Rubio Is Rising. Clinton Is Moderately Progressive

Keep your eyes affixed.  The winners of Iowa (even third placers) will impact the amount of gas the Super PAC's will put into their candidates race car before they pull the plug and find a racer with a better chance at winning.

Did you know that when a caucus room is split evenly between two
prospective candidates for president, the stalemate is broken by a coin flip?

Apparently, Marco Rubio put  quite a bit of effort into his engine to gain the spot that he got from Iowa, and is expected to try a similar win from the back attack to achieve similar success in NH. If you find it somewhat odd for a candidate to fight like crazy just to be a second or third, you don't get how peculiar caucusing is. In fact, caucusing is almost exactly like Super PAC'ing, in which the biggest groups try to promote a viable candidate, but must bow out and shift their support elsewhere once their first choice loses viability, lest they risk wasting their support.

Be it several crowds of people caucusing in some high school gym, or several piles of money gathered together in the name of a Political Action Committee, this game is about finding financial gamblers to keep alive your political aspirations, and keeping that PAC behind your back for a long enough time to survive the attrition of the process.

Unless you are Donald Trump of course, who is engaging in mostly merchandise sales and speaking event ticket sales to fund his effort to be president, on top of being really rich to begin with.

Trump remains the main candidate that is NOT beholden to any financial engine as his means of getting his message across. Bernie Sanders is in a similar position with his, NO SUPER PAC, small donor effort to upset Hillary, but even he is raising and spending money in lock step with other candidates who feel that they must spend to survive early in this race.

Jeb Bush actually spent more money in Iowa ($2800 per vote that he won) than everyone combined, only to end up in....in (what place did Jeb end up in?).

Let me repeat that in case you missed it.

Did the only Libertarian quit because he
wanted to, or did his supporters pull the plug ?

Jeb Bush.....all by himself......spent more money in Iowa than all of the other GOP candidates combined, comparative to the votes that he received for his spending. Only Bush and Mike Huckabee exceeded $500 spent per vote received in the final outcome of Iowa, bringing into question the value of the increased levels of spending allowed under new campaign finance laws.

Granted, Iowa and New Hampshire might be worth the spend, as they are critical testing grounds for whether or not your campaign has the legs to endure 48 more states worth of caucusing.
As a result of the failures in Iowa, Rand Paul has suspended his
campaign-  as did Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee,
and democrat Martin O'Malley.

Did O'Malley know he was leaving before he agreed to that last debate that originally included him, but wasn't originally guaranteed to include Sanders?  Might O'Malley have tipped his hand to the DNC or Hillary?  Both Hillary and the DNC needed O'Malley just to schedule the debate, and to continue on with it had Sanders pulled a Trump and not shown up.

O'Malley just so happened to stay in the race long enough to split the democrat vote in Iowa, making it more possible for Hillary to squeak out a narrow victory there. Those 7 precincts that O'Malley garnered  in Iowa would have been up for grabs between Hillary and Bernie had O'Malley quit prior to Iowa, which could have made the outcome and the narrative of Iowa drastically different.

Why Is Iowa So Full Of It?

Iowa is nearly as littered with right wing fundamentalism as it is countered with far left leaning liberals (I said Iowa was full of it).  Although the evangelicals clearly dominate the population, Iowa's last 3 selections from the GOP have yet to survive the primary season to become the nominee.

Does that mean Iowa doesn't really know what they are talking about?

Oh, contrare.

What happens in Iowa is what we are talking about now, and in many ways will dictate what we talk about in the days to come.  How candidates finish in NH will be contrasted against the success or failure of Iowa.  If you can't appeal to either of these polar opposite voting blocks, you probably don't have enough appeal to stay in the race.

Exiting NH, the GOP field is supposed to whittle down drastically.

Supposed to.

In a normal world, Trump was supposed to pay the cost for not having a real ground attack in Iowa, and for not really being an evangelical in a state that mostly selects evangelicals as its choice for president. As it turned out, Mr. 'No ground game' Trump, was only 4 points away from joining the list of previous republican winners in Iowa that would have included Pastor Pat Robertson, Pastor Mike Huckabee, ultra evangelical Senator Rick Santorum and Trump.

As it turned out, ultra evangelical Ted Cruz went all in (probably cheated) just to beat Trump by 4 points and Rubio by 5.

Rubio raced in from the rear and nearly rear ended Cruz and Trump.  He did so well in fact, that Rubio is now describing Iowa like that race car driver who gets interviewed during the middle of a race delay while seated several cars back, but clearly the driver in the fastest car.

Actually?  That describes Rubios position perfectly, but let's put that into perspective some.

Rubio and Cruz finished exactly as the polls said they would.  Well, Cruz actually fell to second place in the polls during the closing weeks of Iowa, and engineered his own last minute ground attack to inspire his evangelical base in Iowa to help him do what he, nor Rubio, will likely do in NH.

 In other words, they both must celebrate and bloviate Iowa's success just to endure NH.  If NH becomes the slaughtering house evangelical candidates expect it to be (many long shot candidates don't even bother going to NH), Iowa will be the memory and the rhetoric that they hold unto as they press a gauze on their wounds and press on to Nevada or South Carolina- two upcoming states with polar opposite electorates much like Iowa and NH.

Was this "Official Public Record" stating the caucus habits
of Iowans and their neighbors a slimy approach to politics?
It turns out to be a ruse by Cruz to stimulate turnout.

Ben Carson was one of those evangelical's that did not head straight to NH, but went home to Florida for some rest and relaxation, and to plan for a March 15 primary victory in Florida instead of heading straight to an unfriendly state right after an untimely, possibly even unfair defeat.

According to both the Carson and the Trump campaigns (Carson's wife heard this happening herself), the Cruz campaign team shared and tweeted the heading home to Florida news (via a CNN report) about Carson in the middle of the caucus, apparently to scare Carson supporters into thinking that Dr. Carson was posturing for an exit, and Cruz was the next evangelical in line for those votes.

Cruz's team doesn't really deny sharing Carson's CNN divulged itinerary, but denies doing it as a statement about Carson's future candidacy. Although the mere mentioning of it during caucus voting feels shady, and sends some red flags as to how desperate Cruz was to live up to his Iowa expectations. The fake voter violation piece from the Cruz campaign team creates even more integrity concerns than the misinformation does.


Trump has tweeted the Iowa results as "illegal" and "stolen" by the Cruz team, calling for a new election. While many people feel that this is just more Trump spin to help rhetorically nullify the Cruz victory and the Trump defeat (Cruz call it a Trumpertrantrum), the Carson team is the team impacted most, and they are verifying the attack as having happened as well.

In the grand scheme of things, this is the season of expectations and of assessing the ability of each individual candidate to live up to, or exceed their individual expectations as a candidate relative to each state primary.  What evangelicals candidates achieve down South or in Iowa won't necessarily work in blue states. Meeting or exceeding the spot expected of you is about the extent of what it takes to win right now which basically means, keeping your donors intact.

Consequently, Rubio not only maintained his donors and his level of expectation, he equalled the production of the venerable Donald Trump.  What no one seems to accept is that this (Iowa, that is) speaks more positively about Trump than it does Rubio or even Cruz who mostly only did what Iowa has consistently done before.  Choose the evangelical.

If Hillary can simply minimize the impact of being in Bernies
backyard, she can win NH like Rubio did.  By default.
Hey Bernie....you barely beat me.  Hey Bernie.....Hey, Hey!!

Trump finished near the top, but was NEVER expected to really get people to caucus for him.

Hillary might have a similar struggle in NH where Sanders holds a huge lead in the polls. But for reasons of low expectation purely, Hillary has an opportunity to dance the Rubio if she can just do a little better than we think she can. Her ground game in Iowa suggests that NH will be worth the watch.

On either side of the isle, the conversation comes down to headcount.  Too many heads in the GOP  might soon put all but Trump down for the count, since Trump's stump speech is the only one noticeably different than any other GOP candidate in the field; and different is working for him right now.

As for the Dem's?  The lack of a substantive lead has forced Hillary to beg for more debates so she can contrast her message against that of Bernie Sanders. On one level, she has moved to the left of Sander's (gun control), but mostly she's claiming that he's too far left to be of functional value to the party or the real world, reminding Bernie that those rich Americans are Americans too.

Sanders has countered with a claim that Clinton is doing too much of a progressive tap dance as it relates to her campaign rhetoric despite close relationships with Washington's big money machines. Neither of them really win the primary season having to track too far to the left if they then struggle to find their way back to being progressively moderate, or moderately progressive enough for a general election.

For now, most of us are fully confused about what either term really means anymore


Are WE truly ready to take on the powers that be and take over our nation once and for all as Sanders suggests we do? Or will we calm down and let the powers be, but pressure them to be a little more fair? And which of the remaining candidates (other than Trump and Sanders), will show the moxie to call out big money while also begging them to help fund their elections? 

Popcorn please.  This should get good.