So, on the other hand ... Hillary Clinton won. But there was a big surprise in Iowa after all. Ultra-right Texas Senator Ted Cruz -- that's ultra-right as in falangist -- trailing in the polls and supposedly in danger of finishing third behind Marco Rubio, surged instead to an impressive four-point win over Donald Trump. Which means the next move for Trump is not consolidating the party and beginning to morph into a more general election-friendly "reality" TV-style figure but actually winning next week's New Hampshire primary.
Trump has a big lead in the Granite State, but he had a lead, albeit smaller, in the Iowa caucuses, where he ran a primary-style campaign, over former Iowa poll leader Cruz. It looks like a quarter of Trump's supporters didn't show up at the appointed time and frequently unfamiliar place to caucus. Showing up in an all day-long primary at a familiar nearby polling place is easier to do. And his backers may have figured he would win anyway. All because of his dominance of the new media environment.
Still, kudos to Cruz. Utterly odious as I find his politics -- his Joe McCarthy-like performance at Chuck Hagel's SecDef confirmation hearings springs immediately to mind -- he worked his butt off and did Iowa the traditional Iowa way, with a lot of hard-core organizational work and personal time campaigning up close and personal in the Hawkeye State.
Over half the Iowa Republican vote went to candidates, Cruz and Trump, whom it's not hard to categorize as proto-fascist. You can't say that's not, ah, exciting.
What of the arguably more responsible, more moderate conservatives (who in Britain would be in the hard right wing of the Conservative Party)? Well, Marco Rubio finished a close third in Iowa. But he has to start finishing second real soon if he is to actually emerge beyond an ongoing hope of conventional journalists and desperate professional Republicans. And in New Hampshire, the Florida chameleon still faces leader Trump, Iowa victor Cruz, and three other more mainstream characters in Ohio Governor John Kasich, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and his old mentor-turned-enemy Jeb Bush. The latter three all seem to be doing as well or better in the Granite State.
The big treat this week, of course, will be watching Trump react to actually losing the first contest. Iowa was always problematical for him, since his shock-and-awe Triumph of the Will-style airplane arrival/big Nuremberg rally approach is not how things have been done in a more up close-and-personal caucus state. But Cruz's supposed fade amidst Goldman Sachs revelations and a rough final debate, coupled with Trump's lead in the polls, seemed to presage a Trump triumph. Uh-uh.
Meanwhile, Hillary won, right? Yes she did, and by just about the same margin as when I won a middle school 50-yard dash title. Not very freaking much.
Yet there is a real perceptual difference in American life between being the champ and not being the champ. (Except among the folks who are most likely to be for Sanders anyway, where moral victories and the joy of participation are, well, you know the rest.) Trust me, it is better to win. The perception carries forward.
Iowa has never been good caucus turf for the Clintons. Bill Clinton skipped it in '92, barely able to do so because home state Senator Tom Harkin was running, and in '08 Hillary finished third behind Barack Obama and John Edwards. So she did much better this time, against a candidate with a more focused and powerful message than Obama's.
If she'd lost Iowa, she'd have been in serious trouble. (So much for the joy of participation and a supposed tie, right?) I expect Sanders to clobber her next week on his near home turf New Hampshire primary. She has leads everywhere else and the combat skills to hold those leads.
And yet ...
As I first discussed at the end of last summer in "The Sanders Saga: Why Is 'A Half-Baked Version of Tom Hayden' Beating the Clintons?," it's not at all clear the Clintons know how to run against Sanders. (Gun control ain't it, folks.) He poses much more of an ideological challenge than did Obama, whose major point of policy contrast with Hillary was a fortunate speech he gave as a state senator just beginning to run for the U.S. Senate in which he opposed the invasion of Iraq. After seven years of the Obama administration, one wonders if he might not have joined Hillary and most the rest in going along if he had already been in the U.S. Senate. As a presidential candidate, Obama was more of a personality challenge to Hillary, a phenomenon because of his race and his very polished young presidential-style 2004 Democratic national convention keynote address.
Sanders isn't so much a plausible presidential figure as he is a highly effective protest leader, an advocate with a powerful and focused message about un-rigging the economy and financial system and promoting a moderate form of democratic socialism.
Since he has use of the Internet, something not available to insurgencies of the past, he can come close to matching Hillary's fundraising. In fact, with the biggest ever small donor operation he and his team have already built, Sanders can use strong showings to perhaps even surpass Hillary's funding. Indeed, he seems to have done it already, at least for January, even before his strong showings in Iowa and likely New Hampshire.
Looking at the structure of the race, with contests set to move beyond the nearly all-white lib enclaves of Iowa and New Hampshire, Hillary's narrow win Monday night should salvage her nomination.
But, while it is not much easier to see Sanders actually winning once you strip away the emotionalism of it all, if Sanders's message keeps getting through -- and the curmudgeonly Vermont senator's lack of developed presidential polish may perversely add to his credibility as a messenger -- Hillary might just be in bigger trouble than she would be had her team better understood how to take on their opponent.
This deserves very careful monitoring. We'll know more as the pre-New Hampshire week goes on.
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