After more than three years of talking about it, the way-too-long 2016 election is actually under way, and as always, the actual Iowa caucus results don’t look very much like the polls. No surprises there.
The Democratic side was a tie, no two ways about it. One thing you can say for certain about American elections – when they’re very close, there’s no way to sort out who really won, and in this case we may never know. The Clinton camp basically adopted the W. Bush strategy in Bush v. Gore: declare victory and move on. It is remarkable, to say the least, that Bernie Sanders, avowed socialist, 74 years old, no PAC money, etc., was able to take on a political machine that includes a former president stumping for the celebrity candidate.
I think one advantage Bernie may have is that he is making a case for something different than the status quo. His presidency would not be a third Obama term, whereas from the sound of Hillary (and what we know of how the Clintons govern), we would have continuity under her guiding hand.
What about the G.O.P.? Well, the biggest bigot-hugger won. Trump learned the meaning of the word “lose”, and Rubio apparently thinks that coming in third is better than coming in first (perhaps because the number 3 is bigger than the number 1 – just a guess on my part). Predictably, the Republican contest appears headed toward producing a candidate with extremist views on a whole range of topics, from abortion rights to foreign military actions and so on. It could hardly be anything else. Trump is an arbitrary billionaire, capable of doing just about anything. Cruz is a sanctimonious wind-bag, in love with his own voice and with the sweet memory of carpet-bombing the darkies. Rubio is the cracked vessel that crazed neocon foreign policy advisers are carried around in. Christie is the somewhat larger container that the anti-Social Security Peterson Institute is carried around in. I could go on.
So, if Iowa demonstrated anything, it’s that the Democratic race is indeed a race. It also confirms what most of us already knew – some crackpot will be running on the other side.
Don’t forget to vote. No, really … I mean it.
luv u,
jp
