Free Republic

Last month, CNN hosted a Republican presidential primary debate. The main event was a 3-hour affair. Next week, the same network will host a Democratic presidential primary debate. But this time, the debate will be one hour shorter -- it'll span only 2 hours.

Socialism is a failed ideology. It was the avant-garde approach to how to do government in the Twentieth Century. The Soviet Union was the flagship petri dish that conquered, infiltrated or ingratiated themselves with many other nations to establish them as additional petri dishes (Hello, Cuba). We certainly now have a large enough, long enough sample set - and the results are in. The system is contaminated - Socialism does not work. Socialists feebly cry “But they weren’t Socialist - they were Communist,” which is a distinction with very little difference. Communism is Socialism - with a boot in the neck....

Vice President Biden would have immediate, strong support within the LGBT community should he decide to run for president. Several top Democrats believe Biden could pull support away from front-runner Hillary Clinton in large part due to his early support for same-sex marriage, a claim Clinton supporters strongly dispute. Biden on Saturday will have a prime opportunity to appeal to LGBT voters when he delivers the keynote speech at the annual gala of the Human Rights Campaign, the most influential gay rights group in the country. Before that, Clinton is scheduled to have breakfast with the group’s leaders but she...

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura thinks he and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders would make a good tag team Former Minnesota Governor and retired pro wrestler Jesse (The Body) Ventura is into Bernie Sanders. Ventura stirred up controversy last month by hinting he might be interested in serving as Donald Trump’s vice president, but the fiercely independent rabble rouser told Confidenti@l that a Sanders/Ventura ticket might be a better fit. “Would I run with Bernie? Sure, I’d give him consideration,” Ventura tells Confidenti@l, reasoning that Sanders, quickly gaining traction, is the candidate most likely to bring our troops back from the...

The talk in Democratic Party circles is that Barack Obama has told Joe Biden that he is prepared to endorse him for president if, in return, Biden promises to let Obama have a final say in the choice of his vice presidential running mate. According to these Democratic sources, Biden is mulling over the president’s conditional offer of support. In addition, there is speculation among top Democratic sources that Obama has another quid pro quo for his endorsement: he wants Biden to choose an African American as his vice presidential running mate. In this scenario, which Obama has not yet...

The surging popularity of Sen. Bernie Sanders has done little to alleviate the chief concern that Democrats have about his presidential bid: Namely, that he's simply unelectable on a national stage. The Vermont Independent has quickly closed the gap on frontrunner Hillary Clinton in national polls, while overtaking the former State secretary in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Supporters say his rising momentum and populist message will carry him to the White House. But Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, has spent a career operating largely from the left-most fringes of the Democratic Party with which he...

Joe Biden's unique trait as a politician is -- and always has been -- his honesty. Sometimes that honesty gets him into varying degrees of trouble. Sometimes it makes it seem as though he's the closest thing to a real person you could possibly hope for in politics.

Apparrently a "Draft Elizabeth Warren" movement has officially gotten Elizabeth Warren signed up for a run for the White House, and that she signed it.

Democrats flocked to Minnesota this past weekend for the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting — a largely formulaic event notable largely for the kibitzing and complaining about the presidential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton and the speculation about the possible candidacy of Joe Biden. So, what do we actually know about the state of the Democratic race? Here are six thoughts. Hillary Clinton is still the heavy Democratic favorite. The Democratic political class is spooked. Bernie Sanders just might win New Hampshire. Joe Biden might actually run (and it’s impossible to guess what he will decide). The Clinton people are...

Martin O’Malley may not be on his way to the White House (or the Democrat nomination for that matter) but he’s at least proving useful in fomenting dissent among the progressive ranks. At the big DNC meeting in Minneapolis he took to the stage to launch an attack not on Donald Trump… not on his primary rival Hillary Clinton… but on Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. One of his chief complaints has to do with the debate format, which many are seeing as a way for DWS to establish a smooth glide path for Clinton to win the nomination. We’ve heard plenty of...

There may be a very long-shot pathway to the presidency for Vice President Biden in 2016, but running as a vulture candidate — whose candidacy would be premised on the bet that the partisan vendetta of personal destruction being waged against Hillary Clinton by Republicans succeeds — is not that pathway. (snip) Had Biden announced his candidacy many months ago and articulated a powerful progressive rationale for his candidacy, I might have supported him. He didn’t, and the sole premise driving talk of a Biden campaign today is a negative premise that is unlikely to happen, i.e. that the campaign...

President Barack Obama is the man in the middle, caught between the White House aspirations of two of his closest advisers: Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. For months, White House officials expected Clinton to be the Democratic nominee in the 2016 election. Some of Obama's top political advisers moved to New York to run her campaign and Obama appeared to give his tacit approval, saying she would be an "excellent president." But that bet on Clinton suddenly looks less certain. With Biden weighing his own presidential run more seriously amid signs of weakness...

Major Democratic fundraisers have been invited to meet with Vice President Joe Biden at his residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory after Labor Day, part of a series of conversations he is having with senior party players as he contemplates jumping into the 2016 race. Among the guests invited to the gathering are top bundlers who raised large sums for the Obama-Biden campaigns in 2008 and 2012, according to people familiar with the outreach. The sitdown is scheduled to take place during the week following Labor Day.

Joe Biden had good reasons to huddle privately with Elizabeth Warren on Saturday at his official residence. The Massachusetts senator may have chosen not to run next year, but her populist rhetoric and agenda dominate the 2016 Democratic contest. Should Biden challenge Hillary Clinton for the nomination, he will need either Warren’s neutrality or her blessing. Socialist Bernie Sanders isn’t the only candidate pounding the drums of class warfare. Hillary claims “the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top,” attacks high-level corporate salaries, and says that “we have to go beyond Dodd-Frank” in passing laws to...

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (D) has said that socialist policies characteristic of countries like Sweden should be implemented in the U.S. As a Swede, I would strongly advise against this. The worldwide socialist movement praises the Scandinavian countries for their high living standards and welfare. Easy to do for someone who has never lived in Sweden or read a book on Swedish history. First off: The success of Sweden predates the welfare state. In reality, the economy began to fall behind in the 1960s when the state rapidly expanded. Moreover, Sweden enjoyed the highest growth in the industrialized world between...

Is that a promise, Chris? Tonight on MSNBC, mocking the notion that Hillary Clinton's e-mail server woes may eventually push her out of the presidential campaign, Hardball host Chris Matthews sneered that when that happens, he'd wrap his Hardball program.  MSNBCHardball August 19, 2015; 7:16 p.m. Eastern KELLYANNE CONWAY, Republican strategist: ...I do want her to hang on. I do, and here's why. I worry that if she gets pushed out of the race too early, Chris, then, you've got Elizabeth Warren stepping in, she's got plenty of time to raise the money and take that mantle. CHRIS MATTHEWS, host: You think that's...

A top Democratic strategist has joined the effort to recruit Vice President Joe Biden into the 2016 presidential race. Steve Schale - who served as President Barack Obama's top Florida strategist during his 2008 and 2012 White House campaigns -- has joined the Draft Biden committee, NBC News has confirmed. This makes Schale the biggest Obama World person to join up with Draft Biden. Schale tells NBC News that he has no knowledge of Biden's White House intentions, but wanted to join the effort. Biden is expected to make his decision about a 2016 run in the coming weeks. He...

A Cruz/Warren race is the election America deserves. A Trump/Biden race is the election America wants.Dude, I think this is happening. From his vacation spot on Kiawah Island, Mr. Biden is giving the strongest signal yet that he is actively considering making a third run at the presidency. He is asking political allies for advice and gauging the strength of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign as he weighs his options, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Biden is expected to announce his decision next month…He’d have to start from scratch. Mr. Biden has no super PAC to back his candidacy...

A one-time high-ranking political adviser to Al Gore tells ABC News that a group of friends and former aides are having a “soft conversation” about the possibility that Gore run for president in 2016. The adviser cautions that there have been no formal or even informal moves by Gore himself -– but that the former vice president has not ruled out anything. This was first reported by BuzzFeed