1/16/24
FAIR WARNING:
THOSE OF YOU SOLELY SEEKING SEARING AND REASONED INSIGHT
MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS ESSAY’S FIRST TWO PARAGRAPHS, THEIR ACCOMPANYING BULLET
POINTS, AND THE THIRD PARAGRAPH. THOSE
OF YOU WHO COMBINE A SENSE OF HUMOR WITH YOUR SEARCH FOR SEARING AND REASONED
INSIGHT SHOULD DEFINITELY READ THOSE FIRST THREE PARAGRAPHS.
DISCLAIMER:
YOURS TRULY LOVES IOWA AND ITS PEOPLE AND HAS NUMEROUS
PERSONAL CONNECTIONS TO THE HAWKEYE STATE.
Yes, we are all aware of the shortcomings of the Iowa
caucuses in selecting presidents or even presidential nominees. In fact, if you followed the coverage of the
caucuses on CNN, you were made painfully aware of the shortcomings of
the caucuses, especially this year’s caucuses, and, from the perspective of
those who inhabit CNN’s newsroom, of Iowa itself, to wit:
·
The caucuses are an archaic form of choosing
a nominee in which actual people meet in actual rooms to discuss, debate,
and consider their options and then, armed with information gleaned from
listening to those with similar and differing opinions, cast their votes.
·
The caucuses require real commitment of time
and effort, while those who inhabit the CNN newsroom would prefer a process
that requires nothing more than filling out a simplified form and dropping it
in the mail whenever one feels like filling it out and dropping it in the
mail. To demand more, in the estimation
of those who inhabit the CNN newsroom, is to deny the indifferent their right
to make an ill-informed choice regarding the leader of the free world.
·
This year’s caucuses were especially compromised
by the frigid weather in Iowa, which, in CNN”s estimation, is somehow
unusual in January. Only those really
committed to their candidates, and to the future of the Republic, would come
out in such nasty conditions. CNN and
those to whom it caters considered this a truly reprehensible aspect of this
year’s caucuses.
·
The only party that matters, due to its obvious heightened
degree of enlightenment, and the only party denizens of the CNN newsroom would
consider supporting, i.e., the Democratic Party, dropped Iowa from its
nominating process, while the drooling, gap-toothed, knuckle dragging GOP still
clings to this vile vestige of exclusion and vote suppression. Case closed.
One did not have to read too far between some very widely
spaced lines to conclude that underlying the criticism of the Iowa caucuses was
a whole lot of derision for Iowa itself, to wit:
·
Iowa is a small, largely white state that
fails the DEI tests imposed on our nation by the types of people who inhabit
CNN’s newsroom, the latter especially on election nights.
·
Iowa is a rural state (though not as rural
as those who inhabit CNN’s newsroom suppose) filled with unenlightened rubes
and yokels, the type of place Oliver and Lisa retreated to when Oliver lost his
senses and decided to abandon the obvious cultural, educational, and
environmental superiority of (then, and, increasingly now) crime-infested,
overcrowded, and dirty NYC.
·
Iowa serves little purpose in our economy. What role does manufacturing, which, surprisingly
to those who can’t find anything farther west than Pittsburgh on a map, is huge
in eastern Iowa, serve in an economy that is driven by high-tech entrepreneurs
who constantly strive to come up with ways for people to waste their time on
frivolous and fatuous entertainment? What role does agriculture play when those
who inhabit the CNN newsroom fall into two camps in this regard:
o
Those who get their food from Whole Foods
and can’t see what role farmers play in the process, and
o
The more agriculturally aware of the CNN types who
know that their food comes from two-acre plots owned by rapidly aging hippies
who insist on “organic,” “non-GMO,” and “farm to table” production of crops
that serve to replenish the soil for their vastly more vital cannabis crop.
All in all, while watching CNN’s coverage of the caucuses,
one could not escape the impression that the denizens of the CNN newsroom
considered themselves anthropologists studying a primitive and largely
unfathomable tribe of unenlightened natives desperate for the knowledge and
sophistication that the CNN types would love to force upon them.
The most salient criticism of the caucuses, and the one that
CNN could not stop yammering about, i.e., the historic ineffectiveness of
the Iowa caucuses in the selection process for presidential candidates and
presidents, is not as clear cut as one would believe from watching, to be fair
to CNN, any of the networks’ or other media organs’ coverage of the caucuses.
It’s hard to avoid getting lost in the numbers here, so I’ve
included two (sort of) tables below to summarize this point. Since 1976, when the Iowa caucuses became
important in the nomination processes of the two parties, there have been 9
contested Democratic caucuses. The eventual
winner of the Democratic nomination won 6 of these, and two of those were
elected president:
Since 1976
Dems
Contested 9
Winner nominated 1980 Carter
1984 Mondale
2000 Gore
2004 Kerry
2008 Obama
2016 Hillary Clinton
Winner elected 1980 Carter
2008 Obama
Despite, or, more likely, because of, the success of the caucuses
in selecting the eventual Democratic nominee, the Dems dropped the Iowa caucuses
this year. The reasoning, as outlined
above, was that Iowa is too white and too conservative, to be picking the
Democratic nominee, as evidenced, one supposes, by the four caucus winners who
won the nomination but failed to win the general election: Mondale, Gore, Kerry, and Hillary Clinton.
The logic of this argument is clearly specious; do the
Dems really think that they would have won the elections of 1984, 2000, 2004,
and 2016 if they had nominated a candidate to the left of the aforementioned
losing nominees? How did white,
conservative Iowa caucus to select Barack Obama, both very liberal and
very successful in both his general election contests, as recently as
2008? Further, Iowa wasn’t always as
conservative as it is today; when I was a student at the University of Iowa
in the early 1980’s, John Culver, a liberal Democrat, was one of the
Hawkeye State’s senators. As recently
as 2008, Tom Vilsack, admittedly a more moderate Democrat than Culver,
was Iowa’s governor. Could the
condescending attitude that politicians and media types from the more enlightened
urban centers of our nation display toward
Iowans have had anything to do with the increasing conservatism of Iowa? “Certainly not,” these sophisticates will
reply with their characteristic obtuseness.
The Iowa caucuses have not been as effective an indicator
of success for the GOP fields of the last 48 years. There have been 8 contested caucuses in that
time period. The eventual GOP nominee
won three times (Come to think of it, 37.5% isn’t as bad as the political pros
would have you believe, especially for the first race of the season, and I
could make that calculation despite having received my Master’s Degree at the University
of Iowa. The latter must confound
the denizens of the CNN newsroom and I digress on both the former and the
latter.) Two of those three went on to
win the general election, which, despite the general harumphing of the big time
political professionals, is not a bad percentage (66.7% for those in the CNN
newsroom, who were highly unlikely to have attended a Midwest cow college.)
Since 1976
GOP 8
Winner nominated 1976 Ford
1996 Dole
2000 Bush
Winner elected 1976 Ford
2000 Bush
But what about the results of the 2024 caucuses and
their implications?
The big story was not the size of Donald Trump’s
victory (51% of the total was the last number I saw.), but the breadth of his
victory. He won in every demographic
group. He won all but one of Iowa’s 99
counties. The county he lost is Johnson
County, home of Iowa City and the University of Iowa, and his margin of victory
there, according to the last number I saw, was not even a handful of votes; he lost
Johnson County by ONE vote to Nikki Haley.
Several times when I have mentioned that I lived in Iowa for two years, Iowans have corrected me by pointing
out that I didn’t live in Iowa: I lived
in Iowa City. Even back then, long
before Iowa became the red state it is today, “normal” Iowans considered Iowa
City and the University of Iowa, at least the half of the campus east of the
Iowa River and hence separated from Kinnick Stadium, a den of iniquity,
a hotbed of subversion, and a place to visit only on Fall Saturdays. What astounded me was that Mr. Trump was
even close in Johnson County.
Mr. Trump won among men.
He won among women. He won among
educated men and educated women. He won
among Evangelical Christians. He won
among Catholics. He won among residents
of rural counties. He won among
suburbanites. He won among city dwellers. (Yes, CNN, there are cities, with real urban
problems, in Iowa.) He won among young people.
He won among old people. Most
importantly, he won among people who think that the preservation of our Republic
is sufficiently important to take the time and make the effort necessary to participate
in the Iowa caucuses.
Ron DeSantis, who spent a ton of money and time in
Iowa, looks really weak right now, despite nosing out Nikki Haley for
second place. Despite her post-caucus
speech, Ms. Haley did not come out smelling like a rose, either. How could she win Johnson County, brimming
with the highly educated, high income types who wear their loathing for Mr. Trump
as a badge of honor and a ticket to the best get-togethers in town, by only ONE
vote? She should have carried it
big. She also should have done much better
in the suburbs of Des Moines and Cedar Rapids.
She didn’t. She’s in trouble.
Vivek Ramaswamy showed that acting like a boor will
not win one many votes even in a party that is bound and determined to nominate
a man whose most salient characteristic is his boorishness. Thank you, Mr. Ramaswamy, for giving us all
some hope…and for getting out of the race for president to pursue the race for
vice-president.
Then again, this was “only” Iowa, as those with deep
insight and boundless experience covering elections tell us. But, as those lacking such sophistication,
but overflowing with common sense, would point out, this was the only race that
has been held thus far. And, at this
point at least, it doesn’t look good for anybody not named Donald J.
Trump. The GOP, as the denizens of
the CNN newsroom suppose an Iowan would say, is in a whole heap of trouble
regardless of what happens in the next month or so.
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