The problem is not that the people of Iowa are stupid. They are not, by most measurements. It’s that Iowa looks nothing like the rest of America. As a result, the winners, more often than not, are nationally unelectable extremists. Who can remember President Rick Santorum or President Mike Huckabee, both previous winners?
.. You’re supposed to be vetting, Iowa. You’re supposed to be culling out the crazies. You’re supposed to recognize the fraud of Ted Cruz and how Donald Trump is playing you. For all your touted small-town verities, you’re not doing your job. Your bull manure detector is broken.
Ted Cruz’s Iowa Mailers Are More Fraudulent Than Everyone Thinks
In 2008, academics at Yale published an influential paper showing that one of the most effective ways to get voters to the polls was “social pressure.” Researchers found that registered voters in a 2006 primary election in Michigan voted at a higher rate if they received mailers indicating that their participation in the election would be publicized.
.. “I will apologize to no one for using every tool we can to encourage Iowa voters to come out and vote,” he told reporters during a campaign stop in Sioux City.
.. “There are other people listed on my mailer who live in my neighborhood that are all different ages, but everyone on this sheet has the same score of fifty-five per cent,” he said. “Some are significantly younger and would have not been eligible to vote in these elections, and others are older and have voted consistently, going back years. There is no way to get to us all having the same score.”
.. “I’m crippled, so I can’t go to the caucus,” Holstein said. She was not happy about being shamed in front of her neighbors. “That’s what you call a bully,” she said about Cruz’s tactics. “I wish he would quit.”
A Trump-Cruz Race Forces Republican Elites to Choose Sides
Siding against Cruz at this point is foolish for them only if these party leaders have profound ideological disagreements with Trump, but they are assuming they don’t have any because they believe Trump is conning his voters. That also happens to be Cruz’s argument against Trump, and so these party leaders are ending up more on Trump’s side in part because they think Cruz is right about Trump’s phoniness.
What Donald Trump’s Plaza Deal Reveals About His White House Bid
What does this prowess look like up close? In the Plaza tale, Mr. Trump demonstrated both strengths (an ability to charm or strong-arm, as the occasion required) and weaknesses (a kind of hungry impatience that left him searching for new trophies as soon as one had been acquired). His methods as a political candidate mirror his methods as an executive, say those who have dealt with the latter and seen the former. In fact, the more you know about Mr. Trump’s past, the more his run for high office looks like an effort to close the biggest deal of his life.
.. “He has the ability to imagine what the other party wants him to be and then be that person,” said Michael D’Antonio, author of “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success.” “He presents the Trump that will work in the moment.”