Free Republic

Hillary Clinton's former press secretary admitted Wednesday that the campaign was caught off guard by what he called the "Breitbart effect" during the 2016 election. Fallon made the comments during an appearance at Yale University on Wednesday. Fallon spoke of the organized, pro-Trump counter-narratives that seemed to dominate the news cycle, which often ended up putting the Clinton campaign on the defensive. Fallon said the so-called Breitbart effect cultivated a "standalone ecosystem in conservative media that very aggressively and successfully promoted certain stories and narratives we had a blind-spot for during the campaign.” Indeed, as the election stretched on and...

In most presidential elections, the two candidates spar over issues. The president campaigns for his party's nominee in hopes of continuing his legacy. Democrats champion liberalism, Republicans conservatism. In numerous press conferences, journalists try to force newsworthy and embarrassing admissions from the two candidates. Not this year. Barack Obama, who less than two years ago dipped to 40% in approval rating, is nowhere to be seen. He seems to know that the more he is absent and quiet, the more the public likes the idea rather than the reality of him as president -- and his approval rating has risen...

As a Democratic presidential candidate, you know you are in tough shape when other Democrats are publicly calling your actions as Secretary of State worse than Watergate. Appearing on Breitbart News on Sirius XM, pollster and strategist former President Jimmy Carter, Pat Caddell, told host Stephen Bannon, just that. “This is the greatest scandal in the history of the United States,” he said. “They all ought to be indicted. This is worse than Watergate.” If you are unfamiliar with Watergate, it is probably the most infamous scandal that is attributed to President Richard Nixon, and caused the former president to...

But early optimism that this would be an easy race is evaporating. ...snip.... “The guy’s a maniac,” John Burton, the chairman of the California Democratic Party, said about Mr. Trump. ...snip.... But it is the campaign’s approach to Mr. Trump that is making even Mrs. Clinton’s most loyal supporters uneasy. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York is concerned that she lacks a comprehensive strategy to confront Mr. Trump, and has told Democrats that the Clinton campaign must bring on a senior staff member dedicated only to the Trump portfolio. “As soon as she clinches the nomination, we need a high-level...

The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, a $2 billion honey pot of money extracted from a mix of the venal influence-seekers and the charitable, attracts a lot of flies. Unsurprisingly, it appears that battles already are breaking out over control of the lucre. Chelsea Clinton, whose name was added to the foundation, it appears has attempted to install her own people, only to be rebuffed by those closely connected to her parents’ political rise. Politico Magazine has a lengthy report on the recent termination of Eric Braverman as CEO.  Braverman, who was Chelsea Clinton’s boss during her brief...

Forget the current polling as between Hillary and Elizabeth Warren. It pits Hillary against someone who “isn’t running.” For all my criticisms of Warren, and they are extensive, I am convinced that if she ran, she would crush Hillary, just as Obama did. Warren, as did Obama, has a unique ability to demagogue the core Democratic narrative of victimhood in ways that would make Hillary blush. She is more cunning than Hillary, more popular with the base, would bring an excitement the contrived Ready-for-Hillary movement could only dream of. Democrats may be “ready” for Hillary, but they don’t really want...

We’re still three years away from the 2016 general election and two and a half years from the Iowa caucus, but Hillary Clinton has already managed to grab top-rank political talent on the Left. Does she risk getting too far ahead of the pack and making herself into a punching bag for up-and-comers over the long haul? National Journal’s Jill Lawrence wonders if Hillary is peaking too soon for her own good: Crack organizers from President Obama’s campaigns are the latest political honchos to join the Clinton-for-President movement and, like others involved, they say they are just trying to make...

You wouldn’t know it from the media, but Clinton’s efforts to smash the last glass ceiling has come crashing down around her as the result of a devastating report by CBS News about cover-ups of rampant sex crimes and drug abuse at the State Department under her watch. The report, based on an Inspector General’s memo, included charges of cover-ups of sex assaults on foreign nationals by a State Department security officer in Beirut, an ambassador reprimanded for soliciting prostitutes in his host country, members of Clinton’s own security detail’s “endemic” use of prostitutes while on official trips in foreign...

The ex-president's willingness to speak out on Syria spells disaster for Obama in more ways than one.I wish that when President Bill Clinton started spouting off the other day about the need for President Barack Obama to intervene in Syria's horrific civil war or risk looking like "a total fool," Obama had followed the example set by his wife when she was recently confronted by a heckler. I wish that Obama had leaped from his bully pulpit, got in Clinton's face and silenced him with a withering put-down. But of course, that didn't happen. Instead of resisting the intensifying pressure...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will need to raise $100 million over the next 20 months if she hopes to clear the field of serious Democratic challengers, top Democratic operatives say. “I would think you’d want an eye popping number to clear the field,” said one senior Democratic official. “I think the $100 million commitment would say to potential opponents ‘think before you jump to your death.’” Clinton herself does not have to raise the cash to clear the field of effective rivals, explains one Clinton insider, “If a super PAC raises $75 million to $125 million in the...