Free Republic

DES MOINES -- Julian Castro, Beto O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders took to that stage at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines Thursday night for a town hall hosted by The League of United Latin American Citizens. Hundreds of Latinos attended Bernie Sanders got loudest crowd reaction Julian Castro impressed some with immigration knowledge It was an opportunity for not only the moderators--including Spectrum News’s own Annette Gracia--but the audience to ask questions. The candidates were surrounded by hundreds of Latinos ready to cheer on their favorites. “Should we make public colleges and universities tuition free? Yes. Well you know...

As President Trump’s misconduct grows more appalling and the case for his impeachment grows stronger every day, Democrats have given him one piece of good news: the escalating and harmful feud between presidential contender Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Hillary Clinton. The feud is also good news for Gabbard, D-Hawaii, whose presidential candidacy is on life-support. She is supported by only 1.3 percent of Democrats in the latest RealClear Politics average of presidential primary polls. But thanks to her feud with Clinton, Gabbard is attracting heavy media coverage – something she desperately needs to give her dark horse presidential candidacy any...

There are few staffers who have been with Hillary Clinton as long -- or are as fiercely loyal to her -- as Philippe Reines. Which is why Reines' appearance on Tucker Carlson's(!) show on Fox News Wednesday night to keep the door open to a late entry by Clinton into the 2020 race(!) caught my eye. Here's the key bit from Reines: "She ran for president because she thought she would be the best president. If she still thought that now, if she thought she had the best odds of beating Donald Trump, I think she would think about it...

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Friday she won't take part in a forum being held a historically black college in Columbia, South Carolina this weekend after President Donald Trump was given a "Bipartisan Justice Award." “As the only candidate who attended an HBCU, I know the importance that these spaces hold for young Black Americans," Harris, who was slated to participate in Second Step Presidential Justice Forum at Benedict College on Saturday, said in a statement. The California senator cited the fact that only a limited number of students from the school were allowed to attend Trump's remarks as...

To defeat Trump, the Democratic presidential nominee will have to do more than turn out the base. A theory for how to win the 2020 presidential election has quickly become conventional wisdom among Democratic campaign strategists and many prominent pundits. It goes like this: The country has become so polarized that swing voters barely exist anymore. Elections are now decided by which side better manages to mobilize its base. So Democrats need to stop worrying about winning over moderates—and confidently move to the left. Proponents of this “progressive mobilization theory” can point to a few important pieces of evidence. Plenty...

The first votes of the 2020 presidential election are just 100 days away, when Iowans kick off their first-in-the-nation caucus on Feb. 3. Democrats in the state are eager to unseat President Trump, but voters are split on which candidate can make that happen. On a recent Thursday night, supporters of Sen. Elizabeth Warren packed into a split-level house in suburban Dubuque, Iowa, to network and get tips from local campaign organizers on canvassing voters. Rachel Guhin was among them. The 25-year-old works at a publishing company in Dubuque. She says she's volunteering for the campaign because she thinks Warren...

Democrats are increasingly worried by the spending chasm between the two sides — and its implications for 2020. Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee have raised more than $300 million this year for his reelection — more than any other sitting president in history at this point in the campaign. Trump has nearly twice as much cash on hand — $158 million, between his campaign account and the RNC — as Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee had at this time in his successful re-election run. Already this year, Trump’s campaign operation has spent close to $23 million...

Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell are attacking each other in increasingly pointed terms as House Democrats burrow deeper into their impeachment inquiry. But if the top two congressional leaders can’t find a way to come together soon, the government could plunge into a shutdown and any last hopes for legislating before the presidential election will vanish. The speaker and Senate majority leader have been trading grievances increasingly over the past several months. Pelosi is lashing McConnell for sitting on House-passed legislation addressing gun violence and ethics reforms; McConnell says Pelosi has done nothing to follow through on her claims that...

More than a dozen Democratic candidates are still vying for the nomination in the 2020 presidential race, possibly living the door open to another: Hillary Clinton. The Washington Post reports two sources close to Clinton say she’s still considering entering the 2020 race for the White House, potentially setting up a rematch with President Donald Trump. The newspaper cites 17 state and national party leaders who expressed concerns about the Democratic field, still large and filled with weaknesses after four debates. A new CNN poll shows Joe Biden has widened his lead to 34 percent, ahead of Sen. Elizabeth Warren...

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday defended his fellow 2020 hopeful Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii against the claim that she is a “Russian asset,” saying the suggestion is “outrageous.” “Tulsi Gabbard has put her life on the line to defend this country,” the Vermont independent tweeted. “People can disagree on issues, but it is outrageous for anyone to suggest that Tulsi is a foreign asset.” Sanders does not name Hillary Clinton in the tweet, but his comments appear to be aimed at the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, whose claim last week on a podcast with former Obama...

Fox Business host Stuart Varney predicted that President Trump may have a surprise for Democrats and those calling for "drastic action" on climate change, as the president is set to give a speech in natural gas-rich Pennsylvania on Wednesday. On Sunday, the Washington Post Editorial Board wrote an opinion piece arguing for a "carbon tax," which would be levied upon businesses and individuals based on greenhouses gas emissions. The board wrote, "The science does not change because politicians deny that humans are warming the planet. Likewise, the economics do not change because politicians find them ideologically or politically inconvenient." "It's...

Presidential hopeful Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a liberal who supports banning assault weapons and “raising the minimum wage to $15,” is still “too moderate for today’s Democrats,” sighs David Catron at The American Spectator. Which goes to show that the party has “no chance of beating Trump in 2020.” Unlike Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren’s radicalism, Gabbard’s liberalism is “relatively rational.” She is pro-choice but opposes late-term abortion; worries the “secretive” impeachment investigation will polarize America even further; and refuses to “execute a flip-flop on the withdrawal of troops from Syria,” as other Democrats did. Her campaign is likely to prove...

The image Nancy Pelosi added to her Twitter profile last week shows her as the plucky woman at a table full of gray men, standing up and wagging her finger at Donald Trump like a scolding schoolmarm, just before stalking out of the meeting. She must imagine it portrays her in a good light. It doesn’t, no matter how many progressive women share it triumphantly on social media as a symbol of female empowerment. It’s more a symbol of female entitlement. It’s an embarrassment to women who want to be judged on their merits, not given special treatment by men...

When a presidential candidate raises a lot of money, they’re probably going to tell you about it, which leads to a lot of headlines like this:(HEADLINES-AT-LINK) Those headlines aren’t wrong, but they also don’t tell you that much on their own. That’s because each candidate who’s bragging about his or her fundraising total is doing it in a vacuum. It’s tough to know whether to care about, say, Bernie Sanders’s haul without knowing what the other candidates brought in. Luckily, all candidates must file detailed reports of their fundraising and spending at least once a quarter. This information, which is...

In another sign of the dangerous predicament facing President Donald Trump, his longtime ally Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said in an interview that aired Sunday night that he could not rule out the possibility of impeachment if new evidence emerges. In an interview on "Axios on HBO," Jonathan Swan asked the South Carolina senator: "Are you open minded if more to comes out that you could support impeachment?" "Sure, I mean show me something that is a crime," Graham replied. "If you could show me that, you know, Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo outside the phone...

Many supporters of President Donald Trump are celebrating new fundraising figures from California – figures that show him outpacing any single democrat, although he has not raised more than the total amount that Democrats have. The new figures are significant because they’re from so-called “small amount donors,” supporters who gave $200 or less. The figures also show that he has raised much more money than any of his Democratic rivals in what’s usually a democratic state – but the numbers also show that he’s benefiting from being the only viable Republican in the race. Between July and September Trump has...

On any given day, the Trump campaign is plastering ads all over Facebook, YouTube and the millions of sites served by Google, hitting the kind of incendiary themes — immigrant invaders, the corrupt media — that play best on platforms where algorithms favor outrage and political campaigns are free to disregard facts.

WEST BRANCH, Iowa (AP) — Hillary Clinton's suggestion this past week that Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is being "groomed" by Russians to act as a spoiler in the 2020 race may have had the opposite effect of what the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee intended: It's elevated Gabbard's candidacy and may have inspired even more ardent interest in her campaign among Clinton critics. On Saturday, Gabbard found fans among the many Clinton skeptics across Iowa, where Clinton barely won the 2016 Democratic caucuses against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. "What is this horrible thing that Hillary said about you?" one person asked...

President Trump lashed out at the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton on Saturday, quipping that Democrats "need a Green Party more than ever" after Clinton suggested that the third party's 2016 candidate for president was a "Russian asset." In a tweet, the president weighed in to the ongoing controversy sparked by Clinton on Friday when she suggested that Stein was working on behalf of or to help Russian election interference efforts during her 2016 run for president. Stein has been blamed for winning votes that otherwise could have been won by Clinton. "Crooked Hillary Clinton just called the respected environmentalist...

Presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) did not hold back Friday when responding to 2016 nominee Hilary Clinton's suggestion that she is the "favorite of the Russians" for 2020, excoriating the former secretary of State as "the queen of warmongers" and "personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party." "She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her, so far," Clinton had told David Plouffe, host of the podcast "Campaign HQ," and the campaign manager for former President Obama's 2008 campaign. While the former first lady and...