Free Republic

Two bills that would move up Pennsylvania’s presidential primary election on the calendar will go before the House State Government Committee soon, its chairman said Monday. “The democratic process is one of the cornerstones of our nation, and it’s our duty to ensure that the voices of all Pennsylvanians are heard,” said state Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Centre County, the committee’s chairman, in a statement. Proponents have long wanted to push the state’s presidential primary date from its current slot as the fourth Tuesday in April, arguing that it’s usually too late in the process to be relevant. Right now, Pennsylvania’s...

Legislation that could make Pennsylvania more of a player in deciding the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees moved out of the House State Government Committee on Wednesday. The Senate-passed bill would move the commonwealth’s primary date to the third Tuesday of March in presidential election years rather than the fourth Tuesday of April, when it is currently held. That would have Pennsylvania’s primary coincide with those in Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Arizona, starting in 2024. “Right now Pennsylvania’s primary really doesn’t matter in the scheme of national politics” for the most part, said House State Government Committee Chairman Seth Grove,...

Check Your Voter Registration StatusAs a voter registered with the American Independent Party you can ONLY vote for that party's presidential candidates in the March 3, 2020, Presidential Primary.If you want to vote for the Green, Peace and Freedom, or Republican Parties' presidential candidates, you must re-register with that specific party.You can re-register to vote online at registertovote.ca.gov. If you need to re-register after February 18, 2020, you may need to register to vote in person at a polling place, vote center, or your county elections office.Republican Delegate List (PDF)Presidential Primary Election - March 3, 2020 Election Date Voter Registration...

Sen. Hillary Clinton's decision to end her historic bid for the White House and ceding the Democratic nomination to Sen. Barack Obama, ends a long, often bitter battle for the right to challenge Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the general election. Obama, D-Ill., who claimed victory after clinching the necessary delegates on Tuesday, will be the nation's first African American running with the nomination of one of the country's two major political parties. Clinton's Bid for History Falls Short Hillary Clinton, the former first lady and two-term senator from New York, entered the race over a year ago with the...

We worry about our presidential primary process. Some wonder why. Some believe that we worry too much, and it all fixes itself in time; why get so worked up? Be patient, they say, the primaries will handle it, and then comes the election, don’t worry so much. And if you’re not in an early primary state, you have no effect anyway, so you’re better off saving your energy and just watching TV or going to a game. So we’re told, especially by friends and acquaintances who just don’t think it all matters that much, and who wonder why we’re willing...

Republicans on Friday are expected to remove all obstacles to holding their 2016 presidential nominating convention to the end of June, two months earlier than their 2012 convention in Tampa, The Washington Times has learned. “The party’s rules change moves the convention to an earlier date which will allow our candidate to begin the general campaign earlier,” said Republican National Committee member Bruce Ash, who is chairman of the RNC’s Standing Rules Committee. “I will be voting to create a level playing field for all candidates and to help vet and promote the best candidate to allow the GOP to...

The Republican Party suffers from a terrible illness, and it goes on and on, season after season, without even attempts to cure it. This illness is our presidential primary system. Since the beginning of the New Deal, the Republican Party has only nominated two conservatives for the Presidency: Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Ronald Reagan in 1980. One suffered a huge defeat, the other enjoyed two huge victories. As this record shows the conservative ascendancy, one would expect this to mean that the party would keep nominating candidates like their greatest victor in a century, at least until it stopped...

DES MOINES, Iowa - In the days since Republicans lost an election many in the party thought was theirs, chatter has been bubbling about what the GOP should do to recover. For Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, it starts with the smallest of actions: abandoning the state's now-infamous straw poll. Once a festive checkpoint on the road to the leadoff Iowa caucuses, the poll has devolved into a full-blown sideshow, Branstad and other critics contend. They say it's an unfair and false test that has felled good candidates and kept others from competing in the state. "It's just something that's gotten...

Rick Santorum is on the verge of being left off the ballot in the the Indiana primary, three sources told BuzzFeed Friday. The former Pennsylvania senator is more than 30 signatures short of the 500 needed in the 7th Congressional district, which includes Marion County, where Indianapolis is located, a source close to the Santorum campaign said. The Marion County chief deputy of voter registration on the Democratic side, Scott Carr, confirmed that Santorum had not submitted 500 valid signatures. An Indiana Republican source said Santorum is "a couple dozen" signatures short, but that Newt Gingrich will be on the...

This week over 3000 Republican will gather in Orlando to meet presidential candidates, watch them debate, and then vote in a non-binding straw poll. Last year’s United States Senate campaign in Florida is highly instructive in how useful straw polls can be. Marco Rubio was trailing Charlie Crist in scientifically conducted public opinion polls early in the primary campaign. But several county Republican Executive Committees conducted straw polls of their members which showed overwhelming support for Rubio. County REC’s are composed of the grassroots activists who raise money, knock on doors, and make phone calls for political campaigns. They are...

California has moved its presidential primary to June, consolidating trips to the poll to save money in an election that most voters in the Democratic leaning state see as a foregone conclusion. Governor Jerry Brown signed the move into law on Friday. The state for years tried to raise its profile in the national presidential race, but its efforts have been diluted as other states have made similar moves. California spent nearly $100 million for its presidential primary on February 5, 2008, when 24 states, nearly half the nation, held nominating contests in a battle known as "Super Tuesday". The...

California’s next presidential primary will be one of the last in the nation thanks to a measure signed Friday by Gov. Jerry Brown ...

As a high school senior during the lead-in to the 1980 primaries, I did what I could for “The Early Bird” – Rep. Philip M. Crane. I wore his enormous button everywhere – the Fox Valley Mall and the Woodfield Mall, the movie theater, the pizzeria. I couldn’t do more than that, but I tried. He was the most conservative candidate in the field, a twelve-year congressman, author, and terrific speaker. Despite fine showings in straw polls, his conservative faithful weren’t enough; his campaign was eliminated early on in the primary season. Fortunately, the primaries worked out well for the...

Hillary Clinton would make a formidable 2012 presidential opponent running against any of the current crop of likely GOP candidates. Maybe that's why so many of them are keeping their powder dry, so far. They're waiting to see what she does. Political intelligence can be, like military intelligence, an oxymoron. (This I learned in both venues.) The two crafts are not dissimilar. Each collects and examines shards of possible evidence; rates the veracity of each piece; searches for connections; tests each against an unfiltered range of suppositions; sprinkles in magic dust made from the ground-up intuitive glands of a dozen...

Out of the following potential candidates, who would you vote for in a Republican Presidential Primary? * Mike Huckabee * Sarah Palin * Mitt Romney * Newt Gingrich * Tim Pawlenty * Herman Cain * Mitch Daniels * Mike Pence * Other: Direct link to poll: http://polldaddy.com/poll/4409475/#

I imagine, were I to wrangle up a fluxed-out DeLorean and travel back to 1995, I would have a difficult time convincing my sixteen-year-old self that the actor then portraying Stuart Smalley would go on to be the United States Senator from Minnesota. Smalley, if you do not immediately recall, was Al Franken’s signature character on Saturday Night Live, a self-professed self-help guru with a show on cable access television. Franken’s shtick played off the irony that Smalley so obviously needed help himself. Each sketch would start with him gazing vacantly into a full-length mirror, reciting the then familiar affirmation....

Iowa Rebublican Caucus Results: Mike Huckabee 34.3%, Mitt Romney 25.3%, Fred Thompson 13.4%, John McCain 13.1%, Ron Paul 10.0%, Rudy Giuliani 3.5%, Duncan Hunter 0.4% New Hampshire Rebublican Primary Results: John McCain 37.2%, Mitt Romney 31.6%, Mike Huckabee 11.2%, Rudy Giuliani 8.6%, Ron Paul 7.6%, Fred Thompson 1.2%, Duncan Hunter 0.5% Michigan Rebublican Primary Results: Mitt Romney 38.9%, John McCain 29.7%, Mike Huckabee 16.1%, Ron Paul 6.3%, Fred Thompson 3.7%, Rudy Giuliani 2.8%, Duncan Hunter 0.3% South Carolina Republican Primary Results: John McCain 33.2%, Mike Huckabee 29.9%, Fred Thompson 15.7%, Mitt Romney 15.1%, Ron Paul 3.7%, Rudy Giuliani 2.1%, Duncan...

(snip) A Republican National Committee rules committee in April gave initial backing to a plan to spread out the primaries to avoid the creation of a de facto national primary. But the plan approved by the RNC's full rules committee Wednesday in Minneapolis rejected the so-called Ohio Plan in favor of a system allowing most states to hold primaries in March. Bennett has been critical of such a system, which he says creates a national primary that focuses attention on a few big media markets. It also encourages early campaigning, more spending and less contact with the average voter, Bennett...

"Given what later happened, California would have had more clout had it left its primary in June. One can only imagine the intensity that a June primary contest between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in California would have generated."

About 34 percent of voters in California are registered Republicans, and are the only voters allowed to cast ballots in the Republican presidential race on Tuesday. ... Political consultant Hal Dash said the decision to exclude independent voters could play to the Democratic Party’s advantage by allowing Democrats to argue that the GOP doesn’t want them.”Why would you want to shut the door at the beginning when you have the opportunity to be able and welcome some numbers? If I was the California Republican Party, I’d want anybody I could get given their shrinking numbers,” he said.