Iowa take-aways
Here are some random things that I take away from the results in the Iowa caucuses:
-On the Democrat side, half of the voters supported a candidate who is well established to be corrupt and dishonest, who changes her entire ideology on a whim, and who is likely to be indicted during this year’s campaign for numerous felonies that endangered national security.
-The other half voted for a 72-year-old self-avowed socialist who spent much of his life traveling to foreign countries to protest against America.
-The other Democrat candidate, a former governor with no criminal record or history of Marxist activism against his country got virtually no votes and is dropping out of the race.
-On the Republican side, more than half of the voters cast their votes for the two candidates whose campaigns have been based almost entirely on dishonest demagoguery and dirty tricks and whose unfavorability ratings with the American people are through the roof.
-Putting a more positive spin on this, though, after all of the media hype, 76% of the Republican voters voted against Donald Trump.
-It’s also worth noting that Cruz won a plurality of the Republican vote without pandering to Iowans on ethanol. I’m not a fan of his, but he deserves props for that.
-On the positive side, Marco Rubio, who would be our strongest candidate against either Democrat, surged into the top tier and has the big mo’ going into New Hampshire. If he comes in first or second in NH, it will be time for everyone else except Trump and Cruz to drop out and rally their supporters to Rubio.
-Speaking of Rubio, He recently told his financial supporters that he was implementing a “3-2-1” strategy: 3rd in IA, 2nd in NH, and 1st in SC. Many of us thought that was a risky claim to make, but it now looks like he might pull it off. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott endorsed Rubio today, which helps him keep up his momentum heading into South Carolina after the NH primary next week.
-The biggest loser of the night was Rand Paul. For weeks he and his supporters have been telling us that he had a strong ground operation in Iowa that would result in a much stronger than projected result for him there. He ended up with a much smaller than projected result – a mere 4%. The Pauls’ fertile ground is in caucus/convention states. Rand’s inability to have a strong showing in Iowa shows that he’s not a viable candidate and doesn’t even have the level of fringe supporters that his father previously had. It’s time for him to bow out gracefully.
-Ben Carson was also a loser. He was once leading the pack in Iowa but ended up with a mere 9%, which is pretty much a last vestige of the waning strength he briefly had in this race. Like Paul, his showing indicates that he’s not viable and that he should bow out gracefully too.
-Huckabee and Santorum were hoping that they would peak at just the right moment like they did when they won Iowa in ’08 and ’12 respectively. They didn’t. Time to bow out.
-New Hampshire is a must-win state for Jeb!, Christie, Kasich, Fiorina, and Gilmore. Any of these candidates who don’t finish in the top three are toast and will need to bow out.
