I’m too tired to do a complete rundown of the caucus results tonight. The whole thing disgusts me. I just want to remind you of something. Here were the results in Iowa eight years ago.
Barack Obama: 940 delegates, 37.6% of the total, earned 16 delegates to the convention.
John Edwards: 744 delegates, 29.7% of the total, earned 14 delegates to the convention.
Hillary Rodham Clinton: 737 delegates, 29.4% of the total, earned 15 delegates to the convention.
Let that sink in.
Even today, the president gets all sentimental talking about his great victory in Iowa that netted him a one delegate advantage over Clinton and a two delegate advantage over Edwards.
This whole spectacle is a sham. Whether Bernie ekes out a tiny victory or suffers a minute loss, he stands to pick up or lose one or two delegates at the most. Even if the results were less close, this basic math wouldn’t change much.
Iowa barely has any delegates in the first place, but they’re going to be divided nearly equally no matter what happens, and that’s been the case ever since Sanders got over 40% in the polls.
On the Republican side, four years ago was a complete fiasco. The first count said Romney won. The second count that came out after New Hampshire, said that they’d lost some votes and couldn’t say for sure who had won but that their official count was giving it to Santorum. And then Ron Paul wound up getting the delegates to the convention.
Ted Cruz won tonight. Four years ago, Santorum won. Eight years ago, Huckabee won. Tonight, Santorum came in last place and Huckabee dropped out. Going back further, in 1988, Dole came in first, Pat Robertson came in second, and Poppy Bush came in third.
So, good for Ted. It’s better to win than to lose. But Iowa likes to vote for losers.
Donald Trump learned a lesson tonight about relying on polls, about the importance of a ground game, and about the foolishness of running away from Megyn Kelly if your whole schtick is that you’re the toughest guy in the race.
I absolutely love that he got his ass kicked and I thought he might cry during his brief shellshocked press conference.
These results resolve almost nothing, but the media spin will be ferocious. I can already see the outlines of a fight between the Clinton and Sanders camp over who really won, but you could do just as well by converting a single superdelegate from the other camp into your own. That’s how little it matters mathematically who actually “won” tonight, and it’s also at least as likely as not that the “winner” will have actually received fewer votes. That’s because of the way the delegates are assigned.
Finally, Iowa is a nice state. My father grew up in Iowa City while my grandfather was teaching there. But they aren’t representative of the country. Tonight decides nothing and it shouldn’t decide anything.
Final verdict?
Marco Rubio won.
