The caucus-night mess in Iowa comes as the president is on an unlikely roll.
Monday night’s tabulation meltdown at the Iowa caucuses was an utter and unmitigated disaster.
The incompetence was jaw-dropping. Iowa Democratic Party leaders reportedly didn’t train the 1,800 precinct captains how to use the app that they promised would speed up the counting of votes and provide more transparency. They didn’t run a full-scale test in which captains all sent full data sets from their caucus sites in the same hour. Nor did they test the backup phone system to confirm it could handle hundreds of simultaneous calls. And they’d been warned there were problems.
After this debacle, the only way Iowa can keep its privileged status in the presidential selection process is if the responsible state Democratic Party leaders commit hara-kiri. Even then, it might not be enough. How angry must the Democratic candidates be about the time, money and effort they threw into Iowa, only to see it end in this indecisive mess? And what about volunteers who sacrificed months for someone they believe in?
It doesn’t help that, as of Wednesday evening, the results are still a muddle. The first-place finisher will get a smaller percentage of the vote in Iowa than any previous caucus winner and Iowa’s 41 pledged delegates (out of more than 3,000 at the national convention) could be split among a record five candidates.
With 87% of precincts reporting, Bernie Sanders trails Pete Buttigieg in “state delegate equivalents,” a fancy term for each candidate’s share of state convention delegates. Both will likely end up with 13 national pledged delegates from Iowa. Still, they led the field and, by beating expectations, Mr. Buttigieg has picked up a little momentum.
Meanwhile, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg had a good night by avoiding the farce entirely. If Mr. Bloomberg, who isn’t competing in early states, has any shot at the nomination, then Joe Biden’s campaign must collapse before Super Tuesday on March 3. Mr. Biden wasn’t expected to win Iowa, but running a dismal fourth hurts.
Since Mr. Biden also isn’t projected to do well in New Hampshire next week, his poor Iowa performance raises the stakes for the Nevada and South Carolina contests later this month. If the former vice president does badly there—especially if he loses the Palmetto State—then his campaign is finished. Watch to see if Mr. Biden’s poor showing in Iowa dents his national polling as the most electable Democrat.
Another winner Monday night was President Trump. The bigger the Iowa mess, the worse the Democratic field looks. That stink won’t last, but Mr. Trump is also coming off several weeks of mostly good news. He signed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. The Chinese approved the first phase of a trade deal. His surprise Super Bowl ad highlighting criminal-justice reform in an emotional, personal way unsettled Democratic operatives, portending an electoral play for not only African-Americans but also disaffected suburbanites.
Then came impeachment. As this column forecasted, because Democrats refused to take up the patient work of persuasion and instead bludgeoned and insulted the jury, the process will cost Democrats among independent voters.
The president also keeps getting good news on the economy. It plugs along at a decent pace, with unemployment at a 50-year low, more vacant jobs than job-seekers and wages rising for workers rising faster than for managers.
The Jan. 15 Gallup poll found 62% of Americans saying the economy is “excellent” or “good” and 59% saying it’s “getting better.” This boosted Gallup’s economic confidence index to its highest level since October 2000. A Jan. 23 ABC/Washington Post poll also found 43% were “very” or “somewhat worried” about maintaining their standard of living, compared with 63% in January 2016, a year before Mr. Trump took office. This led 56% to approve of his handling of the economy, up 10 points since last September. It’s no wonder, then, that Gallup’s latest poll awards the president a 49% job-approval rating, his highest since taking office.
Mr. Trump is also receiving help from his opponents. Until her party settles on a presidential nominee, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the country’s highest-profile Democrat. Unfortunately for the party, she recorded a minus-15-point favorability rating in the Jan. 29 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. She didn’t help matters by childishly ripping up her copy of the president’s State of the Union speech on camera, which dominated the post-speech coverage and overshadowed the official Democratic response.
Mr. Trump is on a roll, but there are 271 days left before Election Day. His supporters should remember: What happens the first week of February won’t decide what happens the first Tuesday of November.
There is No Accountability on Social Media for Posting and Retweeting Bad Information
10:10
something that’s not about politics last
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night was just so had it I can’t take it
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I don’t want it I have read that expense
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office all of them and the short stories
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I can’t take it don’t want it but it’s
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not like that was the first time do you
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guys remember 2018 do you remember
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Kansas the night of that primary it was
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ridiculous or in 2016 California like
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how long it took for the results like oh
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it’s just where’s the way you and and
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one of the things that made it even
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worse was like I was tweeting about how
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frustrated I was that people were just
10:43
sharing like like whatever they they
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heard they don’t check it they don’t
10:47
Google it they just share it something
10:49
pops into their head it sounds good like
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you have an inclination you want to
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believe that something is true and so
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people are gonna like and they’re gonna
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retweet what says that they’re there
10:58
right like there was so much
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misinformation and just people not
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caring enough about the material to
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actually Google it like like all the
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stuff going around about the
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like obviously there’s problems with the
11:08
app but like the people who were like
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100% Budaj edge made the app I got it
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and and look we have the disclosures
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that were coming out and and responsible
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people we’re talking about the
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disclosures that they had paid that app
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company okay now before you then take
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that and say and thus he made the app
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and presumably put in some sort of
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backdoor where he could steal the
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election do just a little bit of
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googling like that company makes other
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apps political canvassing apps things
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for volunteers things that campaigns
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would use and so the fact that he paid
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money to that company does not mean that
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he invested in the construction of that
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app he could be buying one of the
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political apps that they already have
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and in fact it turns out that over the
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past year I believe Klobuchar Biden and
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Gillibrand all of them gave money to
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this company presumably for one of the
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political canvassing apps that they have
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sold for some time you know how I found
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out that stuff by googling for like 90
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seconds it was super simple but I
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noticed that when I started tweeting out
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those I guess inconvenient truths nobody
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cared like the people who were like no
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no no Buddha judge definitely made the
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app he stole this thing a hundred times
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as many of retweets a hundred times as
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many likes someone who’s like hey guys
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you know pump the brakes first of all it
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looks like Bernie’s Bernie’s still gonna
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win second of all it looks like this
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company actually has other apps nobody
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cares about that stuff nobody’s
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interested in that is really depressing
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you know because media is a big thing
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it’s not one thing it’s a lot of
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different voices in a lot of different
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forms but the fact that the people who
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are trying to be accurate and reasonable
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are always going to have to compete with
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people who are just their thing is I’m
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going to see what people want to hear
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what they desperately want to believe is
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true and I’m just gonna tell admit I’m
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just gonna say that it’s true and nobody
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ever tweets you know um you know I just
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I want to apologize because I retweeted
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something last night you know sort of in
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the fervor of what was going on it turns
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out that it was untrue I apologize if I
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helped to misinform anyone in the future
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I’m going to be
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but more careful before I spread these
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things and in particular I will not be
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spreading the the people who were
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spreading this misinformation I will be
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more critical of them in particular
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literally no one has ever said that you
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spread things that are false nobody
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cares nobody remembers even theirs the
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incentives are all wrong on social media
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and that is on top of all of the other
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problems of last night that is so
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incredibly frustrating I’m not having a
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stroke down that’ll come later based on
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diet have you seen the Saga comics I
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have not just be reasonable like it’s
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why I’m never gonna be a success
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honestly there’s no there’s no reason
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why would you why would you be
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reasonable yeah nobody at nobody admits
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that they’re wrong that’s where I don’t
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know if you were watching the coverage
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last night but I wanted to add on to
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they were there every conversation they
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were saying no one on TV in political
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media ever pays any sort of price for
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being dead wrong and I wanted to add on
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say you’re right but it ain’t just TV
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nobody in any form of media ever pays
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any sort of price for being wrong not if
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they were wrong in a way that reassured
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their followers their audience that
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things were gonna be okay who who ever
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gets mad at a person for a horrible
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prediction a prediction that when it was
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made was obviously not true nobody cares
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about that they want I want you to be
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wrong in a way that makes me feel warm
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and cozy I want you to tell me the sort
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of things that are a verbal light
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stroking of my head to make me feel a
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little bit better that’s that’s all
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really anyway the reason I talk about
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this now is we were on night one we have
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got a bunch of these nights to go and
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unfortunately I don’t I don’t think that
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any are gonna be as bad as Iowa but
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there’s gonna be a lot of bad nights and
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that’s really unfortunate okay everybody
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I would love to talk longer but we do
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have a show coming up and on it I’m
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gonna be joined by Jordan you’ll as I am
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every other Tuesday you know me also
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were to talk about last night but also
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author podcaster and founder of Vox Ezra
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Klein is also going to be in studio to
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talk about his book about polarization
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which seems especially relevant this
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both of last night and with the State of
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the Union so should be an awesome
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conversation there we’ve got so much
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we’re gonna talk about I have read do
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and I read the first one I wasn’t a huge
15:43
fan maybe I need to read more of them
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but anyway thank you as always for
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joining me this a little live live video
15:48
in ten minutes the full show starts so
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definitely tune in there I’ll see you on
15:53
the other side
Hillary Will Run Again
Reinventing herself as a liberal firebrand, Mrs. Clinton will easily capture the 2020 nomination.
Get ready for Hillary Clinton 4.0. More than 30 years in the making, this new version of Mrs. Clinton, when she runs for president in 2020, will come full circle—back to the universal-health-care-promoting progressive firebrand of 1994. True to her name, Mrs. Clinton will fight this out until the last dog dies. She won’t let a little thing like two stunning defeats stand in the way of her claim to the White House.This was arguably the most successful version of Hillary ClintonBut Hillary 2.0 could not overcome Barack Obama, the instant press sensation. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Mrs. Clinton held fast to centrist positions that would have assured her victory in the general election. But progressive leaders and donors abandoned her for the antiwar Mr. Obama. Black voters who had been strong Clinton supporters in New York and Arkansas left her column to elect the first African-American president... Licking her wounds, Mrs. Clinton served as secretary of state while she planned her comeback. It was during this time that the more liberal Hillary 3.0 emerged. She believed she could never win a primary as a moderate, so she entered the 2016 primary as a progressive like Mr. Obama. Then she moved further left as Sen. Bernie Sanders came closer to derailing her nomination. This time she was able to contain her opponent’s support, crucially by bringing African-American voters into her camp... She will not allow this humiliating loss at the hands of an amateur to end the story of her career. You can expect her to run for president once again. Maybe not at first, when the legions of Senate Democrats make their announcements, but definitely by the time the primaries are in full swing.Mrs. Clinton has a 75% approval rating among Democrats, an unfinished mission to be the first female president, and a personal grievance against Mr. Trump, whose supporters pilloried her with chants of “Lock her up!” This must be avenged... Expect Hillary 4.0 to come out swinging. She has decisively to win those Iowa caucus-goers who have never warmed up to her. They will see her now as strong, partisan, left-leaning and all-Democrat—the one with the
- guts,
- experience and
- steely-eyed determination
to defeat Mr. Trump. She has had two years to go over what she did wrong and how to take him on again.
.. Mrs. Clinton won’t travel the country in a van with Huma Abedin this time, doing small events and retail politics. Instead she will enter through the front door, mobilizing the army of professional women behind her, leveraging her social networks, and raking in donations. She will hope to emerge as an unstoppable force to undo Mr. Trump,
- running on the #MeToo movement,
- universal health care and
- gun control.
.. The generation of Democrats who have been waiting to take over the party from the Clintons will be fuming that she is back and stealing their show. But they revealed themselves to be bungling amateurs in the Brett Kavanaugh nomination fight, with their laughable Spartacus moments.
.. Mrs. Clinton will take down rising Democratic stars like bowling pins. Mike Bloomberg will support her rather than run, and Joe Biden will never be able to take her on.
.. Don’t pay much attention to the “I won’t run” declarations. Mrs. Clinton knows both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama declared they weren’t running, until they ran. She may even skip Iowa and enter the race later, but rest assured that, one way or another, Hillary 4.0 is on the way.