The aftermath
I don’t think outsiders can fully understand the dynamics of the Iowa Caucus-- the sheer accessibility of the candidates to Iowans. From where I live, on the edge of downtown Des Moines, the circus drops by on a daily basis. Nearly all of the televised debates took place within 10 blocks of us, either at Drake University to our north and west, or at the Events Center downtown, to our east. The television producers set up their local studios at downtown locations like Java Joes coffeehouse on 6th street. The local CBS-TV affiliate is four blocks to our east, the NBC affiliate four blocks to our south. Nobody watches the ABC affiliate.The star-watching is unlike Hollywood or Manhattan Island in the sense that these are famous people that are not going out of their way to avoid you. The candidates want to meet you. They need you. There were more than 15 Republican and Democratic candidates this year, and unlike past cycles, none of this year's candidates skipped Iowa. Virtually all of the candidate parties on caucus night were held downtown. Not only could you see every candidate if you lived here, but you could meet a majority of them, and you could do so without owning a car.
I skipped it all though. And I stayed home during the caucus to make sure that no national party hacks from either side broke into the other condominium units.
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It’s the biggest party on Iowa’s social calendar over a 48-month period, I'm right in the middle of it, and I still wish I was in New Orleans right now for Carnival.
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An anti-Wall Street political independent just scored a tie in Iowa for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, and he did so running against one of the three party standard-bearers of our time (Clinton, Clinton, Obama-- he was kind of running against all three). This extraordinary moment has many parents and grandparents, but here are two groups that will go largely unheralded for their major contributions, and they shouldn’t-- 1) the Occupy movement, and 2) Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. The Tea Partiers have their political victories, and now the Occupy activists have theirs. The group never allowed itself to be co-opted by corporatists, or Democrats, and today, despite America's embarrassingly-short term memory, they are winners.
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Word comes today that the voting was so close, six tie-breaking coin flips, each in different precincts, made the difference in which candidate got the majority of the delegates. Pundits say Clinton may hold the advantage ultimately because she has the support of the "super-delegates."
I know what you're thinking. Coin flips and delegates that have more power than other delegates so they get to be called "super"-- these Iowa Caucuses just get more and more fascinating!
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The probability of Clinton winning all six coin flips-- as she did-- is 1.563%.
Yep. That's the probability of that.
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Bernie carried the youth vote by 70%! Now let's keep watching and see if Democrats are capable of reading political and cultural trends.
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The New York Times endorsed Hillary Clinton the day before the Iowa Caucuses. I don't understand the timing. New Yorkers won't vote for weeks. But of course they endorsed her-- both the candidate and the paper endorsed the War on Iraq. Fat lot of good the endorsement did last night, by the way, and today, some idiot of theirs attempts to explain why the tie is somehow a win for the woman that led the polls by more than sixty percent a year ago.
posted by CM @ 6:20 PM
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