IOWA’S ‘COIN TOSS’ CAUCUS: What Really Happened There?
Remember that time you were in Vegas and well, things got a little out of hand and next thing you knew you had some naked Asian guy jumping out of your trunk while you were trying to find your friend Doug? At some point you asked yourself, “what just happened”.
Segue to Iowa. I’d almost say Segway to Iowa but for most it would be a really long and uncomfortable trip. After the caucus, you probably asked yourself, “what just happened”.
First things first, I’ve never been to Iowa. I have an aunt that lives there in Keokuk. I’m sure it’s a great place and I’d love to see it someday. That said, popcorn buckets, paper ballots, and coin tosses?
It is 2016 after all.
This is a day and age in which anyone can summon an Uber driver at will to take them someplace or bring them stuff from the store. Need grape jelly, a snow shovel, and a box of plastic spoons for the morning after? Just call Uber and it’s yours in minutes.
So why did the Democrats decide they needed to conjure up the ghost of caucuses past in order to choose between Hillary and The Bern? Sounds like a pop group by the way doesn’t it, Hillary and The Bern?
The Democrat’s half of Iowa was a picture perfect case study in how they operate: They:
– Don’t like the electoral process in general. (a).
Couldn’t organize a candy bar sale at a fat kids camp if they had too. (b).
Instead oh, I don’t know, using one of them there new fangled electronic computing machines and using that to help tabulate votes, they opted for popcorn tubs, paper ballots, and coin tosses. That’s right.
Coin. Tosses.
In several precincts that Democratic leadership felt were “too close to call”, they actually used coin tosses – sometimes multiple coin tosses – to decide between Hillary and Bernie Sanders.
Think about this for a second. We’re electing a President of the United States. Someone who will come into office during a time in which the Islamic State owns key Middle Eastern real estate, Iran is firing up it’s economy (and nuclear program), China and North Korea are prone to misbehavior, Europe is looking more and more like that dreadful period between World Wars One and Two, Putin pretty much does whatever Putin wants to do, and our own domestic situation isn’t all that great thanks to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave’s current Occupier.
And, yes, the stereotype people have of Iowa is small-town Americana. A land dotted with idyllic farms where the boys grow up drinking milk and the girls pluck daisies from beside babbling brooks. So it’s folksy in a way to use paper ballots, popcorn tubs, and coin tosses. Even as insulting as the caricature is for Iowans.
The best Democrats can come up are coin tosses? Hello! Iowans use computers and cell phones and all that technological stuff too, Democrats!
Even a 68 year-old white woman who doesn’t feel no ways tired because she’s come to far from where she started from is more up to speed than her party when it comes to technology. Madame Secretary not only launched her Snapchat presence last year, she had a private server in her home while serving as Obama’s Secretary of State she once wiped. Not like with a cloth or something. Wiped as in clicking the “yes” button when the server asked her if she really wanted to delete every file on it.
Most curious in all of that coin tossing is that reportedly, somewhere in Iowa there were six coin tosses. Hillary won them all. To put this in perspective, she had a 98.44% chance of losing at least one of those six coin tosses. She’s either a really lucky lady – is that what Bill calls her? – or the coin tossers used Jedi mind tricks to convince everyone that those weren’t the heads or tails Bernie was looking for.
The Bern crowd – I guess they’d be the berners – are of course, upset. The berners are always upset about something. Having to pay for things, accept personal responsibility, various isms, etc. In this case they are upset that Hillary extinguished The Bern if only by a few tenths of a percentage point. Had they gone to free college perhaps they’d have suggested rock, paper, scissors as a better method than a coin toss. That’s what they teach people in free college.
They were upset too about the way Microsoft’s Bing called Iowa early for Madame Secretary. There must be some irony in the fact that Sanders depends heavily on millennials for support, millennials who happen to be the most socially networked age demographic, and a web app is what nearly took his campaign off-line. There is definitely poetic justice in seeing The Bern broadsided by electoral misconduct given the serial fraud liberals have been imposing upon the voting process for generations.
On the other side of Iowa, Republicans were upset, too. Trumpkins. Trumpsters. You know the types. The people that would support Donald Trump even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York. Figuratively speaking of course – their support might dry up if Trump did that.
They’re upset that even with all the free advertising Donald Trump received, that he didn’t beat Ted Cruz. They aren’t too keen to admit that had Mr. Trump participated in the most recent GOP debate, he might have entered the Iowa caucus on more favorable footing instead of appearing petulant, spoiled, and punked by Megyn Kelly.
In fact, they aren’t too keen to discuss much of anything in substantive terms. In the hours following Iowa, Trumpkins took to social media and:
— Called Cruz, “Ted Lucifer Cruz”.
— Alleged that some GOP caucusers voted multiple ballots in Iowa.
— Claimed that Cruz staffers circulated a rumor saying that Dr. Ben Carson had dropped out of the race.
– Said “it’s time for a revolution”.
That’s the soft-core stuff. There’s more and it trends in some really weird directions.
What does calling Ted Cruz “Lucifer” do to stem the rise of the progressive tide? Is there any line item in the left of center agenda that will be scaled back because “Lucifer” was used in conjunction with Ted Cruz’s name?
Some GOP caucusers voted multiple ballots? Go back up a few paragraphs to the part about technology and replace Democrats with Republicans. If in 2016 we can’t handle an Iowa caucus we’re in trouble.
Cruz campaigners circulated a rumor about Carson? Let’s say that no rumor was circulated and Carson’s numbers were higher at the end. How many of those additional votes would have come from Trump’s numbers? Would Trump’s supporters rather he finished third so that Carson could be fourth, or vice versa?
Trump’s coming in second place is cause for a revolution? Revolution just called to complain that the Trumpkins have set the bar way too low for what they are all about.
All of which are similar to the responses you get if you ask a Trumpkin what he or she thinks about Trump’s progressive tax scheme, his support of eminent domain, his sudden turn towards evangelical Christianity, or his inability to identify people like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi when interviewed on Hugh Hewitt’s radio program. Lots of shrill hysterics. Little substance.
As upside-down as Iowa became, it will soon be done all over again in state after state after state.
If there’s a lesson to be learned from Iowa it’s two-fold:
– The 2016 election season is going to be one of the most tumultuous on record and that’s a good thing because…
– …both parties are getting precisely what they deserve after years of beltway electoral mismanagement.
New Hampshire here we come!
(a) “The poor cannot rely either on organizations or the ballot to advance their interests; the only means they have of securing justice is disruptive protest…rent strikes, crime, civic disruptions are the politics of the poor”, The Nation magazine’s summary in review of Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven’s Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail.
(b) Refer to the Democratic Party’s resume, Wilson administration to the present.
Image: Screen Shot: http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/watch/coin-toss-decides-democrat-precinct/vp-BBp0Saq