Free Republic

Americans Elect, after qualifying for ballot in 29 states, won't nominate a third-party presidential candidateAmericans Elect qualified for the presidential ballot in Oregon and 28 other states, but the group on Thursday said it is abandoning its effort to field a third-party presidential candidate this year. The well-funded group developed an elaborate online process aimed at attracting millions of voters who would nominate a candidate for president.  But the group said that no candidate managed to get enough voter support to participate in an online convention in June. "We will not hold a June convention," Ileana Wachtel, the group's press...

(CNN) — John McCain’s general election campaign began as “the strategic equivalent of throwing a football through a tire at 50 yards” – and was doomed weeks before Election Day, his former chief strategist said Thursday. “We were running a campaign under extra difficult circumstances — the state of the Republican Party, the president’s unpopularity, the economy — a lot of issues that were not John McCain’s fault, but were John McCain’s problem in this race,” Schmidt told an audience at the University of Delaware, according to Politico. “When Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall I knew pretty much right...

Gingrich Warns of Conservative 3rd Party in 2012 Friday, April 3, 2009 8:53 AM Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warns that conservatives could leave the GOP and form a third party in 2012 if Republicans don’t do more to rein in government spending. “If the Republicans can’t break out of being the right wing party of big government, then I think you would see a third party movement in 2012, Gingrich said during an address to students at the College of the Ozarks in Missouri. http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/gingrich_third_party/2009/04/03/199346.html?s=al&promo_code=7D64-1

The Independent American Party of Nevada, an ultra-conservative party whose members believe the GOP is too liberal, hopes to mount a field of 54 candidates across Nevada this year. Nine of the 54 are from the Hansen family, the mainstay members of the party, which is for gun rights and against gay rights. Joel Hansen, who is running for Clark County district attorney, said if all 54 file it will more than double the number of candidates the party has ever put forward and will serve as a tribute to his brother, party founder Dan Hansen, a Sparks contractor killed...