It stands to good old reason that Bernie Sanders cannot win the Democratic caucuses in Iowa, and surely not the White House, yet this is a season of new reasons for everything that's unfolded before the first vote was counted.
Sanders and Hillary Clinton are virtually tied heading into this evening's first-in-the nation contest for the 2016 presidential nominations, according to the best public polls. Yet fervor goes farther than fondness when Iowans turn out to caucus. And Sanders, the self-styled Democratic Socialist from Vermont who will be 75 on Election Day, has the fervor of youth on his side.
Sure, the young never caucus -- until they do. Ask Barack Obama, who doubled Iowa's traditional Democratic caucus turnout in 2008, to Clinton's dismay. Ask Sanders' biggest following, the youngest of the Millennials, who collect 60 percent of their news from Facebook.
Still, even if he claims Iowa today -- and certainly New Hampshire next week -- the good old reasons for the improbability of Sanders' nomination will start to take hold. In South Carolina, where dreams go to die, and then in the spree of Southern primaries March 1, a candidate without foreign policy credentials who's never run an entity bigger than the Burlington mayor's office will confront the reality that wagers against conventional wisdom still carry daunting odds.
First, full disclosure: Let me admit to expense-account envy in reading the roster of news reporters assembled at this year's tavern of choice in Des Moines -- the aptly named El Bait Shop, boasting of "the world's largest selection of American craft beers, 185 on tap." This wide-roving, all-knowing horde huddles in the warmth of the mutual reaffirmation of barroom banter. And I'm lacking the consultation (spin) of the campaign operatives courting this crowd like cold-callers from a brokerage house -- always loved the ones who assert, "Our own internal numbers show..."
However, having sat in the bar of the Hotel Fort Des Moines with Howard Dean's campaign manager as he digested the realization that legions of supporters assuring campaign canvassers of their support for the former Vermont governor had never gone out to caucus, I understand fully why the Sanders campaign fears a visit from the ghost of Dean's campaign tonight. It'll probably be best that Sanders keep his voice in check, if that happens, though the hotel where Dean issued his scream heard 'round the primaries is closed for renovation this season.
According to the pollster with the best record of accurately predicting caucus turnout, Clinton held just a three percentage-point advantage over Sanders in the days leading to tonight's caucuses. Having called all but one right since 1988, pollster Ann Selzer also has a record of getting any candidate's results right within a 3.5 percent margin of error, as FiveThirtyEight has noted. That puts the Clinton-Sanders contest squarely within the margin of error of an error-resistant poll.
According to Quinnipiac University, with far less experience fathoming Iowa's odd ways, Sanders has three points on Clinton heading into the caucuses. The key, Quinnipiac reported today, is first-time caucus goers: "Sanders tops Clinton 62-35 percent among Democratic first-timers, while Clinton leads 52-41 percent among voters who attended prior caucuses.'' Thirty-eight percent of the Democrats surveyed said this will be their first caucus. Similarly, Republican Donald Trump holds a strong lead in his party, with 44 percent of Republicans eyeing their first caucus.
The closeness of such a contest is sure to stoke the Sanders supporters who see victory within their grasp. It's likely to have the same effect on Clinton supporters. However, they may not all share that fervor which "feeling the Bern'' inspires, which in turn will call upon the skills of organizers to literally drive their supporters to caucus. The vaunted ground game.
The narrowness of the Democratic field also eliminates the other variables present under bizarre party rules that require at least 15 percent support for any candidate at a caucus. This is the place where Jimmy Carter "won" the party's caucuses finishing in second place to "uncommitted." It's possible that former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley will take nothing from either Sanders or Clinton -- I've known Ralph Nader, and governor, you are no Ralph Nader.
Sanders defeating Clinton here will only enhance his apparently huge advantage in New Hampshire. Indeed, even a narrow loss here is likely to do little to suppress his vote there.
Beyond these two outliers of an election contest, however, conventional wisdom starts creeping into the calculation again. First Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz stacked the debate deck for Clinton with few Saturday and Sunday events that ensured little notice -- though this too is changing now that Clinton perceives a real threat from Sanders. This is understandable, considering the historical nature of a Hillary Clinton election. (This writer first met the party chair as a first-year legislator in Florida. Elected at 26, the youngest female legislator in the state's history, she pursued legislation making state statutes gender-neutral in their language, which earned her a nickname among the Tallahassee press corps: Debbie Wasserperson.)
Simply put, this election is as big a deal for women as Obama's was for African-Americans, and Clinton is arguably far-better prepared to translate an election into action.
Across the South on March 1 and then in Florida's primary on March 15, the ongoing debate between Clinton and Sanders is sure to underscore the contrast in experience and vision across an array of issues broader than Sanders' recurring drumbeat about big money making for bad government. In Florida alone, Clinton holds an average 39-point advantage over Sanders in a variety of polls. Clinton and Sanders may get four more debates, and Clinton wants one of them staged in Flint, Michigan, whose water crisis served her well as a rallying cry for African-American supporters during their debate in South Carolina.
In this season of new reasons, Sanders still has one cause for optimism: The possible Republican Party nomination of Trump for president. The promise of electability has always carried conventional power, and lately polls have portrayed Sanders as 5.3 percent more popular than Trump as a presidential candidate -- with an edge as high as 15 percent in an NBC News Poll. Fox News, of course, found Trump trumping the socialist. It's going to be that kind of year.
There's an argument to be made, and Ryan Grim makes it well, that winning a couple of contests could turn a tide of public opinion about Sanders' unlikely election, including among African-American voters more likely to support Clinton. Yet it's been noted by many that Sanders is not Obama. And a Clinton, in the South, is still a Clinton.
This is taking a couple of hypotheticals that good old reason suggests are impossible to an extreme, perhaps. Should all the faith in first-time caucus-goers and the power of young people fall short, the story of Sanders winning Iowa, let alone his chances of winning the White House, will have a shelf-life of less than eight hours today -- which is what at least one other Democratic candidacy and about half the Republicans running also have.