Harsh Republican political meeting ditching leader about nothing (7)
I believe the answer is:
raucous
'harsh' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'republican political meeting ditching leader about nothing' is the wordplay.
'republican' becomes 'r' (abbreviation).
'political meeting' becomes 'caucus' (type of meeting in US politics).
'ditching leader' means to remove the first letter.
'about' is an insertion indicator.
'nothing' becomes 'O' (O resembles 0).
'caucus' with its first letter removed is 'aucus'.
'aucus' placed around 'o' is 'aucous'.
'r'+'aucous'='RAUCOUS'
(Other definitions for raucous that I've seen before include "Loud and harsh-sounding" , "Wildly noisy" , "Rowdy - strident" , "Harsh in sound" , "Rough and discordant" .)