A day later, Hillary with a strong mandate in IA (i.e. she survived, but, hey, George W Bush set that precedent) and Bernie with an IA win even though he lost. Go figure this crazy race.
I’m personally very happy with those results. Two good candidates for us, and let the crazy be on the other side.
Ted Cruz is running a great campaign for a reprehensible candidate. Donald Trump is an unusual candidate, but he has an awful campaign. He may well drop further between now and Tuesday.
Susan J Demas with some good advice for all of us:
Looking at the narratives that have played out this election, Rubio has been portrayed as the fresh-faced future of the Republican Party, while Clinton is the untrustworthy candidate of old (a not-so-subtle double entendre). The Iowa results gave fuel to both storylines.
But beware of what pundits are trying to sell you. They're too often seduced by the most sensational (and ratings-rich) narrative –– why do you think Trump gobbled up so much free airtime?
The Democratic contest remains far more boring than most observers would like to admit. And the Republican establishment isn't nearly as strong as many would like you to believe.
Every pundit brings their own biases into the equation, which is fine. We're all guilty of confirmation bias, convinced that events have proven our preconceived notions.
I'll never forget meeting with a Republican publisher prior to the 2010 election. An outlier poll showed the Dean of the House, Congressman John Dingell (D-MI), down double digits. The publisher was visibly giddy, predicting imminent disaster for the Dean. Dingell, of course, went on to win by a whopping 17 points, and became the longest-serving member of Congress in U.S. history, before retiring in 2014.
That episode left an indelible impression on me. When I'm evaluating elections, I always try to take emotion out of the equation. Forget what I'd like to happen. Forget who I like (or don't). Just evaluate the facts at hand, as best I can.
You can't let your hopes (or hatred) get in the way.
Callum Borchers:
But now it's time to get serious. Sanders wants to raise your taxes (see video, below). Is that going to fly? Can he really match wits with a former secretary of state on foreign policy? What's up with his plan to kinda-but-not-really "dismantle" Obamacare? What's up with his shifting position on liability for gun manufacturers? And aren't many of his progressive proposals — free public college for everybody comes to mind — DOA in Congress, anyway?
These are some of the tough questions on which Sanders has not been truly pressed yet. That's about to change, especially as he heads to New Hampshire as the favorite to win (for real) the nation's first primary.
Politics ain’t beanbag. Much of what Bernie will be hit with isn’t true or fair. But that won’t matter; just ask Hillary.
That matters a lot more than a roomful of pundit opinion.
Robert Costa:
Former Massachusetts senator Scott P. Brown, a moderate Republican who two years ago ran for Senate in New Hampshire, will endorse Donald Trump at rally here Tuesday night, one week before the state’s presidential primary.
Brown’s decision has been closely guarded for days, but it was confirmed by two people familiar with the event, where Brown will appear onstage with the candidate.
Maybe this will be the same game changer in NH that Sarah Palin was in IA. This was from 2014:
Fifty-four percent of Americans say they've heard enough from Palin and wish she "would just be quiet," according to to an NBC/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg pollreleased Wednesday. Democrats were the most likely to agree, with nearly two-thirds wishing she'd be quiet. But nearly 40 percent of Republicans also wished she'd fade from the national dialogue.
Perhaps Trump’s IA finish wasn’t such a surprise.
Brendan Nyhan from last month, relevant now:
But if those expectations of success change as a result of, say, a surprising primary or caucus defeat, Mr. Trump’s supporters may shift their support to another candidate. Some may respond to the strategic incentive to back a winner, while others may be swayed by a likely shift in news media coverage of Mr. Trump, which to date has almost perfectly tracked his rise. Alternatively, given that his supporters are disproportionately fromdemographic groups that are less likely to turn out in a low-turnout primary or caucus, many Trump backers could become discouraged and fail to vote at all.
These findings are supported by experiments conducted by Todd Rogers of the Harvard Kennedy School and Don Moore of the University of California, Berkeley. They found that uncommitted participants in an online experiment were significantly more likely to back a candidate if the candidate was described as narrowly winning in the polls rather than narrowly losing.
However, Mr. Rogers and Mr. Moore found in a series of studies that supporters were more willing to take action such as volunteering or donating on behalf of a preferred candidate when the candidate was a bit behind in the polls instead of being narrowly ahead. It seems to be more motivating to overcome a narrow deficit than to protect a lead.
Hey, that sounds familiar! Campaign like you’re a bit behind. Anyone ever hear that?
Jonathan Ladd:
This time, [Hillary Clinton’s] campaign is positioning itself as the primary defender of the administration's legacy. On almost all fronts, but especially on domestic policy, she tries to be the candidate who will continue the president's policies with the most continuity. Despite this, she is unable to energize the party's base as the president did eight years ago. Instead, she is dogged by concerns that she is too moderate, tied to the establishment, and willing to compromise.
Paradoxically, despite the fact that her policies seem closest to what the incumbent would do if he was awarded a third term, she is struggling hard to get the support of many of the ideological activists who supported him.
This, of course, describes Hillary Clinton's situation this year. But it also fairly accurately describes George H.W. Bush's circumstances when he ran for president in 1988. Bush had been the strongest rival to Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination in 1980. He lost, yet was asked to join the ticket as vice president. In accepting the vice presidency and serving in the administration, Bush outwardly accepted all of its policies. Yet he faced skepticism in 1988 from some Republicans who doubted his commitment to movement conservatism.
Since we can never get enough of IA caucuses (I hate them, and I am not alone!), desmoinesdem has a great primer of how they work:
Wrapping up this year’s Iowa caucus series. Part 1 covered basic elements of the caucus system, part 2 explained why so many Iowans can’t or won’t attend their precinct caucus, part 3 discussed how Democratic caucus math can affect delegate counts, part 4 described how precinct captains help campaigns, and part 5 explained why the caucuses have been called a "pollster’s nightmare."
A lot more people.
Dana Milbank:
Q: When is a win not a win?
A: When the winner is Hillary Clinton. ...
Why the disparate treatment? Some see sexism, which is difficult to prove. But there does seem to be a long-running game in which Clinton can never quite meet the expectations set for her, even if her actual achievements are considerable. She raised a ton of money – but Sanders raised almost as much! She won the Iowa caucuses – but she didn’t win by enough!
Hillary wins worst week in Washington almost every week. But any Bernie Sanders supporter can school you about unfair coverage. Martin O’Malley’s got a claim, too. Folks need to understand EVERY Democratic candidate gets unfair coverage, while the Republicans get puff pieces and Trump stories. It’s part of the deal.
The Fix:
THE FIX: So the Iowa Caucuses are done and dusted. What were your big takeaways this time around? And, was there anything that surprised you?
Christopher C. Hull : First, the Republican establishment got smoked. GOP moderates will desperately try to portray [Marco] Rubio’s late surge into third place as a victory. But tea party Sen. Ted Cruz and businessman Donald J. Trump won more votes and delegates than all the other candidates combined. Worse, include neurosurgeon Ben Carson and libertarian Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and the outsiders took four of the top five slots. Add in businesswoman Carly Fiorina and outsiders were five of the top seven in Iowa. Governor [Jeb] Bush, on whom the donor class lavished $100 million, won 2.8 percent of the vote and garnered a single delegate. Governors Kasich and Christie came away without any delegates at all.
Harry Enten:
Sometimes votes have clear outcomes and sometimes they don’t. Monday’s Iowa Democratic caucuses are an example of the latter. Hillary Clinton seems to have barely beaten Bernie Sanders in the closest Iowa Democratic caucus ever after holding a small lead in most Iowa polls before the caucuses. That means Iowa probably hasn’t reshaped the Democratic race for president and Clinton remains the favorite.
David Dayen:
Hillary Clinton supporters want to elide these differences, and say that every Democrat shares the same goals, only with different methods to get there. Clinton wants universal health insurance but through building upon the Affordable Care Act. Clinton wants a safer financial system but through adding some tweaks to Dodd-Frank. She wants debt-free college but wants students to work at least 10 hours a week to qualify.
Sanders supporters don’t see it that way. They prefer a health care system without insurance company middlemen. They prefer a structural redesign of the financial system, with banks focused narrowly on core activities and unable to wield as much political power or use the government safety net as a gambling stake. They prefer universal benefits for higher education or retirement security or family leave, rather than means testing. They think differently about how the economy should be structured.
And that’s perfectly OK. Supporters of either candidate, which represent two poles within the party, shouldn’t downplay these differences in favor of the concept of “theories of change.” I don’t believe that Democrats are debating the best tactics for getting to the same place. I think the two leading candidates, and more to the point the two coalitions they represent, just want different things.
Rebecca Traister:
Clinton, who has in one way or another spent decades of her career pushing for universal health-care reform, was expressing her obvious lack of patience for a candidate whose idea of starting from scratch, rather than building on the reforms of the flawed but hard-won Affordable Care Act, strikes her as pie-in-the-sky.
But in failing to present an upbeat take on her disagreement with Sanders, Clinton had sounded like a scold, the disciplinarian, the mean mommy, the pragmatic downer — all versions of a feminized role that she and many, many women have long found it incredibly difficult to escape.
Recall the days following the 2008 Iowa caucus, when the media took advantage of Clinton’s defeat to let loose with their resentment and animosity toward her. That was when conservative Marc Rudov told Fox News that Clinton lost because “When Barack Obama speaks, men hear ‘Take off for the future!’ When Hillary Clinton speaks, men hear ‘Take out the garbage!’” It was in the days after Iowa that Clinton infamously got asked about how voters believed her to be “the most experienced and the most electable” candidate but “are hesitating on the likability issue.” In late January, columnist Mike Barnicle told a laughing all-male panel onMorning Joe that Clinton’s challenge was that she looks “like everyone’s first wife standing outside of probate court.”
What was true in ’08 remains true this year.