Free Republic

With all the noise and bluster coming from the Republican campaign, suggesting dysfunction among the Republican candidates, the fact is, Hillary Clinton is the most miscast character in the 2016 race. This is shaping up to be a change election, and nothing about a Clinton candidacy offers change. Period. While Republicans are engaged in a noisy, boisterous process that is at the very least compelling to watch, the Democrats appear to be letting Clinton sleepwalk them into the doldrums of a campaign that will not be able to channel the emotions of the electorate. Her campaign will only feed the...

Democratic Party activists are conflicted over whether Hillary Clinton can take on Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in the general election, with some fearing she provides too much ammunition for the flamboyant businessman's style of attack. While Mr. Trump is leading the national polls and calling the shots in what's become a circuslike GOP primary season, Mrs. Clinton tops a sedentary Democratic race with two other opponents respectfully nipping at her without doing much damage -- and party stalwarts are happy to have it that way. "I hear a lot of people saying, 'You know, I've watched the Democratic debates...

<p>The current conventional wisdom is that Hillary Clinton would make mincemeat out of Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup in the general election.  Jeb Bush thinks Clinton would "crush" Trump – an observation not reflecting current polling, which has Clinton holding a narrow lead over The Donald.</p>

News articles concerning the most influential political donors in America typically list the same names: The Koch brothers, George Soros, Sheldon Adelson and, lately, Tom Steyer. But as we reach the end of 2015, none of these billionaires has spent big in the 2016 contest, at least not at an individual candidate level. In their absence, a number of lesser known donors are shaping up to be major players in 2016. Here are five to watch: 1. The DeVos Family We're cheating by including a whole family in our list, but there is no way of separating out this high-spending...

After the British victory at the Battle of the Second El Alamein in November of 1942, Winston Churchill spoke to the British people. Churchill eloquently stated, “Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Perhaps, the same can be said of the opening salvos of the 2016 Presidential Election. We have watched numerous debates on both sides, filled with candidates grandiose and not very grandiose. Gradually, the field is being thinned and on February 1, 2016, the games truly begin at the Iowa Caucuses....

During the last half of 2015, a specter haunted the Republican "invisible primary" for the 2016 presidential nomination: an independent run for president by Donald Trump that would split the GOP base and send a Democrat gliding into the White House. As he consolidated a position in the polls as the GOP front-runner, Trump was maneuvered into signing a party loyalty pledge (required to get onto the ballot in South Carolina), and then ruled out an indie run at and after a December candidate debate. With a guy like Trump, an abandonment of this doubled-down oath is always possible, especially...

Jim Webb may be considering trying to become the next Ralph Nader by running as an independent. Webb has been pretty active on social media, going after both President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for their policies. He’s tapping into the populist anger that those who are turned off by both Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and Ted Cruz might have, but Webb is probably counting on their support too. Ben Brody at Bloomberg Politics Webb is going to hop back into the presidential fray. Since dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination, Webb has continued to maintain his...

When Jim Webb, the former Virginia senator and Navy secretary, left the Democratic primary race in October, he hinted that he might mount an independent run for president. That looks more likely now that Webb has blasted his party's front-runner for her "inept leadership” as secretary of state. "Hillary Clinton should be called to account for her inept leadership that brought about the chaos in Libya, and the power vacuums that resulted in the rest of the region,” Webb wrote in a Facebook post Saturday. "While she held that office, the U.S. spent about $2 billion backing the Libyan uprising...

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-12-26/webb-attacks-clinton-with-eye-on-independent-run

What the heck is Jimmy Webb doing in the Democrat Party? As I said before in a previous column on USDW, it is high time Webb is rescued from the clutches of the DNC. Webb’s campaign is in a collapsed mine shaft in the Cascade Range. As he stumbles around with a cursorily made torch and a Randall knife, probing for answers to the world’s problems, Colonel Sam Trautman, Special Forces, has been sent in to pull him out and bring him back to the RNC. Covey Leader calling Raven…Talk to me Jimmy… They’re all gone sir. No more hawks...

Several years ago Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s wife Elizabeth sent me a wooden chink that had been used to put together the old school house on the rural farm where he wrote his books. We’d been talking about t=he kinship I felt with Senator Moynihan for his thoughtful approach to governance, his willingness to put country ahead of party, and his search for solutions rather than political expediency. She wrote on it, “square pegs in a round hole.” Some people say I am a Republican who became a Democrat, but that I often sound like a Republican in a room...

Former Virginia senator Jim Webb announced Tuesday afternoon that he would no longer pursue the Democratic presidential nomination, telling reporters that instead he will gauge support in the coming weeks for a possible White House bid as an independent candidate. "More people in this country call themselves political independents than Republicans or Democrats. I happen to agree with them," Webb told reporters at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington.

A person familiar with his plans says former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb is dropping out of the Democratic race for president and is considering launching an independent bid instead. Webb planned to hold a news conference on Tuesday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity and was not authorized to speak publicly ahead of Webb's announcement.

Former Senator Jim Webb was something of a wallflower during last week’s Democratic debate, though not because he didn’t want to get out on the floor and dance. He said afterward that he believes the debate was rigged to favor Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, leaving the lesser known candidates—himself, Martin O’Malley, and Lincoln Chafee—confined to the sidelines. When the floor was his he seemed perturbed and complained that he wasn’t getting as much time as the leading candidates. “In that kind of environment, it was either going to be Mr. Angry or a potted plant,” said Webb after the...

Developing - Jim Webb may announce he is running as an independent WMAL

Star Parker appeared on CNN the morning after the Democratic candidate debate to discuss just how much liberals care about black lives. The other guest was Patti Solis Doyle, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager. And Star didn’t waste time getting to the bottom line. “Well, we had five, white, wealthy liberals trying to convince us — to one-up each other — that black lives matter so much to them that they’re going to do more of the same: big government. They’re going to have more policy to trap them in poor communities. They’re going to have more policies to trap...

Frontrunner Clinton prepares to debate surging Sanders Hillary Clinton faces heavy pressure during the first Democratic presidential debate Tuesday to outperform primary rivals cutting into her lead and perhaps keep her biggest potential challenger on the sidelines. Vice President Biden, still mulling a bid, is not expected to be on stage in Las Vegas. But he’ll surely be watching as the former secretary of state spars in person for the first time with her 2016 Democratic opponents. And those candidates have not been shy about casting Clinton as a calculating candidate swaying with the political winds. Most recently, Clinton has...

Here's an exchange from Bernie Sanders's appearance on "Meet the Press" on Sunday: CHUCK TODD: Are you a capitalist? @BernieSanders: No. I'm a Democratic Socialist. And, in those five words, Sanders showed why — no matter how much energy there is for him on the liberal left — he isn't getting elected president. Why? Because Democrat or Republican (or independent), capitalism remains a pretty popular concept — especially when compared to socialism. A 2011 Pew Research Center survey showed that 50 percent of people had a favorable view of capitalism, while 40 percent had an unfavorable one. Of socialism, just...

Star Parker appeared on CNN the morning after the Democratic candidate debate to discuss just how much liberals care about black lives. The other guest was Patti Solis Doyle, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager. And Star didn’t waste time getting to the bottom line. “Well, we had five, white, wealthy liberals trying to convince us — to one-up each other — that black lives matter so much to them that they’re going to do more of the same: big government. They’re going to have more policy to trap them in poor communities. They’re going to have more policies to trap...

It’s over. The Democratic Party’s first debate just ended, and my main takeaway is how sad it is that the party of JFK has been reduced to five elderly white people arguing over who can out nut-job each other. For all his problems, Kennedy was a tax-cutting anti-communist who loved and defended this country whose values have no place in today’s Democratic Party. I don’t know what country those candidates were talking about, but it sounds awful. It has a rigged system that keeps down minorities, women, gays, men, aliens, animals, trees, anything living and most things dead. But somehow...