Gop

Polls show that frustration with Washington has never been higher — and who could argue? Most Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. Most lawmakers openly concede that nothing will get done before the November elections. The leaders of both parties are already trading threats over the possibility of a national debt default next year. Barack Obama got elected by promising to change the tone in Washington, but clearly he's failed, as George W. Bush did before him. That should be a clue that the partisan animosity consuming the political system doesn't originate in the White House.

The story line on the Republican Senate race in Texas is a now familiar one: A veteran politician supported by the GOP establishment is challenged by a young insurgent backed by national conservative groups. In this distinctly Texas episode in the saga for control of the Senate, David Dewhurst is the reserved, self-made millionaire and lieutenant governor facing off against Ted Cruz, the feisty son of a Cuban exile who calls himself "a proven fighter for liberty because his family knows what it means to lose it. " The underdog is former Dallas mayor and businessman Tom Leppert,...

HAMILTON, N.J. -- Laura Bush brought her husband's presidential reelection campaign to suburban New Jersey yesterday for the first time, a visit that has Republicans saying they can win a state once thought to be solidly behind John Kerry. Bush touted the president's record on improving the economy and fighting the war on terror and told the crowd of GOP supporters gathered at a firehouse that they must work hard to secure his reelection. Although most of her half-hour speech focused on economic issues, she made several references to the terrorist attacks of Sept.

Mitt Romney swept all the delegates in GOP primaries in Kentucky and Arkansas and picked up more endorsements from party leaders, putting him one win away from claiming the Republican nomination for president. With no serious opposition left, the former Massachusetts governor should get that win next Tuesday when voters go to the polls in Texas. Romney won all 75 delegates at stake in Tuesday's primaries. He also added endorsements from several Republican National Committee members who are automatic delegates to the party's national convention in August.

Community and business leaders in affluent Seminole County talked about the promise of jobs and economic development from the new 61-mile commuter rail through Orlando. They praised the man who pushed hard for the $1.3 billion project and many others: Republican Rep. John Mica of Florida. "It puts us on the map," Frank Martz, city manager from Altamonte Springs, told some 300 local movers and shakers gathered at a lunch sponsored by the Orlando Business Journal. A few feet away, Mica quietly rattled off a list of roads, trails and highways he helped ensure during his 20 years in...

Dan Wasserman, editorial cartoonist for The Boston Globe, suggests the GOP presidential race might have taken on the tone of the Salem Witch Trials.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham says the upcoming presidential election is the GOP's to lose. Graham says President Barack Obama has done "everything he knows how" to beat himself and that people have little confidence in Obama's policies because they aren't working. When it comes to who should lead the GOP in the 2012 campaign for the White House, the South Carolina Republican isn't making any predictions or saying whether he would prefer one candidate over another. Graham appeared Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union.

The No. 2 House Republican says Mitt Romney, despite some setbacks, will emerge from the GOP presidential nominating fight as the party's standard-bearer against President Barack Obama. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor tells CBS "This Morning" that Romney's ascension to the top is inevitable, saying his two closest rivals, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, "have not demonstrated an ability to do what needs to be done" to lock down the nod. Cantor says Romney will ultimately be chosen as the party's nominee "because he's the only candidate in this race who's got a...

I DIFFER on one point in Tracy Jan and Bryan Bender's article "Snowe shocks GOP with decision not to run again" (Page A2, Feb. 29). I argue that we will, in fact, see a resurgence, not a disappearance, of fiscally conservative, socially moderate Yankee Republicans. As a loyal, lifelong Republican, I believe that over-the-top legislative proposals and vindictive stunts that pander to the GOP's extreme right wing will cause millions in the GOP to return to their party roots. They will remember what made them proud to be Republicans in the first place.

The Republican presidential hopefuls are debating how to deal with the nation's illegal immigrants, differing on how to deal with millions of people already in the United States. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday that he wouldn't "expel" those who have come illegally but have made lives in the U.S. He says that the GOP cannot call itself a party for family when it separates parents from their children born in the U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann says that allowing illegal immigrants to stay is a form of amnesty.

Republicans will have to drop their insistence on retaining tax cuts for the rich and plans to reshape Medicare before there can be a bipartisan deal on controlling federal deficits and averting a wide-scale tax increase in January, the Senate's top Democrat said. In a letter to GOP senators released Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blamed congressional Republicans' "strict adherence to tea party ideology" for the two sides' failure to reach such a deal. Reid, D-Nev., also said the GOP's "blind adherence to tea party extremism is making it impossible" to reach compromise before the...

Hawaii officials defended the islands Tuesday as a place of business amid criticism from two key U.S. senators who questioned the decision to hold an upcoming conference for federal judges on Maui. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, say the planned meetings of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are excessive and strike the wrong tone in a time of government budget cuts. "Americans struggling to pay their bills," Sessions said Monday, "are tired of watching the government throw lavish events on the taxpayer dime.

Former wresting executive Linda McMahon, who won the Connecticut Republican Party's endorsement for a second campaign for U.S. Senate, said Sunday that GOP rival Christopher Shays should drop out of the race. Appearing on WFSB-TV's "Face the State," McMahon said that because she won more than 60 percent of the 1,208 delegates on Friday, Shays should quit so Republicans can be unified against Democrats in the fall. "That's a pretty strong statement to Republicans in the state, that I am the endorsed candidate, and I would really hope that...

A little more than half of Oklahoma taxpayers would see a tax cut next year for an average annual savings of $60 under a Republican-backed income tax plan, according to an analysis of the proposal released on Friday. The Oklahoma Tax Commission analysis shows 54 percent of Oklahoma tax filers would get a tax cut, while an additional 21 percent would see no change in their tax liability. Nearly 25 percent of Oklahomans would actually have an increase in their tax liability under the plan.

Countering the Obama campaign's massive ad buy last week, the independent conservative group Crossroads GPS announced a plan Wednesday to spend $25 million airing an attack ad in 10 swing states. The 60-second ad accuses the president of breaking promises to assist struggling homeowners, hold down taxes for households making less than $250,000 per year, let people keep private health insurance plans they like, and cut the federal deficit in half. The last point is one that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and other Republicans have hammered this...

For Senate Republicans, 2012 is starting a lot like 2010. They have a shot at taking control away from Democrats as long as insurgent conservatives who are defeating the party's more establishment candidates in primaries don't frighten too many independent voters like they did two years ago. Deb Fischer, a little-known state senator, became the latest unexpected Senate GOP nominee Tuesday, rallying late to upset the favored — and better...

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says Republicans are coalescing around Mitt Romney's candidacy and looking for ways to work together to defeat President Barack Obama. Cantor, who endorsed Romney over the weekend, said Monday that despite the prolonged GOP presidential primary, Republicans are beginning to set aside their differences and focus on winning back the White House. Cantor, in a CNN interview, said. "What we're doing is we're coalescing around Mitt Romney's plan to actually address the economic challenges we have.

Delegates to the Connecticut Republican Party's state convention will see some changes when they arrive Friday, all part of an effort by party leaders to make the process for endorsing a U.S. Senate candidate more open and transparent. State GOP Chairman Jerry Labriola said Thursday the party has created a website to allow the 1,245 delegates and the campaigns to track the delegate vote as it's happening and how each city and town delegation voted. They're also bringing in scanners and copiers to provide paper copies of the vote counts.