Free Republic

Every four years, in every presidential race, Democrats have a war between moderates and liberals. Most every time, a moderate wins. This may be contrary to conventional wisdom. But you can look it up. Look at every contested nomination since 1960, when John F. Kennedy beat Hubert Humphrey, through 2016, when Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders. Yes, even 2008, when Barack Obama was more moderate than Clinton and John Edwards. Think Jimmy Carter, who liberals didn’t like in 1976 and who beat Ted Kennedy in 1980. Think Bill Clinton, who ran as a “New Democrat” — i.e., “Not Liberal.” Even...

"In 1952, the democrats ran Adlai E. Stevenson against Dwight Eisenhower for president of the United States. That is, they ran a leftist schlamozzle whose own mother might or might not recognize him if she hadn’t seen him in four days, against the man who had just saved the world from Nazism..."

The 2020 presidential election is more than a year away, but candidates are zig-zagging the country to line up support, both in terms of votes and contributions. Currently, Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading the Democrats in fundraising. And so far, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, former Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, California Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee have dropped out of the 2020 election race, despite raising amounts that range from $1.94 million (Moulton) to almost $14.9 million (Gillibrand). Still, many candidates remain in the field, including President Donald Trump and one recent convert to...

CLINTON, S.C. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden opened a new line of attack Thursday on Donald Trump, accusing the Republican president of deliberate cruelty to children after the administration ended a policy shielding certain immigrants from deportation if they’re seeking life-saving medical treatment. “He’s seeking to deport sick kids,” Biden said while campaigning Thursday. “It’s just wrong. It’s wrong. … Cruelty is the point. It’s their only point. It’s all they have to run on: fear, anger, division, cruelty.” The former vice president leveled his criticisms a day after the administration confirmed that it ended a policy that...

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he would not be seeking the presidency if it weren’t for the white supremacist violence that occurred in Charlottesville in August 2017 and President Donald Trump’s response to it. At a fundraiser in Richmond, about an hour east of Charlottesville, Biden said he had been prepared to re-enter private life after forgoing a run against Hillary Clinton in 2016. “I had not planned on running for the presidency,” Biden said. “And I mean that sincerely.” Biden said his calculation changed “when those folks came out of the fields carrying those torches, chanting...

WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. — Jill Biden ribbed President Trump for his interest in Greenland during a speech at a Democratic fundraiser. The former second lady, on a two-day swing of the Carolinas, urged South Carolina Democrats in West Columbia on Saturday to recall what politics was like pre-Trump, a time when the commander in chief didn't issue surprise pronouncements on social media. "Just for a moment I want you to imagine that it's the summer of 2021," Biden, 68, told a crowd of about 50 gathered for a barbecue fundraiser by the Lexington County Democratic Party. "You wake up in...

The Democratic National Convention summer meeting is taking place in San Francisco over the next three days with a dozen candidates for president scheduled to speak. But today the meeting kicked off with controversy as uncredentialed activists showed up and demanded to be let into a room where a couple of climate change initiatives were being discussed. From KRON 4: The three-day Democratic National Convention summer meeting started off heated, with hundreds of people trying to get in a DNC meeting that essentially filled up. However, activists inside saw there were many seats available, so dozens and dozens of people...

It is an article of faith in some circles that if the U.S. economy stops growing, President Trump will not be reelected in 2020. Thus opines Ross Douthat in The New York Times in a recent column headlined “What Happens in a Recession?” Answering his own question, Douthat writes: “First, the easy part: Donald Trump loses re-election. It will be ugly and flailing and desperate and – depending on recession-era geopolitics – potentially quite dangerous, but there is no way a president so widely disliked survives the evaporation of his boom.” Is Douthat sure about that? True, President Trump scores...

DES MOINES, Iowa — As Democratic presidential candidates descended on the Iowa State Fair, a plane buzzed overhead, an ominous warning fluttering behind it on a banner: “Focus on Rural America.” Democrats hoping to win the White House in 2020 recognize how critical that advice is after 2016, when Hillary Clinton turned in strong performances in many cities and suburbs but lost rural voters 2-to-1, falling short to President Donald Trump by slim margins in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Democrats clawed back some gains in rural counties in the 2018 midterm elections, and they want to build on that...

Of all the tiresome falsehoods from the so-called “resistance,” the narrative that Democrats lose elections because they are just too decent and fair is among the most ridiculous. If only they would put aside their genteel political ways, this self-serving theory goes, and do what is necessary instead of what is civil, they would force the American people to finally see the truth of Donald Trump’s evil. Columnist Juan Williams (who, it should be noted, does have a reputation for civility) is the latest to propagate this assessment of Democrats as being too fair to their opponents in the Trump...

White House hopeful Beto O'Rourke visited an Arkansas gun show Saturday to talk with firearm owners and vendors about solutions to tackle gun violence. The visit comes one day after O'Rourke released a plan proposing a slate of gun control reforms and two weeks after a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, where O'Rourke represented in Congress from 2013 to 2019. "At the show, Beto listened to voters － including many Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016 － about their thoughts on gun safety. In order to make progress, Beto believes we have to meet people where they are,...

The Log Cabin Republicans endorsed President Trump's 2020 reelection bid on Friday, nearly four years after the conservative LGBT organization declined to endorse then-candidate Trump in 2016. The group said its national board of directors voted to endorse Trump after consulting with its chapters across the country. Log Cabin Republicans Chairman Robert Kabel and Vice Chairwoman Jill Homan argued in a Washington Post op-ed on Friday that Trump has helped remove LGBTQ rights as a wedge issue in the GOP, citing his administration's policies on ending the spread of HIV/AIDS as well as his push to get other countries to...

At least four Democratic presidential hopefuls — Joe Biden, Julián Castro, Joe Sestak and Marianne Williamson — are expected to attend an LGBTQ forum in Iowa on Sept. 20. The event at Coe College in Cedar Rapids will be hosted by One Iowa, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy group; The Gazette, a daily in Eastern Iowa; and The Advocate, an LGBTQ magazine. The candidates will address the audience before a question-and-answer session with the three moderators, one from each of the host organizations. Courtney Reyes, the interim director of One Iowa, said the event will "focus on LGBTQ people in the...

It’s not ‘guaranteed’ every Clinton state will remain blue in 2020, analyst says A White House official grimaced slightly Wednesday as a cable news chyron showed stocks plummeting, potentially undercutting President Donald Trump’s Thursday plans to say his stewardship of a strong economy should help earn him a second term. Trump will make another campaign-trail pitch to voters Thursday evening in what his aides see as a likely 2020 battleground state that could be a photo finish next November: New Hampshire. His rally in Manchester will mark yet another early reelection tour stop in an expected or possible battleground state....

As Donald Trump looks to fire up his base Thursday night in New Hampshire, GOP political strategists and activists say the president needs to tout his economic successes, push back at “socialism” and reintroduce voters to the “unique appeal” that catapulted him to office. Trump returns tonight to the Southern New Hampshire University arena in Manchester — the site of his election eve rally in 2016 — for a “Keep America Great” re-election campaign event set to begin at 7 p.m. “He has a unique appeal,” Republican strategist Mike Dennehy said. “We know that he has the ability to connect...

In an interview with CNN on Monday, Sen. Kamala Harris argued that President Donald Trump has failed to deliver on his promises to workers. And she issued a dire warning about autoworkers' jobs in particular. "He said he was going to help working people, and it is estimated that as many as 300,000 autoworkers may be out of a job before the end of the year," she said aboard her campaign bus in Iowa. That was a more conservative figure than Harris used July 12 on the radio show "The Breakfast Club," during which she said, "He's helped the top...

DES MOINES — A Democratic presidential field that has struggled to precisely define its general election indictment of Donald Trump appears finally to have found it. In the wake of mass shootings in Ohio and Texas — the latter of which was tied to a suspect whose anti-immigrant sentiments led to the killing of 22 people — candidates are road-testing a withering argument that draws a direct line between gun violence and the president’s racist rhetoric. “We are living with a toxic brew of two different things, each of which is claiming lives and each of which represents a national...

In the wake of two mass shootings last weekend, 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson is calling to renew a ban on assault weapons. “The president has said that there's ... no political will or appetite for a ban on the assault weapons,” Williamson told Yahoo Finance’s Adam Shapiro in an interview this week. “This is clearly untrue. 70% of all Americans want to renew the ban on the assault weapons,” she added, apparently referring to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll out this week. The two shootings from last weekend both used military-style assault rifles, which can be used to fire...

Democratic hopeful Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., faced shouted questions over why he wouldn't plainly call President Trump a "white supremacist" as some of his fellow 2020 contenders have. The questions came as Delaney was surrounded by cameras and apparent members of the press after his speech at the Iowa State Fair on Friday. "Why do you stop short of calling him a white supremacist," Delaney was asked. The apparent reporter went on to ask what the difference was for Delaney between saying Trump supported white supremacists and using that label to describe him. "I think it's a distinction without a...

Sen. Cory Booker’s campaign has a brilliant idea on how to defeat President Donald Trump — just prevent him from campaigning. Of course, the New Jersey Democrat may want to concentrate more on emerging as his party’s nominee before worrying about going head-to-head with the president. Erin Turmelle, the New Hampshire campaign director for Booker called for Trump to cancel an upcoming rally there, saying these events “serve as a breeding ground for racism and bigotry” and have no place anywhere in the country. On Tuesday Turmelle tweeted: “Two days before [Booker] returns to NH, Donald Trump is planning to...