Free Republic

The primary season begins, and thoughtful watchers of the passing scene are reminded yet again of one thing that has stuck in our craw for over 50 years now: Why do outsiders get to choose a party’s nominee for the general election? I know, this has gone without saying for so long that it may seem like a foreign concept, but it is worth reconsidering – because it wasn’t always like this. For almost the first two centuries of our Republic, there were two kinds of candidates in any election: independent candidates and those selected by a political party. You...

DES MOINES — Some Iowa Democrats and independents are planning to crash the state's Republican caucuses Monday night and become "Republicans for a day" to vote for Nikki Haley — but mostly, against former President Trump. Why it matters: It's unclear how many will show up, but "crossover" voting is a low-key tradition in Iowa's caucuses — and it's one of the big unknowns heading into Monday, along with how the dangerously cold weather will affect things. How it works: Iowa allows day-of party registration for voters, and Democrats aren't holding in-person presidential caucuses this year. That's given mischievous anti-Trump...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sunday vowed to stay in the presidential race for the “long haul” despite a poor showing in the final Iowa poll before Monday’s caucuses. “We’ve got a huge number of people that have committed to caucus, and we expect that these are the people that turn out,” DeSantis told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” before a slate of events in Iowa. “We’re in this for the long haul. We understand that you got to win a majority of the delegates. We understand that that there’s a long process here, but we’re going...

Washington (CNN)Numerous members of the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee expressed support during a virtual meeting on Monday for a draft proposal that would dramatically remake the party's 2024 presidential nominating process, signaling that the committee could pass the measure when it meets again in April. The draft proposal would end the Democratic Party's current nominating process structure -- where the Iowa caucuses go first... ...The new structure would require states to apply to hold early nominating contests and the rules committee would select "no more than five states....

The primary season has only just begun, but already, it has reminded us of several truisms that the major parties always forget from year to year: - That young people just don’t vote in the numbers that older people do, so don’t build your hopes upon changing the makeup of the electorate… - That money can’t make up for a lack of charisma, so a rich bore can’t just spend his way to victory… and of course, - That our primary calendar looks like something designed by a practical jokester rather than someone who wants the best for America. But...

Updated 8:53 AM ET 60% reporting Candidate Total C.C.D.s* Pct. Bernie Sanders 3,523 46.0% Joseph R. Biden Jr. 1,496 19.6 Pete Buttigieg 1,172 15.3 Elizabeth Warren 773 10.1 Amy Klobuchar 364 4.8

The Nevada caucuses are days away and officials are already worried about another tech meltdown. One Nevada Dem volunteer predicted a “complete disaster.” The Iowa caucuses were a total train wreck after the Hillary-linked app “Shadow” failed to properly count votes. The Iowa Dem party released partial, fudged numbers days after the caucuses showing Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders in the lead, It looks like Nevada is bracing for a disaster too.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez on Wednesday said he wants to talk about caucus reform and review the status of the primary cycle to reflect a more diverse voter base and representative candidates. "I think the time is ripe for that conversation,” Perez said in an appearance on CNN. “I want to make sure that we reflect the grand diversity of our party in everything we do.” "The candidate who is going to win this race ... is the candidate who does the best job bringing together this entire diverse coalition of the Democratic Party," he said. "African American...

It wasn’t the first time he’s had an odd answer to a woman’s question. A young female voter asked Joe Biden on Sunday why voters should believe he can win. His response was rather unusual. “You’re arguably the candidate with the greatest advantage in this race,” Madison Moore, a college student, said to Biden at a New Hampshire campaign event. “How do you explain the performance in Iowa, and why should the voters believe that you can win the national election?” “Iowa’s a Democratic caucus,” the former vice president responded. “You ever been to a caucus?” When Moore said she...

Student, 21, says she was 'insulted' by Joe Biden when he called her a 'lying dog-faced pony solder' after asking about his poor Iowa results and claims it shows 'how poorly his campaign is going' Joe Biden called Madison Moore a 'lying, dog-faced pony soldier' after she asked him a question at his campaign event in Hampton, New Hampshire on Sunday The 21-year-old Mercer University student had nervously nodded her head yes when Biden asked her if she had ever been to a caucus before Moore said she didn't find his remark funny, saying: 'It was kind of humiliating to...

HAMPTON, N.H. — Madison Moore warned Joe Biden that the question she was about to ask was going to be a bit mean. Then the 21-year-old student at Mercer University in Georgia launched into a version of what’s been asked of the former vice president since his disappointing fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses: “How do you explain the performance in Iowa, and why should voters believe that you can win the national election?” What happened next left her a little shaken, Moore said. Biden said it was legitimate question, but then turned the spotlight back on her, asking: “Iowa’s...

Joe Biden Calls Woman a Lying Dog Faced Pony Soldier

Perhaps the pressure is getting to him. On Sunday, Joe Biden snapped at a voter in New Hampshire, calling him (sic: her) a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier.” The dust-up came after the voter asked Biden, “How do you explain the performance in Iowa and why should the voters believe that you can win a national election?" "You ever been to a caucus?" Biden replied. After the voter said she indeed had attended a caucus, Biden shot back: "No you haven’t. You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier." "You gotta be honest,” he continued. “I’m gonna be honest with you. It was...

Iowa Democratic Party officials are hunkered down in their war room tonight, with presidential campaigns in the dark over the delay in the reporting of caucus results. Officials from two Democratic campaigns tell CNN they were told the app to tabulate results had crashed.

DES MOINES, Iowa -- A Democratic campaign that has cost more than $1 billion, dashed the ambitions of veteran politicians, forced conversations about race, gender and identity and prompted fierce debate over health care and taxes crests Monday in the Iowa caucuses. By day’s end, tens of thousands of Democrats will have participated in the famed Iowa caucuses, the premiere of more than 50 contests that will unfold over the next five months. The caucuses will render the first verdict on who among dozens of candidates is best positioned to take on President Donald Trump, whom Democratic voters are desperate...

A new poll released Friday shows the race in Iowa is still anybody’s game with less than four weeks until the first-in-the-nation caucus. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders narrowly leads the pack with 20 percent, according to the new poll conducted by CNN and the Des Moines Register. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren follows behind in a close second, having garnered 17 percent, with former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg earning 16 percent and former Vice President Joe Biden at 15. With a +/-3.7 percent margin of error, however, the race remains in a virtual dead heat without any clear leader.

The Iowa Republican Party is holding onto plans to have its traditional straw poll at the caucus in February to decide the Republican nominee in the bid for the White House. Still, local party leaders maintain that the party firmly supports President Trump. Muscatine County Republican chair Fred Grunder said the party is behind Trump, but there is likely to be a small number of protest votes at the caucus in 2020. “There are some people that I think they’re just trying to make a statement more than anything else,” he said. “If there’s 500 people that are at our...

Full headline: Monumental hypocrisy: Steve King gets slapped down over racial misquote by same Congress that tolerates race-based caucusesBased on Congress’ historic low approval rating, you’ll not likely find many Americans who have much faith in the Legislative Branch doing the right things most of the time. Or even some of the time. Case in point: While pretending to care about furloughed federal workers who have now missed paychecks, claiming their jobs are all-important to the proper function of the country, lawmakers can’t and won’t come together with the president of the United States and work out a deal that...

Many observers have warned that Putin’s military campaign in Syria may backfire at home. Russia’s 144 million people include about 20 million Muslims; the overwhelming majority are Sunnis. Some analysts believe that these Russian Sunnis will recoil from Russia’s support for Assad’s Alawite-dominated regime and its attacks on Sunni rebels, and from Russia’s effort to lead a coalition of Shiite powers, Iran, Iraq and Syria. If pundits’ predictions were true, Muslims would be more likely to choose the anti-war response and less likely to support Putin’s intervention. But that’s not exactly what we found. ...There wasn’t a consensus among any...

Aina Gamzatova, a 46-year-old woman from Dagestan, has made it official. She wants to run against Russian President Vladimir Putin in the March 2018 election. Some see her campaign - irrespective of its results - as a way to boost the image of Muslim women in Russia and to attract attention to the needs of impoverished, overpopulated and multi-ethnic Dagestan. Her husband, Akhmad Abdulaev, is the Mufti of Dagestan, Russia's troubled province where a confrontation between fighters, clans and federal forces has killed thousands. She belongs to a Sufi order that has tens of thousands of followers and whose leader,...