RESUME IGNORING IOWA UNTIL 2020

Posted on | by Ed

Today was a very long and exhausting day for me so I'm fighting sleep shortly before midnight. Going to have to bullet point the caucus results.

1. The Sanders-Clinton thing…we're gonna be here a while before this gets resolved. I don't mean Iowa; I mean the nomination. Sanders isn't going to go away and the non-trivial likelihood of Clinton getting indicted at some point is a little appreciated wild card. This could easily be going on in mid-May like we did in 2008.

2. Trump underperformed his poll numbers. Shocking, I know. No ground game. No real campaign. Just a hype machine. He looks like he's already bored with this too. Half-expected him to endorse Cruz during his yawner of a concession speech.

3. Speaking of rubes and dupes, how about Ben Carson flat-out stealing tens of millions of dollars under the false pretense of using it to run for president?
buy diflucan online buy diflucan no prescription

Christ, he's not even pretending. "I'm gonna leave Iowa mid-afternoon on caucus day and also skip New Hampshire and South Carolina, but I'm totes still running. This is a real campaign. Swearsies." Coming soon to an insufferable syndicated radio station near you. (Called it on Nov. 4, by the way. I'll feed ya, baby birds.)

4. As our friends in Britain would say, I think we can conclude with confidence that an endorsement from Sarah Palin is worth fuck-all. They speak to the exact same audience. An audience of old, hard to look at, racist idiots with the maturity level of toddlers.

5. Speaking of trainwrecks, how terrible is Jeb!? He lost to frickin' Rand Paul. He barely beat Carly Fiorina, who in turn barely edged out a rabid muskrat from Davenport.
online pharmacy fluoxetine best drugstore for you

He's urging supporters (who?) to "reset" his campaign, which he also urged them to do in early December when he was floundering like the post-BBQ turd that he is. So if you're keeping track this is his second "reset." Give it up and go back to shilling for fake charter schools. It's still difficult to believe that W. was the smarter one.

6. Jim Gilmore got 11 votes. Granted he hasn't run much of a campaign, but this SOB got on national TV a couple times (at the Kids Table debates) and raised half a million bucks (OK, it pales in comparison but it's still half a million bucks) and he got eleven votes?
online pharmacy prednisone best drugstore for you

buy xifaxan online buy xifaxan no prescription

He finished behind other, for christ's sake. Jim Gilmore, the man who lost to Other.

7. There are about 7 Republicans who need to quit immediately but probably won't: Bush, Fiorina, Christie, Huckabee, Santorum, Kasich, and Carson. They're all wasting their time. But there's no real incentive to stop spending other people's money, is there? So until the money dries up, most of them will keep flailing. (Huckabee quit Monday night)

8. It's barely February and I'm already sick to death of talking about Donald Trump. Honestly I don't think I can do it for 10 more months, although I stand by my insistence that a Trump/Palin ticket would be worth its weight in comedic gold.

46 thoughts on “RESUME IGNORING IOWA UNTIL 2020”

  • Glen H says:

    Silly question here from an Australian, but isn't Cruz a Canadian? Or have I misread some Onion type joke site?

  • Dbp says:

    Cruz was born in Canada, but one of his parents is a US citizen. That makes him a citizen.
    Though Obama's parental citizenship was pretty loudly ignored by those on the right, and possibly even by Cruz himself for a while. Trump brought up Cruz's Canadian past multiple times, and played Born in the USA as a middle finger to Cruz.

  • Huntly says:

    At least the Huckster dropped out, er "suspended" his campaign. I suspect that Carson will spend the next few weeks looking for that one left sock that disappeared in the dryer; I actually forgot he was still running.

  • Denny says:

    What "non-trivial likelihood" of Clinton being indited? The Email "scandal" is the only thing I'm aware of and that is just hyperventilating by the usual right-wing suspects and represents a 0.0% chance of her being indited. Receiving and even forwarding emails that were only retroactively classified is not an offence under any national security statute. You have to have knowledge and intent, and saying "well she should have known it was classified" when even now the Dept. of State and the CIA are in a pissing match to determine what is and is not classified does not pass the smell test.

  • mago says:

    Sorry Denny but it's late in my world so I'm all pedantic and shit. It's spelled "indict".

    Haha. Also eliminated the "el" in front of my moniker because I'm not THE wizard. In fact I'm no wizard at all. Just someone who stayed up beyond his bedtime.

    Pith observations per usual Ed. Thanks.

  • waldoh says:

    It's still difficult to believe that W. was the smarter one.

    No, W. had Rove, Luntz, Cheney and co., the Supreme Court and the media to carry him through the election. But W is the stupid one; the really, really stupid one. In fact he's so stupid, it's almost politically correct to mock him – he's a genetically deficient tadpole in the gene pool of life…he's so stupid that people around him are at risk of second hand idiocy….he's so intolerably stupid that he ought to have a warning label on his forehead, in fact it was probably a crime against the Electoral Act and the American people that he didn't have to campaign with a tattoo on his head saying not only am I an insufferably contemptible, sneering, arrogant hypocrite but I'm STUPID.

    Anyhoo, Bernie will win.

  • wetcasements says:

    Granted I'm biased, but I'll bet anyone here a Coke that HRC wins, if not in a landslide, pretty easily, come November.

    The narrative is that Rubio is surging to become the "establishment" candidate, but let's not forget that literally the only thing he has going for him is he's the "establishment" candidate. Dude is terrible on live TV, and he's forever tainted by wanting to treat immigrants like human beings. (Of course, he'll spend the next seven months denying this.)

  • wetcasements says:

    Eh, let's talk come Super Tuesday. Although I will happily vote for Bernie if he wins the nom.

    Shame how many Bernie supporters won't say the same thing about HRC.

  • Katydid says:

    @Dbp; Cruz's mother appeared on Canadian voting roles in the year before he was born, which indicates Canadian citizenship. At that point, Canada didn't allow dual US-Canadian citizenship, so whether or not she was a Canadian citizen at the time of his birth is certainly arguable. (For the record; I have no opinion on this matter because I don't believe I know all the laws.)

    Trump is clearly trying to stir the pot with questions about Cruz's eligibility, and I find it hilarious that the mouth-breathers around me who are still whining that President Obama, a man born in Hawaii to an American citizen who was herself the child of American citizens and so forth and so on cannot POSSIBLY be an American citizen, but Cruz, a man born in Canada to a Cuban father and a (??? nationality) mother, a man who himself only gave up his own Canadian citizenship in the past few years, is perfectly okey-dokey. These are the same folks who argued back in the day that Arnold Schwarzenegger–a man whose birthplace and birth-nationality are unquestionably NOT American–should be allowed to run for POTUS 'cuz he played a hero in some movies.

  • jharp says:

    "the non-trivial likelihood of Clinton getting indicted at some point is a little appreciated wild card."

    I am quite disappointed to see such bullshit coming out of you.

  • Dave Dell says:

    I'm just thankful that, since I live in Eastern Nebraska, that the spillover television ads are over. For the second time – '08 was the only other – there will be a Democratic Presidential caucus in early March. We'll see if either Sanders or Clinton show up to campaign here. My bet is someone makes a brief stop in Omaha.

    I'll caucus and then change my registration to Republican so I can vote in the Republican primary in May.

    Cruz is the biggest danger to our country since Cheney pulled the puppets strings.

  • Khaled says:

    @Dave Dell:
    My parents live in Minnesota and Rochester (where they live) shares a market with Mason City, Iowa, and so they have been getting non-stop political ads for months. And they are glad they are over. I grew up in Lincoln, and I don't remember that many political ads on TV when I was growing up, but the spending on ads is kind of insane now so I could totally see ads bleeding over to Nebraska.

    @Talisker:
    And here I thought that only French-Canadians were not "real Canadians".

    I agree with earlier posters, the "email scandal" only makes sense if you're talking about "Clinton Rules", as Pierce puts it, and is a ginned up controversy that only matters to those who already hate Hillary.

  • duquesne_pdx says:

    Oops. Apparently hitting "tab" rather than "caps lock", then hitting the spacebar gets results.

    As I was saying, nothing has stuck. Whitewater, Vince Foster, impeachment for lying about sex, Benghazi, emails… Every time they've dragged one of the Clintons in to testify, the Republicans end up looking like rubes. The last Benghazi hearing should have been the end of all of this nonsense. HRC handed all of those yahoos their asses for 11 hours straight.

    If there was or had ever been anything indictment worthy, there would have been an indictment. The very lack of any real charges up to this point should make it perfectly clear that they're merely trying to tarnish HRC's character. Again.

  • Tim H. says:

    Republicans tend to dislike The Clintons for the wrong reasons, though Hillary would be better than the denizens of the clown car…

  • J. Dryden says:

    Again–as happens every four years–we are reminded of the degree to which hack narrative drives reporting. To wit, the collective touting of Cruz's "triumph." As if winning in Iowa means FUCK ALL. Let's ask Presidents Pat Robertson, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum what they–huh? What's that? Oh, they didn't get the nomination because Iowa is in NO FUCKING WAY indicative of the general electorate and represents instead a TINY FRINGE of voters who inevitably go after the most Jesus-y candidate? (Though apparently, they will not go after him a second time–sorry, Gov. Huckabee–go back that circle jerk of Kim Davis and Josh Duggar.)

    Winning Iowa means so close to NOTHING–numerically and, more importantly, demographically–that those of us with one foot on solid ground have spent the last nine months grinding our molars into powder over every single clamorous pronouncement over its caucuses.

    Trump should feel good about losing in Iowa–historically, it's a sign that he might still win. (He won't, for reasons Ed has listed.) And for those of us who despise Ted Cruz–who, as soon as Scott Walker left the race, became the undisputed claimant for Most Evil Person Running, and this against some stiff opposition–can breathe a sigh of relief to know that if the demographic of Iowa is his base, there's no way that fucktard dickhead shitstain can will the nomination, much less the election.

  • Skipper says:

    Everyone's wadded panties aside, the chance of Hillary being indicted IS non trivial. An indictment is not a conviction, and a prosecutor has immense latitude. There is no defense presented in a grand jury hearing. The prosecutor is free to twist and bend the grand jury any way he wants. As I was told early in my career, a prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich if he put his mind to it.

    So it all comes down to whether someone wants to indict her. It's important to remember that Cheney and Bush left the agencies packed to the rafters with moles and operatives. If a few of them want an indictment, they could get it.

    That doesn't translate to a conviction following a real trial, but it's enough to muddy the waters during an election cycle — and that could be all they want.

  • Chicagojon says:

    Re #2 and Trumps poll numbers vs his ground game:

    I would love to know how the last minute peer pressure mailers from Cruz and Rubio effected the turnout and the votes cast for them:

    * Turnout was 180k for republicans (2008/2012 were previous highs ~120k)
    * 45% of GOP voters said this was their first caucus
    * Cruz sent out a "Voting Violation" mailer that identified the recipient and their neighbors by name and gave them 'grades' of F, D, or C seemingly without any relation to actual voting records.
    http://tinyurl.com/jmqesog
    * Rubio sent out a mailer that said ", 7 of your neighbors are voting in the Iowa Caucus on Monday, February 1st. Are you?"

    These must have resulted in a higher than 0 turnout. I have a very high confidence that they worked to get people out and to get them to caucus for the big brother that was watching them and threatening to out them to their neighbors (not the least of which because I trust Cruz/Rubio's metrics at properly targeting ppl that would vote for them but don't caucus because caucusing is stupid).

    So…
    1. How many of these mailers did each send out? (thousands, tens of thousands?)
    2. How many additional voters turned out as a result? (thousands, ten thousand? 10k would be 8.5% of the total voters)

    Do we really want an electoral system designed to keep minorities & the poor from voting (see voter ID laws) and doubles-down on media illiterate whites to make them think that they are voting at the point of a gun?

  • mothra says:

    Regarding an indictment, even a super crappy U.S. District Attorney would be hesitant to indict someone without having an actual crime to indict them for. I am presuming it would have to be the U.S. District Attorney for the District of Columbia who would do the indicting, and I am guessing that man is not interested in making some kind of splashy, politically galvanizing indicment. He would be an Obama appointee–you really think he's going to indict Hillary? Uh. No.

  • Chicagojon says:

    Also for the 'holy shit what is wrong with this system' file. Steve King, a sitting member of the House of Representatives with 28,000 twitter followers tweeted the morning of the caucus:
    "Carson looks like he is out. Iowans need to know before they vote. Most will go to Cruz, I hope."
    https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/694329606174683136

    Granted, the CNN reported that he referenced should be fired immediately for tweeting:
    "Carson won't go to NH/SC, but instead will head home to Florida for some R&R. He'll be in DC Thursday for the National Prayer Breakfast."
    He followed that up immediately with a 'he's still in the race no matter what happens tonight'.

    But WTF…that's some dirty pool there

  • Chicagojon says:

    @mothra
    If it's up to the DC Attorney General I'm putting the chance at 0.0000000%
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Racine

    I think it's more likely that someone in the FBI trying to make a name for themselves will recommend to the DOJ that they proceed with an indictment. Left in the DOJ's hands to indict a former cabinet member of the current administration and the leading candidate in an election year I'd put the chance at 0.000000%

  • terraformer says:

    Thanks a lot, Ed. I cannot unwatch the linked-to video of those Trump supporters in Las Vegas. Although they are exactly the kind of people on which that city thrives.

  • bb in GA says:

    So HRC won 6 coin flips last night…

    Assuming (unverified) that the same face of the coin was the 'winner' in all six flips….

    With a true coin (0.50 probability of H or T), the classic probability calculation is:

    (0.50)^6 = 0.016 or 1.6% probability of 6 straight Heads(or Tails)

    Lucky Lady

    //bb

  • jon says:

    I love that the corrupt followers of Hillary Clinton are so powerful that they can infiltrate six different coin toss events and somehow change the gravity and physics of the precincts to be able to manipulate the results to their liking. It was an impressive organizational feat to get those six enhanced humans to those locations yesterday.

    Has Art Bell looked into this yet? Were there any Bigfoot sightings in Iowa recently? This is all so mysterious!

  • Robert says:

    I have been commenting the following on FB as needed:
    "I have pledged to vote for the Democratic candidate, whoever it is, up to and including the galvanized corpse of George McGovern. Take the pledge!"

    I have not received any unfavorable responses to this.

    According to Forbes, Ralph Cross got 52K votes. That was all it took. If you picked the right part of the right state, LaVoy Finicum would get more.

  • bb in GA says:

    @jon

    You are Left knee jerkin' son…

    If you can pull six flips in a row, you are by definition, Lucky.

    Nothing nefarious in that. And Art Bell has not been broadcasting over-the-air (other than golden oldies replays) for years.

    BTW – I am not for HRC, but that's not a revelation now is it ?

    //bb

  • chopper says:

    Six Separate sites flip six separate coins. 50-50 chance of an HRC outcome.
    (if you want to see a fix, wait'll the Lakers get the #1 pick over the Sixers this June…..)

  • Heywood J. says:

    The problem is not the odds of HRC winning six of seven coin flips. The problem is that this is somehow part of an electoral process in an advanced country in 2016.

    Democracy in Iowa.

    Shit, why not just settle it with a free-throw contest from half-court? Can another state — any other state, but preferably one that isn't 96% white and two-thirds evangelical? Florida or Texas would be a more balanced representation of Americans.

  • maurinsky says:

    I have committed to voting against whoever the GOP ends up with, which has made my primary season thus far much more pleasant.

  • Greg says:

    The coin toss narrative has been heavily revised because it was bullshit as reported. Bernie won some and HRC won some but not all were actually deciding votes as to State delegates.

  • cromartie says:

    Hillary will win the Democratic nomination, and will win the election in November.

    If you can't see this coming now, I'm not sure what to tell you.

    Good on the Bernie folks for working hard to drag the Overton Window back toward the left. You're a necessary and welcome part of a party that has struggled far too long to find one. There's a terrific place for you in the next Clinton Administration.

    Now, go find a younger champion for your point of view and keep watching the Baby Boomers who stand in your way die off in droves.

    Iowa has its uses. It gives us a good idea about which sub-demographics support which candidates and why. It lets candidates know how they need to fine tune their message and tells us something about who will or won't support whom.

  • April says:

    Just for the record, not ALL of us Boomers are assholes/republicans. I'm a Bernie supporter, but of course will vote for Hilz if she gets the nom.

Comments are closed.