas should be required to limit any annual increase in its budget and spending to the combined increase [...]

Perry
Speaking at his election night party in Driftwood, Perry said he would unite a fractured Texas Republican Party in the November general election and stressed that Washington politics had no place in the Lone Star state.
“From Driftwood, Texas, to Washington, D.C. we are sending you a message tonight: Stop messing with Texas!” Perry said.
To read [...]

FFC Chairman Ralph Reed held an organizational meeting with key grassroots visionaries, pastors, and former and current elected officials in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 1st to launch the Faith and Freedom Coalition of Tennessee. Everyone left the meeting energized about the great promise and potential of the Faith and Freedom Coalition of Tennessee
“I believe that [...]

On ‘GMA’ this morning, James Carville wasn’t as optimistic as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Not sure that Democrats have the votes to pass the President’s plan, Carville is sure that failure will be the “Waterloo” predicted by GOP Senator Jim DeMint.
“If it goes down” Carville said, “it’s gonna be a simple statement: the Democrats [...]

Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) now has far more to worry about than just Republican challengers in November. Lt. Gov. Bill Halter announced this morning in a video on his campaign Web site that he is taking on the second-term senator in the Democratic primary.
“Right now, Washington is not working for Arkansas families. But it [...]

Reid
WASHINGTON — During his whirlwind visit to Las Vegas two weeks ago, President Barack Obama mentioned U.S. Sen. Harry Reid by name four dozen times, gave him a big hug and talked him up as if he was a long-lost brother.
In remarks that could not have been more laudatory, Obama repeatedly characterized the veteran Democratic [...]

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria introduced George Soros as “the billionaire investor, financier, speculator, philanthropist and thinker.”
Zakaria on his “Fareed Zakaria GPS” this morning also noted that Soros was one of Barack Obama’s biggest supporters. Zakaria asked, “Are you satisfied with the job Barack Obama has done?”
Soros said he wasn’t. Soros wanted the banks nationalized, but added [...]

President Obama
The consensus among American voters is Barack Obama is better at campaigning for the job than at doing the job, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. In addition, half of voters say the Obama administration doesn’t “get it.”
As the president’s approval rating remains in the high forties, the poll finds that voters [...]

Former state House Speaker Marco Rubio continues to lengthen his lead over Governor Charlie Crist in the contest for Florida’s Republican Senate nomination.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely Republican Primary voters finds Rubio leading Crist by 18 points, 54% to 36%. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent are undecided. [...]

President Obama and congressional Democrats are citing a jump in rates by a California health insurer as grounds for getting their national health care plan back on track, but voters are still more fearful of the federal government than private insurance companies when it comes to health care decisions.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey [...]

By: Sean J. Connolly
The month before Scott Brown convinced President Barack Obama’s rosy-eyed team of political climate change, Micah Sifry posted a rant on techPresident.com rejecting the notion that the Internet had empowered ordinary citizens during the president’s 2008 campaign.
“The big story of 2009,” wrote Sifry, a former editor of The Nation magazine, is [...]

Sarah Palin addressed the crowd at the Daytona 500 to cheers and applause. She also got standing ovations in meetings with the drivers and crew before the race. Looks like Middle America appreciates Palin for her conservative stands far more than opinion elites.

Palin at Daytona

Ralph and Marco Rubio both spoke at the Osceola County Republican Party Lincoln Day dinner this past weekend in Kissimmee, Florida. Ralph talked up the Florida U.S. Senate race with Marco before the dinner.

Ralph talked up FFC with CBN Washington correspondent David Brody. Cool video below:

The pro-life movement in Ohio today is celebrating a statement-making victory against a pro-abortion and tyrannical Ohio House Speaker. Kudos goes to Ohio Right to Life Executive Director Mike Gonidakis. He mobilized the broader pro-life community, including the American Family Association and the Family Research Council, in a singular show of pro-life muscle. [...]

By Deal W. Hudson
Move over Sarah Palin – the GOP has a new star on the rise! Former speaker of the Florida house, Marco Rubio, has pulled twelve points ahead of Florida Governor Charlie Crist in the GOP senatorial race.
Although the election is not until August, some political observers are speculating Crist will pull out [...]

President Obama
by Ken Blackwell
President Obama attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington yesterday. His own denomination—the United Church of Christ—has been teasingly described as “Unitarians considering Christ.” I don’t know how much he is considering Jesus, but he sure is quiet about it if he is. Even among Christians, the president seems to believe in [...]

by Ken Blackwell
The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the rest of all the right-thinking (which is to say left-doing) world, is in high dudgeon. They are inflamed over the U.S. Supreme Court’s striking down major portions of the McCain-Feingold Act in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case.
President Obama took the unprecedented [...]

Obama
Speaking at a town hall in Nashua, New Hampshire today, President Obama said he believes the Democrats’ health care proposal is on “the five yard line” and just needs one final push to become law. “We’re in the red zone,” Obama said. “We’ve got to punch it through.”
Obama said 90 percent of the bills passed [...]

Blanche Lincoln
For incumbent Democratic Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln, the opponents are interchangeable at this point in her bid for reelection in Arkansas. New Rasmussen Reports polling in the state finds her stuck in the mid-30s against any of five Republican opponents.
Her GOP rivals, including Congressman John Boozman who is expected to enter the race on [...]

By Glen Bolger
For the first time since June 2003, the Republican candidate has a five point lead on the generic ballot in a new survey conducted for NPR by Public Opinion Strategies and Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner and Associates. The Republican candidate has a 44%-39% advantage.
(The analysis of the data in this article does [...]

By Ramesh Ponnuru
Fox News is Americans’ most trusted source of news: That’s what Public Policy Polling reported earlier this week. ABC’s director of polling disputed the poll’s findings largely because of its use of “robopolling.” But now a second poll using a different methodology—and human callers—has reached a similar conclusion.
In a poll commissioned by National [...]

PENNSYLVANIA: Former GOP Rep. Pat Toomey holds powerful leads over both Sen. Arlen Specter and Specter’s Democratic primary opponent, Rep. Joe Sestak, in a new poll by Franklin and Marshall College. Toomey would defeat Specter by 14 points, 45 percent to 31 percent, among likely voters, according to the poll, and he’d outpace the [...]

Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia delivered the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address this week. McDonnell spoke from the Virginia House of Delegates chamber for ten minutes, calling for less spending, fiscal responsibility, and a strategy of victory in the war on terror. “Governor McDonnell is a outstanding spokesman [...]

Ralph with NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip and Democratic strategist Penny Lee at Fox News studio in NYC.

Ralph, Michael Waltrip, and Penny Lee

Marco Rubio
Former state House Speaker Marco Rubio has now jumped to a 12-point lead over Governor Charlie Crist in Florida’s Republican Primary race for the U.S. Senate.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters in the state finds Rubio leading Crist 49% to 37%. Three percent (3%) prefer another candidate, and 11% [...]

by Ken Blackwell
Johnsen worked for years to strip the Catholic Church of its tax-exempt status. Why? Because the Catholic Church has never wavered in its outspoken defense of unborn children.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) – Dawn Johnsen is President Obama’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). It’s arguably the [...]

By Glen Bolger and Neil Newhouse
After stinging defeats in the 2006 midterms and the 2008 presidential election, we Republicans were supposedly condemned to a lengthy penance in the political wilderness, searching for our souls and groping for big ideas to rival the new Democratic juggernaut.
Well, that didn’t take long, did it?
Resounding GOP victories in New [...]

The New York Times reports that Barack Obama is now taking control of the Democratic party’s operations for the 2010 elections. Two thoughts. First, what in the world has he been doing for the past year? Second, if you are a Democrat on the ballot in 2010, how welcome is this news [...]

By: Ronald Kessler
Now that the bluest of blue states has elected Scott Brown as senator, commentators are widely predicting that President Obama will “pivot” towards the right.
But Obama’s comments since that win show that he has no intention of revamping his core positions. Instead, he has clearly decided that the key to winning back the [...]

FFC Chairman Ralph Reed held an organizational meeting with key grassroots leaders, pastors, and former and current elected officials in Las Vegas, Nevada, on January 22 to launch Faith and Freedom in the state. The leaders were enthusiastic and excited about what FFC can accomplish in 2010 and beyond in Nevada.
Ralph also visited Colorado, [...]

By Ken Blackwell
Whenever the Establishment in Washington gets a Big Idea about the need to get beyond partisanship, reach for your wallet. The latest Big Idea is President Obama’s proposal for an Executive Commission on Debt Reduction. The idea is modeled on the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC). That commission had as its task [...]

by Ken Blackwell
Dawn Johnsen is President Obama’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). It’s arguably the most important office at DoJ. OLC sets policy for the entire federal government.
When not serving in government, Dawn Johnsen spent her career promoting abortion-on-demand. She denies there is even such a thing [...]

Lost among the Washington’s fixation on the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts is the puncturing of one of the last remaining myths of the Obama presidency—that he would somehow be able to rally and unite the world by pursuing a more humble, less aggressive foreign policy.
But in a major embarrassment for the United States, as [...]

This past Saturday Bob McDonnell was inaugurated Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. This short video recorded the historic moment. The Virginia Faith and Freedom Coalition made over 2.5 million voter contacts and distributed or mailed 1.5 million voter guides and voter education mailers prior to the gubernatorial election, and FFC activists and [...]

According to a new poll in Ohio, Republicans John Kasich and Rob Portman have opened up leads over their Democratic opponents in two of the most-watched races for Governor and U.S. Senate in the nation. The survey, conducted by Ohio Right to Life, found that Kasich leads incumbent Governor Ted Strickland by ten points, [...]

A new InsiderAdvantage poll conducted exclusively for POLITICO shows Republican Scott Brown surging to a 9-point advantage over Martha Coakley a day before Massachusetts voters trek to the ballot box to choose a new senator.
According to the survey conducted Sunday evening, Brown leads the Democratic attorney general 52 percent to 43 percent.
“I actually think the [...]

By Ken Blackwell
In 1804, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Abigail Adams on the free exercise of individual conscience in America, and its indispensability to our freedoms. We may disagree, wrote the Founder, but that disagreement is to be welcomed, not crushed: “I tolerate with utmost latitude the right of others to differ with me in opinion [...]

by Phyllis Schlafly
Hidden in Obama’s health care bill is a huge marriage penalty. Both the Senate and House bills would set up yet another federal program to provide financial incentives to subsidize marriage avoidance and illegitimate offspring.
Even though all evidence shows that marriage is the best remedy for poverty, lack of health care, domestic [...]

After just a year in office, Barack Obama’s job approval rating has plummeted further than any president in modern times. He promised hope and change. He gave us more of the same: tax and spend, borrow and spend, backroom deals, earmarks, special interest giveaways. In 2010, the American people are going to [...]

Abdulmutallab
by Ken Blackwell
“You’re asking us to find a needle in a haystack,” complained one Homeland Security type on TV. It is hard to know which one of 500,000 names on a “watch list” will be the one who makes a move to kill thousands of Americans.
The problem is not just what Dutch airport security failed [...]

Here in Massachusetts, as well as in Washington, a growing sense of gloom is setting in among Democrats about the fortunes of Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley. “I have heard that in the last two days the bottom has fallen out of her poll numbers,” says one well-connected Democratic strategist. In her own polling, Coakley [...]

A catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti late Tuesday afternoon, causing devastation as crowded hospitals, homes, and schools collapsed. This earthquake has resulted in widespread homelessness and dislocation to a population that was already the Western hemisphere’s poorest. Haiti’s consul general to the U.N. has estimated that as many as 100,000 people may have lost [...]

President Obama
President Obama’s job approval rating has fallen to 46 percent, according to a new CBS News poll.
That rating is Mr. Obama’s lowest yet in CBS News polling, and the poll marks the first time his approval rating has fallen below the 50 percent mark. Forty-one percent now say they disapprove of Mr. Obama’s performance [...]

By: Michael Barone
Actually, “leads” is the wrong word: PPP, a Democratic polling firm, reports that Republican Scott Brown is favored by 48% of likely Massachusetts voters and Democrat Martha Coakley by 47%–a statistical tie, given the margin of error. Still, this is big, big news. It looks like Brown could actually win the January 19 [...]

Reid
by Ken Blackwell
Virginia’s lame duck Gov. Tim Kaine appeared on “Fox News Sunday” this weekend. Kaine, who also serves as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was paired with GOP Chairman Michael Steele.
Before they could get into elephants vs. donkeys, Kaine was asked about the comments of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). In a [...]

By MARTIN VAUGHAN
WASHINGTON — Some married couples would pay thousands of dollars more for the same health insurance coverage as unmarried people living together, under the health insurance overhaul plan pending in Congress.
The built-in “marriage penalty” in both House and Senate healthcare bills has received scant attention. But for scores of low-income and middle-income couples, [...]

Obama
Brietbart TV has a video montage that offers devastating documentation of the serial, shameless, and bald-faced lies that Barack Obama told throughout the 2008 campaign and later promising an “open” and “transparent” process on health care reform, including “negotiations televised on C-SPAN.”

Obama’s promises were a cynical ruse. Instead of transparency, Obama has given [...]

By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
TRENTON — The State Senate on Thursday rejected a proposal that would have made New Jersey the sixth state in the nation to allow marriages involving same-sex couples. The vote was the latest in a succession of setbacks for advocates of gay marriage across the country.
After months of intense lobbying and hours of [...]

Freedom Rally, Gwinnett County, GA, August 21, 2009
Thank you so very much. Are you having fun?
You know, I’ve been reading a lot about you lately…you un-American evil-mongers. You don’t look so scary to me. You’re polite, well-behaved, well-dressed, seemingly law-abiding citizens. (Laughter)
But you’re scaring the living daylights out of [...]

Ben Nelson
Americans awoke this weekend to learn that Harry Reid had gotten the 60th vote to invoke cloture on his health care bill when Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska sold his vote for millions of dollars and a tiny fig leaf of a prohibition on the federal funding of elective abortions under the plan. [...]

Howard Dean

As Barack Obama hauled Senate Dems to the White House yesterday for yet another kumbaya session to try to save health care reform, former DNC Chairman and presidential candidate Howard Dean went public with the angry sentiments of many liberals, calling for the defeat of the Democratic Senate bill.
Dean left the reservation [...]

Marco Rubio

by Deal W. Hudson
Rasmussen is reporting that challenger Marco Rubio , a pro-life Catholic, has pulled even with his GOP rival, Gov. Charlie Crist, in the Florida Senate Race.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP primary voters finds Crist and Rubio each with 43 percent of the vote. Five percent prefer another [...]

Radio, Newspaper, Internet Ads, Phone Banks, and Grassroots Mailings Target Centrist Democratic Senators, Urge “NO” Vote on Cloture
As the U.S. Senate debates health care legislation backed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the White House, a new grassroots organization has launched a campaign opposing the bill that targets centrist Democratic Senators who will [...]

California
Ralph Reed was in California this week for meetings to organize the Faith and Freedom Coalition in the Golden State. Here he is after one of the organizational meetings with Orange County Republican Party chairman Scott Baugh, Pastor Jim Garlow, Peter Foy, and David Spady, all prominent conservative leaders in the state.

N.J. Faith and Freedom Coalition operated phone banks encouraging constituents to contact wavering state Senators to convince them to vote No on the Gay Marriage Bill.
TRENTON — A state Senate vote on legalizing same-sex marriage in New Jersey is expected to be delayed, its two prime sponsors said today.
“I’ve been inundated. Hundreds and hundreds [...]

12.9.09 Gallup Poll

President Obama’s job approval rating has fallen to 47 percent in the latest Gallup poll, the lowest ever recorded for any president at this point in his term.
Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and even Richard Nixon all had higher approval ratings 10-and-a-half months into their presidencies. Obama’s immediate predecessor, President George W. Bush, had [...]

The Pro-Life Amendment to the Health care bill died in the Senate yesterday. The amendment sought to remove elective abortion from the new federal programs that would be created by the Harry Reid health care plan. The amendment ended with a vote of 54 to 45.
This vote has spurred the Right to Life movement to [...]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now so desperate that he is comparing opponents of government-run health care to defenders of slavery and those who opposed the right of women to vote almost a century ago.
Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ’slow [...]

By Ken Blackwell
We don’t yet know how bad the Ft. Hood shooter’s case was. We do not know — and we must find out — how it was possible for an Army medical officer to openly express treasonous statements and not be court-martialed. We do not know if the shooter or his family members were [...]

Reid

The health care bill of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cleared for debate this week in the U.S. Senate includes massive new tax increases, nearly a half trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare, a government takeover of health care, and higher insurance premiums.
One of the more indefensible taxes is the Individual Mandate Tax. Starting [...]

Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% now oppose the plan.
To read the full report on [...]

Ralph and Mike Huckabee

Ralph, Mike Huckabee, and Richard Lee

Harry-Reid

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR (AP)
WASHINGTON — The White House is on a collision course with Catholic bishops in an intractable dispute over abortion that could blow up the fragile political coalition behind President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.
A top Obama administration official on Thursday praised the new Senate health care bill’s attempt to find a compromise [...]

by Ken Blackwell
One of the reasons liberals are so hostile to public expressions of Christianity is because it threatens the monopoly that the religion of liberalism enjoys in the public square. The late Ted Kennedy was more than a leading senator, to liberal supporters. He was a secular saint. His appeal was essentially religious. He [...]

by Alexander Burns
The sudden spasm of intense debate over abortion on Capitol Hill this week threatens not only to stall the passage of health care legislation, but also to shatter the delicate cease-fire that has governed the abortion issue during the Obama era.
After months of dodging high-profile confrontations over abortion, Democrats — including President Barack [...]

Gallup Graph

Numerous pollsters, including Scott Rasmussen, have shown movement away from Democratic candidates in the so-called “generic ballot,” which asks voters whether they plan to vote Republican or Democrat in 2010. But the Gallup organization has continued to show the Democrats with a lead. Until now.
Gallup now reports:“Republicans have moved ahead [...]

The media was fascinated to the point of obsession with Republican Senator Olympia Snowe’s early flirtation with government-run health care, when she was the lone GOP Senator to vote to report the Baucus bill out of committee. They got chills down their spine when conservatives and Republicans were divided between Doug Hoffman and Dede [...]

Ken Blackwell

by Ken Blackwell
The Washington Post published an editorial last week criticizing President Obama’s policy toward Iran. To recognize how significant this is, we should recall candidate John F. Kennedy’s needling of his opponent, Richard Nixon, in the 1960 campaign. Noting that The Wall Street Journal had decried Nixon’s performance on economic issues, Kennedy impishly [...]

Without his teleprompter, Barack Obama looks decidedly uncomfortable in this interview with ABC News’ Terry Moran addressing the subject of abortion funding in the House-passed health care bill. In this video clip, Obama dissembles like the law school professor he once was, offering a weak, tired “on the one hand, but then on the [...]

Ralph and Steve Murphy

Ralph with Democratic strategist Steve Murphy in Fox green room practicing newfound civility after GOP victories on election night.

Nancy Pelosi

The Republican Staff of the Senate Budget Committee has estimated the cost of the House passed Health Reform Bill to be nearly $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years. Though partially offset by the $628 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts, the bill would increase net federal spending by more than $1 trillion over [...]

by Deal W. Hudson
The election results of November 2 were not merely the spontaneous reaction of Republicans to the bad economy and liberal excesses of the Obama administration. The four pro-life, conservative GOP candidates in Virginia and New Jersey were elected in a groundswell of religious and social conservatives, many of them independent voters who [...]

Ken Blackwell
KEN BLACKWELL
Dede Scozzafava’s record in the New York State legislature was pro-tax, pro-abortion, and anti-marriage. She even accepted the endorsement of ACORN. But she got the local party elders’ support, based on nothing other than their calculated desire to maintain partisan supremacy, regardless of conviction.
Doug Hoffman’s defeat was not about forcing the Republican party [...]

Virginia Republicans
Bob McDonnell cruised to an easy victory in the Virginia governor’s race, leading a sweep of the state’s three top offices that decisively ended a string of Democratic victories in the state.
McDonnell defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds in a replay of their race for attorney general four years ago, which McDonnell also won. He will [...]

Chris Christie
EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Republican Chris Christie’s victory over Gov. Jon Corzine Tuesday came despite an all-out Obama administration push to salvage the one race that seemed winnable in an uphill year for Democrats.
But even with the White House taking an unusually strong hands-on role in a statewide race – dispatching the president’s pollster [...]

Governor Palin

CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby
RICHMOND, Virginia (CNN) – Sarah Palin isn’t staying out of the Virginia governor’s race after all.
Less than 48 hours before voters head to the polls to elect a new governor, several Virginians reported receiving robocalls on Sunday from the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, urging them to “vote your values” [...]

FFC Founder and Chairman Ralph Reed address the One Year Until Judgment Day Tea Party in Atlanta Georgia on the Evening of November 2nd.
The theme of the event was “WE HAVE ONE YEAR UNTIL WE TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY AT THE BALLOT BOX IN THE 2010 GENERAL ELECTION. THE CLOCK IS TICKING….”
Other speakers [...]

David Brody
CBN News White House Correspondent
Ralph Reed is making his mark…again..
The former head of the Christian Coalition is taking an extremely active role in the Virginia Governor’s race. His group, the “Faith and Freedom Coalition” was out in force this weekend knocking on doors armed with voter guides that focus on faith and family issues. [...]

The Washington Post asked leading political strategists eight key questions facing the Republican Party. Here are Ralph Reed’s answers, unedited, as submitted to the Post. We thought you might like to see them without the media filter.
1. In what three ways is the Republican Party better off today than it was [...]

Check out these cool pictures and video of Virginia Faith and Freedom chairman Steve Martin and VFFC president Jack Rohrer, accompanied by national Faith and Freedom chair Ralph Reed and dozens of volunteers participating in the Virginia Grassroots Blitz Team, this Saturday, October 31. Literally hundreds of members of the Faith and Freedom Grassroots [...]

VA Faith and Freedom volunteers with Gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, October, 24th, Mechanicsville, Virginia. FFC volunteers are engaging in door-to-door grassroots blitz teams during the final two weekends before Election Day on November 3rd.

Virginia Faith and Freedom Volunteers

Bob McDonnell and a Virginia Faith and Freedom Volunteer

Doug Hoffman
By Robert Stacy McCain
What a difference two weeks can make. Toward the end of an Oct. 14 conference call organized by David Keene of the American Conservative Union, congressional candidate Doug Hoffman plaintively asked, “Does anybody know how to get Glenn Beck interested in this?”
Monday afternoon, Hoffman was interviewed on Beck’s popular Fox News [...]

by Alisa Harris
NEW YORK—A third-party candidate is surging in upstate New York, riding a swelling conservative distaste for liberal Republicans and, his supporters say, sending a message to the Republican Party.
New York’s 23rd congressional district winner will replace Republican John McHugh, President Obama’s appointed Secretary of the Army. The district should have easily gone to [...]

Doug Hoffman Press Conference
A new poll done for the Club for Growth shows Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman leading the New York special election.
The Basswood Research poll has Hoffman at 31 percent, Democrat Bill Owens at 27 percent and Republican Dede Scozzafava at 20 percent. The Club is supporting Hoffman in the race.
To read more [...]

sarah-palin
Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty, two Republicans widely viewed as possible 2012 White House hopefuls, weighed in Thursday night on the closely-watched special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district. They chose very different approaches – but neither endorsed the GOP candidate.
Calling it a matter of principle, Palin – the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate [...]

I almost fell off the treadmill the other morning when CNN reported that its own poll showed that a majority of the American people disagreed with Barack Obama on the issues they cared about. For the first time since Obama’s inaugural, a majority of respondents (51%) said they disagreed with Obama on the issues, [...]

By Jack St. Martin

President Obama and Creigh Deeds
Next Tuesday Barack Obama will campaign for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds in Hampton Roads. Obama’s campaign stop comes as polls show Deeds trailing by 9 points in the most recent Washington Post poll. Other polls show him trailing by as much as 12 points. [...]

Doug Hoffman
By Ken Blackwell for Politico
Doug Hoffman didn’t have a chance to make his case to Republican voters in a primary in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. That’s because the local GOP establishment chose its candidate behind closed doors, in a formerly smoke-filled room. The Republican grass roots never had a chance to choose among [...]

By Deal Hudson
A special election will be held on November 3 in upstate New York that may send a much-needed message to the GOP. New York Congressional District 23 was put up for grabs when nine-term Rep. John McHugh, a Republican, resigned to become Secretary of the Army. The eleven Republican chairs of the district [...]

james-carville
A friend kindly sent me this blog post on a recent Democracy Corps poll that did not receive the usual Democracy Corps publicity treatment (and their usual work is noted with envy, not criticism). In fact, as the blogger notes, there has been little to no press attention paid to the survey.
So, since my [...]

FFC Chairman Ralph Reed met with key leaders from around California on October 16th to organize the California Faith and Freedom Coalition, FFC’s newest state affiliate.

Ralph Reed spoke to the Western CPAC conference on October 16th along with Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. Afterwards Reed spoke with bloggers.

FFC Chairman Ralph Reed was the guest speaker at the 9th Annual Friends of the Family Banquet hosted by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition/Iowa Christian Alliance. ICCF is one of Faith and Freedoms newest state affiliates formed in August when the existing Iowa Christian Alliance Board voted to affiliate with the national Faith [...]

President Obama
There has been a growing narrative taking hold about Barack Obama’s presidency in recent weeks: that he is loved by many, but feared by none; that he is full of lofty vision, but is actually achieving nothing with his grandiloquence.
Chicago’s dismal showing yesterday, after Mr Obama’s personal, impassioned last-minute pitch, is a stunning [...]

Faith and Freedom Chairman Ralph Reed met with local leadership from three states in a two day swing this week.
Local conservative leaders turned out to help launch Faith and Freedom Coalition state affiliates in New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Reed laid out a gameplan for the future of the FFC and a [...]

As part of the celebrations of Christian Coalition of Florida’s 20th Anniversary, the CC of Florida Board uninimously voted to form the newest FFC state affiliate, the Faith and Freedom Coalition of Florida. The vote took place after board members met with FFC Chairman Ralph Reed who later addressed the 20th Anniversary Christian Coalition [...]

A few weeks ago, the DC Examiner’s Michael Barone astutely wrote,
In the 2006 campaign season the Washington Post ran more than a dozen front-page stories on Senator George Allen’s reference, at an August 11 campaign stop almost 400 miles from Washington, to an opposition campaign staffer as “Macaca.” One of these stories, perhaps, had enough [...]

After Barack Obama used his time at the UN General Assembly as part of his ongoing global apology tour, apologizing for the U.S. for its alleged unilateralism (a media-generated myth) and lack of action on climate change (in fact, U.S. carbon emissions have dropped more than Europe’s in the past year), the world awaited a [...]

PITTSBURGH — Presenting a unified front at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, President Obama, French President Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivered a sharp warning to Iran’s government about what President Obama called “disturbing information” — a secret uranium enrichment facility Western intelligence agencies have discovered near Qom, 97 miles southwest of Tehran.
Calling [...]

By Ken Blackwell
Readers who are familiar with the Stockholm Syndrome will recall that it refers to a hostage-taking 1973 incident in that Swedish capital city. Over time, the hostages began to look to their captors as friends and protectors rather than the murderous kidnapers that they truly were.
We are seeing something similar in what [...]

by Tom Strode, Baptist Press
WASHINGTON (BP)–Southern Baptist leaders were among nearly 50 religious and conservative leaders who called Sept. 22 for swift action by the U.S. government to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
In a letter to President Obama and Congress, Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt and ethics leader Richard Land joined others in [...]

By Ken Blackwell

Conservative Leader Phyllis Schlafly
This past weekend I had the pleasure of being one of the presenters at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, where we honored Phyllis Schlafly for her lifetime of achievement. She is the person whom even liberal academics look to when they want to explain grassroots conservatism. Phyllis was hailed—rightly [...]

Senator Mitch McConnell spoke on the Senate Floor moments ago regarding some recent intimidation of those involved in the healthcare debate. Humana, located in Louisville, KY, has recently come under fire by government officials.
“A colleague of ours has called for an investigation into a major health care company because this company informed its customers [...]

The President’s five-fecta of Sunday show interviews has come and gone, and, as with Obama’s earlier address to a joint session of Congress, its effect will be short-lived and illusory. Contrary to the White House’s argument that they were “road blocking” the coverage, the full Ginsberg (named after William Ginsberg, Monica Lewinsky’s attorney, [...]

Ralph Reed, Chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition appears on the CBS Early Show to speak on Obama’s over-exposure in the media as of late.

In a recent debate before the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce, Creigh Deeds promised not to raise taxes but in the same breath pledged to sign a transportation bill that included higher taxes. Click below to watch the tongue-tied Deeds engage in this piece of priceless cognitive dissonance.

President Jimmy Carter
(CNN) — Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that racial politics played a role in South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s speech to Congress last week and in some of the opposition the president has faced since taking office.
Former President Carter tells “NBC Nightly News” that racism has surfaced in [...]

Next year’s U.S. Senate race in Colorado is a lot more crowded this week, and incumbent Michael Bennet has some serious competition on hand.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Colorado voters finds Bennet trailing former Republican Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton 45% to 36%. Norton formally announced her candidacy on Tuesday.
To read the [...]

In what is currently a difficult political climate for Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid trails two potential Republican challengers seeking to unseat him as he faces reelection next year in Nevada.
The first Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of the 2010 race shows Sue Lowden beating Reid by 10 percentage points, 50% to 40%. [...]

In my blog post of last Friday, I predicted that Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress would fall flat, and that whatever boost he enjoyed in the polls would be short-lived.
Well, the results are in, and my prediction has proven even more true than I thought. First, the new Gallup [...]

Barack Obama accuses his opponents of political opportunism and incivility in opposing his health care plan. But in a recent appearance for Creigh Deeds, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Virginia, he told his opponents, in essence, to sit down and shut up. So this is what he calls hope and change? See [...]

By David Gardner, Mail Online
As many as one million people flooded into Washington for a massive rally organised by conservatives claiming that President Obama is driving America towards socialism.
The size of the crowd – by far the biggest protest since the president took office in January – shocked the White House.
Demonstrators massed outside [...]

By Tom LoBianco and Christina Bellantoni THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones
Top White House advisers deflected questions Sunday about former “green jobs czar” Van Jones early Sunday, just hours after he submitted his resignation amid a growing furor over his previous statements and political associations.
Politicians had been calling for Mr. Jones to [...]

Democrat Creigh Deeds
President Obama won’t be on the ballot in New Jersey and Virginia when those states hold the nation’s only governor’s races in November. His policies likely will be.
Obama has been campaigning for both Gov. Jon Corzine, 62, of New Jersey and Creigh Deeds, 51, a state senator running for governor in Virginia. The [...]

A message on the website of President Barack Obama’s permanent campaign organization, Organizing for America, recently compared citizens opposed to Obamacare to “domestic terrorists” and called them “heirs to Osama bin Laden.” Organizing for America, which is housed at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent out a request to its supporters asking them to [...]

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 30% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -11.
Most voters now expect that the situation in Afghanistan will get worse [...]

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The Obama administration released a new web site earlier this month supposedly debunking myths opponents are using to criticize the government-run health care plan he supports.
Though President Barack Obama himself has accused pro-life advocates of lying about abortion funding in the bills, the White House web site was silent on [...]

On Saturday, August 29th FFC Chairman Ralph Reed met with grassroots leaders in Des Moines Iowa to strategize and organize efforts to oppose Obamacare.  Leaders from around the state of Iowa gathered at the Iowa Christian Alliance Board meeting to discuss short term and long term plans for FFC’s legislative and organizational activities in Iowa.

Over 1,200 grassroots activists packed into a ballroom at the Gwinnett Place Marriott this past Saturday to hear from nationally syndicated radio personality and Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, Faith and Freedom Coalition chairman Ralph Reed, six gubernatorial candidates, members of Congress, and other national headliners, including Lt. Colonel Oliver North and Jon Voight.
The [...]

Since 2003, the Hannity Freedom Concerts, along with many generous donors, have contributed millions of dollars to the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, which has now awarded $2.5 million in scholarships to deserving young Americans. For each student, their scholarship is a reminder that a grateful nation will never forget their parents’ sacrifice.
FFC went backstage at [...]

According to recent opinion polls, the vast majority of Americans are against government control of healthcare and Obama’s plummeting approval ratings are proof of that. In an effort to discredit the opinions of average American citizens, many Democrats have decided to verbally abuse them publicly. However, unlike many of their Congressional representatives, these protesters [...]

Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, spoke to America’s Healthcare Town Hall in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park on August 15th.
Thousands attended the gathering that was dedicated to free markets and patient centered healthcare reform. Other speakers included former House Majority Leader Dick Armey who is currently serving as Chairman [...]

FFC Rolls Through Iowa

The Iowa Christian Alliance sponsored two events featuring Ralph Reed, Chairman of FFC as the main speaker in Cedar Falls and Cedar Rapids Iowa on August 11th.
ICA President Steve Scheffler played host to Reed for the second time in the last month.
“The Iowa Christian Alliance was honored and thrilled to host Ralph [...]

A lot can change in just a couple months, and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) knows this all too well. The five-term senator, who’s been a Democrat for four months, switched parties in April after realizing he would lose to Pat Toomey (R) in a GOP primary. However, Specter now trails the former congressman by double digits in a Rasmussen general election poll.

Republican Sue Lowden would defeat incumbent Democratic Sen. Harry Reid by 6 percentage points in a head-to-head matchup, according to a poll of likely Nevada voters.

Unfortunately for Reid-bashers, Lowden isn’t running — at least not yet.

On Monday, Lowden supporters, including political strategist Robert Uithoven, disclosed the results of a poll commissioned as part of an effort to persuade the Nevada Republican Party chairwoman to run, especially if Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., decides not to challenge Reid.

Democrats are stepping up their campaign against opponents of health care reforms, depicting town hall audiences protesting a Democratic-sponsored bill as angry mobs duped into hostile actions by special interest groups.
The Democratic National Committee released a Web video and e-mail on Wednesday blasting opponents of the 10-year, $1 trillion plan.
Read the entire story on FOXNews.com

In the days before President Obama’s last news conference, as the networks weighed whether to give up a chunk of their precious prime time, Rahm Emanuel went straight to the top. Rather than calling ABC, the White House chief of staff phoned Bob Iger, chief executive of parent company Disney. Instead of contacting NBC, Emanuel [...]

Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition executive director, urged Republican leaders Wednesday to oppose confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, warning that President Barack Obama will “gain crucial momentum” if he “is perceived as winning big on Sotomayor because of a weak and divided GOP caucus.”
The memo, called ” Why Voting [...]

A billowing charcoal-gray air mass bore down from the northwest Friday as Ralph Reed stepped to the microphone.

Far from being dismayed by the darkening sky, Reed, former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, looked at the bright side.

He smiled as he looked out at his sweating audience of about 150 people at the second anti-tax Tea Party held this year at Rousakis Plaza.

“Aren’t we glad,” asked Reed, also former head of the Christian Coalition, “that the good Lord has given us this cloud cover to cool us off?”

Talk about a stimulus package.
The National Endowment for the Arts may be spending some of the money it received from the Recovery and Reinvestment Act to fund nude simulated-sex dances, Saturday night “pervert” revues and the airing of pornographic horror films at art houses in San Francisco.
Read the entire story on FOXNews.com

President Barack Obama said Wednesday there will be no vote on his proposed reforms of the US healthcare system before autumn, a setback that is costing him more political capital with each passing day.
“This bill, even in the best-case scenario, will not be signed — we won’t even vote on it probably until the end [...]

“As a general rule and a generic principle, the commands and scripture to care for the poor, to bind up the wounds of the broken, and to provide assistance to the needy, really are charges to the individual,” Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, told ABC News.

Reed pointed to the Catholic hospital system, and the network of faith- and community-based hospitals and shelters, some offering free health care and volunteer doctors.

A special joint meeting of Faith and Freedom Coalition and Iowa Christian Alliance at the home of Ron and Becky Herrig in Dubuque, Iowa

Sarah Palin stepped down Sunday as Alaska governor to write a book and build a right-of-center coalition, but she left her long-term political plans unclear and refused to address speculation she would seek a 2012 presidential bid.
In a fiery campaign-style speech, Palin said she was stepping down to take her political battles to a larger [...]

In the two governor races being contested this year, Republicans seem to have an advantage. Republican Bob McDonnell has led Democrat Creigh Deeds in all but one poll and picked up the support of Black Entertainment Television billionaire Sheila Johnson, one of the biggest contributors to the incumbent, Democratic National Chairman Tim Kaine. New Jersey [...]

A conference of 52 major Jewish groups is taking on President Barack Obama for his demand that Israel stop construction of Jewish housing in east Jerusalem.

President Obama says he will not sign a health care reform bill that adds to the deficit but GOP number-crunchers argue he will do just that if House Democrats continue their sleight-of-hand in calculating the long-term costs of their proposal.

An amendment introduced to strip Planned Parenthood of its taxpayer funding has passed the Rules Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, and is up for a vote on the House floor Friday, reports Jim Sedlak of the American Life League.

Conservative political strategist Ralph Reed, the first executive director of the Christian Coalition, tells Newsmax that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings can actually help Republicans in upcoming elections.