Let us remember that the TOTAL number of votes cast was less than 3,000. This is much ado about ... not nothing because the media makes it into something ...
@Cal Prof: speak for yourself. Will sit out the election if Bernie or Warren is the Dem candidate. Bloomberg, Pete, Amy in that order. Sorry can't make myself vote for Biden, he ought to retire by now
2
From the NYT's Live Iowa Results Coverage:
"Buttigieg now leads in 60 counties, while Sanders
leads in 18 counties."
That pretty much says it all!
4
Between Mayor Pete and Bloomberg I will take Bloomberg every time.
3
Any discerning observer to the past months' Democrat candidacy race and Congressional impeachment hearings and 'trial', sees the only way to turn back from the wreckless tunnel we are in is for the Democrats to become strategic and pragmatic: close ranks around the toughest, tightest and most solid President and Vice President pairing that will beat Trump in both the popular vote and Electoral College. Pairing must bring broad demographic appeal, moral and ethical authority, unrivaled competency to lead and manage, and loud commitment to unifying us both domestically and by restoring our global alliances and trustworthiness. In addition, the ticket's policy priorities must include addressing climate change, our collapsing infrastructure, healthcare for all, universal minimum wage of $17 an hour, Congressional term limits to begin reversal of the killing impact of big money on our legislation, jobs, jobs, jobs via government works projects (opportunities abound), and higher pay and accountability standards for our teachers - raise standards and pay them! There's more but, these are a start and we - USA - can walk and chew gum at the same time. I suggest for President, Bloomberg & for VP, Deval Patrick, Kamala Harris, or Mitch Landrieu. Please, suggest other pairings and ditch the pitch Bloomberg is buying the election; every candidate runs on Big money - with Bloomberg, his run makes him accountable only to us. Let's get Busy!
6
Your opinions would carry more weight if we hadn't read your supportive Republican columns for so many years. Yes, the voting system failed, but the takeaway is not that any one candidate benefited or lost. Please stop being so critical of the Democrats and their errors. Why not beat on the Republicans for awhile?
2
So Ross says that Buttigieg's early claim of victory "played as a bit of an obnoxious McKinsey move."
Hmm. If he hadn't done really well he would have had egg on his face for sure but he did do really well. And he showed that he was in touch with what was actually happening on the ground. Seems to me his victory claim was brilliant.
4
As Democratic elites braced for a Bernie Sanders triumph in Iowa, a mysterious piece of technology spun out by a group those elites supported delayed the vote results, preventing Sanders from delivering a victory speech., and Pete Buttigeig exploited the moment to declare himself the winner.
The App may have been intended to deliver the win to Buttigeig… in as plausible way as possible.
For a Buttigeig win to be plausible, the Iowa Poll had to be cancelled. It was...
The Iowa Democratic Party. which contracted Shadow for their services, has emphasized the data collected by the app was "sound," but that the app was only reporting out partial data, due to a coding issue in the reporting system.
Because, The App didn’t work and made a real mess, and maybe the real results will be outed…
The App was developed by a company appropriately named Shadow Inc." "This firm was staffed by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaign veterans and created by a Democratic dark money nonprofit.
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/04/pro-israel-buttigieg-seth-klarman-iowas-voting-app/
Shadow Inc launched on 17th Jan 2019. Mayor Pete announces run for President on 23rd Jan. CEO of company that owns Shadow tweets out her support.
Shadow inc, The App and Buttigeig, reek of mendacity.
4
So we waited one additional day for the results. Hardly a disaster. The Primaries take place over a period of months with every state selecting delegates and then the final decision taking place at the actual convention.
In the words of Taylor Swift, "You need to calm down".
125
@Steve
These STILL aren't all the results.
2
@Steve
I don't think there's any need to quote Taylor Swift while Rome is burning.
6
@Steve
In the more apt words of Forrest Gump, "stupid is as stupid does." With so much at stake and the entire country watching, the Democratic Party found yet another way to trip over their own feet. Doesn't bode well for their chances against the GOP, masters of cheating and dirty tricks.
9
Mayor Pete showed his ability to connect with voters in the rural Midwest & so-called flyover country. Good for him, good for the Democratic Party.
198
yes he connected with WHITE Midwestern voters, his pals, but the rest of us don't support him.
7
@xyz well we need those white midwestern voters in swing states to beat trump... especially Obama to Trump voters which Pete did very well with. Pete will do just fine with the AA community if we let things play out instead of constantly trying to undermine him...otherwise let's just give this to Joe Biden since he's polling at the top with African Americans and call it a day.
5
So did Bernie.
A win is a win. Long after the headlines are forgotten, people are going to remember that the huge underdog Mayor Pete beat heavy favorites Sanders, Warren and Biden.
260
@Dan
In re to: "A win is a win. Long after the headlines are forgotten, people are going to remember that the huge underdog Mayor Pete beat heavy favorites Sanders, Warren and Biden."
Shouldn't we wait for the final results? Mayor Pete, to his credit, is: "They’re not complete, but results are in from a majority of precincts and they show our campaign in first place."
That seems to be a more honest take.
19
@Dan Seriously, Buttigieg was not a huge underdog in Iowa. He consistently polled in the top four for months. Yes, it is a win but the game is long.
13
He was a long shot when he started. The man worked hard and earned his victory.
33
The big winner of the Iowa debacle is Michael Bloomberg. I hope people around the country begins seeing that he is the most capable of beating Trump. Our country needs to be rid of the Orange Dictator. If he is reelected, our entire democracy is on the table. He is the best mayor NYC has had in the 35 years I've lived in the city. There are some things I wish he had done differently when he was mayor, but I'm on board for Bloomberg.
3
Democrats may consider Biden damaged goods and a liability in the coming campaign. He'll be constantly fighting against the Ukrainian allegations rather than explaining his platform.
12
@kevin sullivan Trump wanted the Ukraine story out there for precisely the reason you state. Trump wanted an edge as he thought Biden would be his opponent.
@Kingfish52
"the failure of our parties"
I don't agree with your basic premise. There is a giant chasm between the democrat and republican parties. The republican party has opted out of our political system by refusing to adhere to
our constitution's steps during the impeachment.
No witnesses. No documents.
The democratic party followed the constitution's steps for impeachment.
Basically we have zombie republicans who have leased their brain and body to a narcissistic criminal president.
Yes, we have two parties but one of them is a cult. This makes our future so difficult to predict.
25
The lack of digital intelligence. ActBlue is brilliant. But whatever the Clinton team touches in the digital universe, from cell phones to servers shows incredible ineptness. The Democrats need to match the sophistication of Trump use of Facebook and the Cambridge Analytica database. This Shadow, Inc. company needs to evolve beyond jellyfish and sloths.
1
Warren and Buttigieg would make a great team and be formidable against Trump. Bloomberg should stop his Republican-Democratic switch routine and take some of his billions and finance massive voter registration and education getting those Democrats to the polls in November and for that he should be awarded the nation's thanks for helping us extricate the nation, and even the Republican Party, from the scourge of mafia-tramp Trump.
3
Mr. Bloomberg is also profiting from the conspicuous failure of the central narrative Mr. Biden has based his entire campaign on.
This narrative reads like this:
"I´m the only true American moderate - if you know what I mean - so I´m the only one who can win in the very specific American situation particularly under actual economic conditions because I´m backed by the most relevant social groups you know. Most of all I´m therefore elegible for conservative seasoned whites who have abandoned Obama and sent Mr. Trump to Washington."
As everybody knows Iowa is populated with people who perfectly fit into the pattern of target groups receptive for this way of thinking - except blacks and latinos.
And what did these mainly elderly structurrally conservative whites as the still decisive majority of voters in USA say to him as alleged "one of their kind" by their caucus vote?
"You are a kind person and thanks for your offer but we like a young somewhat freaky moderate better than you. An ardent socialist could also do. Or a radical left-leaning reformer. So enjoy some applause we give to you by courtesy and take it easy, long-term Wahington political class vet."
This is what the outcome says in fact and this is taking most of his arguments away from him. Only his flaws remain. A giant blow.
No wonder that one of the most capable analyst of social and economic data, Mr. Bloomberg, announced to double his bet only a few hours later.
The Democrat Party leadership will never accept a Socialist candidate. They will try every dirty trick there is, in order to prevent his nomination. And their partners in crime, the mainstream corporate media, will cover up for them and go along with their machinations . . . Historically, when faced with the choice, the bourgeoisie will always go with a Fascist like Trump (that they claim to despise) rather than the Socialist like Sanders (who they really fear) . . . .
2
I saw nothing obnoxious in Buttigieg's manor. He is intelligent and well-spoken. That might raise the hackles of some.
5
Ross pulls out all the stops in his latest pro Trump column. Loser, debacle, fiasco, meltdown, folly, chaos, stupidity are just some of the, no doubt Newt Gingrich-pre-approved epithets he uses against Democrats. Never mind that four years ago there were nineteen Republicans, none qualified for the presidency, squabbling amongst themselves like poorly raised toddlers. Don’t mention that in the end the Republican Party chose the least moral, least ethical, least knowledgable and laziest of the bunch as their nominee. No, Ross shows his rank partisanship and true desire to see his favorite president reelected to continue to destroy America from within. He, like his president, is without shame or honor.
1
It's still Bloomberg for me. Warren or Buttigieg would make great VPs.
1
I'd really love it if some intrepid NYTimes reporter would give us the complete details of the voting in someplace like Decorah or Traer.... you know, the raw numbers.
All this breathless punditry projecting national trends.... when the reality is extremely small total votes in many cases.
Sally (a Biden supporter) couldn't get a babysitter in time to caucus, so Mayor Pete wins. Obviously, this is indicative of the opinions of millions of other voters.
1
It leaves you wondering how Trump would attack a gay opponent. But perhaps Bloomberg has the one thing that can take Trump down, money.
Mr. Douthat, this is a ridiculous spin on Buttigieg's victory. Give this brilliant young political light his due and wish him well going forward.
7
I guess the Iowa app must have been written by the same people who developed the initial Obama Care website, which, as I recall it, did not work as expected either.
1
Trump is the winner.
Iowa was an embarrassment to us progressives. The unforgivable incompetence...so sad.
Bloomberg, above the fray, was also a winner. He's the best, most electable,candidate. A clear thinker, with a track record of success.
16
Keep grinning. I hope Trump does win in 2020 and destroys everything Trump Country thought they would get.
1
An articulate capable centerist can beat Trump. All the other "boutique" candidates are risking the doom of 4 more years. Who is that person, in my mind it's Bloomberg. Would Biden be better, well he might have been, but, his intellectual vigor has lost too much horsepower. He certainly had better bonafides and name recognition, not to mention affection from many African Americans. Tragically he can barely spew a sentence without being incoherent, and "No Malarky" is indicative of both his lack of credibility and his weak advisors who let him do it. No, Bloomberg's the guy.....at least for now. All the others are cannon fodder. Trump will crush them.
5
"Who Won and Who Lost the Fiasco in Iowa?"
Answer: President Donald J. Trump.
The NYT readership lives largely in a bubble. You may find Bernie tot he right of a "typical European politician", so what - we are not in Europe. To a typical American voter he is too radical. Period. Chose him to represent your party in November and you will lose; it is that simple, really.
6
If the Republicans had used an app with the same result, Dems would be launching a Russia investigation.
2
And that is why the Democratic Party won't win the next election!
1
Is this indicative of the Democratic Party...disarray
the title of this should be "trump wins the Democratic caucus"
2
After the dopiness of the senate impeachment hearing and the buffoonery of the Iowa caucuses, I'm happy to retain my pretty left-leaning voting status as an Independent. Opposed to the immovable republican senate, democrats looked plain stupid. Then the foolishness in Iowa, including the ridiculously publicity-seeking AOC. I wouldn't trust any results coming from any Iowa precinct, and hope only that the New Hampshire Democratic party prefers paper over an app.
1
“flim flam ‘improvements’ of the tech economy”
Brilliant line.
1
Ross you called it. One-party is totally corrupt and the other is feckless, disorganized and self-defeating. Donald Trump won Iowa I know will when the general election. end of story.
1
However bad this is, it's nowhere near as bad as the current admin's chaotic and blasé attitude to cyber security.
2
The “disaster” is in the White House, Mr. Douthat. You seem not to understand that.
1
Thank you for being so kind a give a paragraph each to the female presidential candidates.
1
Hillary and the Obamas' troubles with software peddlers continue. It wasn't bad enough that we vastly overpaid Michele Obama's friends for their multi-billion Obamacare website, but a company linked to Hillary and them is to be thanked for the complete failure of the caucus system.
But the REAL story is that while 240,000 Iowans ushered in the Age of Obama in 2008, only 170K or so appeared last night - mirroring the uh-oh number that considered Hillary in 2016.
Why ponder which fool is the least foolish when the guy who created this amazing economy is available for a second tour of duty?
OBTW, how do you know Trump is totally innocent? Mueller's group spent two years and found nothing, and then the desperate & highly motivated Dem majority in the House gave it their best shot and STILL came up empty.
1
Interesting coincidence: Buttigieg's connection to the malfunctioning app.
Shadow Inc. was launched by ACRONYM, a nonprofit corporation founded in 2017 by Tara McGowan, a political strategist who runs companies aimed at promoting Democratic candidates and priorities. McGowan, 34, is married to Michael Halle, a senior strategist for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, which records show has also paid Shadow Inc. $42,500 for software.
Oh, the app was designed by the people who gave us President Trump? Tell me more about how Secretary Clinton should have gone away after leaving the state department.
A full third of the vote was still unannounced when this was written. Has that total been released yet? Because it might affect who the “winners” and “losers” actually are.
1
Biden is totally done.
New Hampshire will reinforce this.
To think that investigations of Biden’s corruption have somehow been prevented by the preemptive hoax attack on Trump would be overly optimistic.
The deep state is currently candidateless.
1
Winner of Iowa Caucus. Trump.
Runner Up. Bloomberg.
12
The convoluted Iowa system is just as glaringly undemocratic as the electoral college. Whether local, state or national, this thumb-on-the-scale system favoring a certain demographic is outrageous and must be changed! One person, one vote. Whoever has the most votes wins. Everyone understands the simplicity and fairness of this. Once we get this right, we can tackle the glaringly unrepresentative Senate.
4
Burying Biden is not only premature, it ignores the fact that more often than not Iowa caucus results have been perverse and not a good predictor of who eventually emerges as the nominee. Biden will be finished only if he does not come out first in Super Tuesday.
2
Who needs Russian interference to get Trump elected?
We have the a Democratic Party. I can hear it now.. why would you vote for a party who can’t even run a caucus let alone a government ?
I am truly depressed.
3
There was no failure. Who cares about a 24 hour delay? The Media fanned the frenzy and no one cared.
9
Somewhat interesting to read the opinions of The Press, but the bottom line is they probably aren't any more accurate in their predictions and analyses than I am.
Vote Blue No Matter Who.
6
"disaster in Iowa"
"the failure of our parties"
"the self-sabotage of our institutions"
"the disastrous interaction between creaking political systems"
"outrageous art installation"
"a fiasco that speaks for itself"
And that's just the first paragraph. Your tail is wagging, Ross.
4
Bloomberg has the money and the brains to bring down Trump. He's also a self-made man in contrast to the current occupant of the oval office. A political pundit once said, "we don't choose our presidents, they choose themselves." Bloomberg is in a good position to do just that.
6
Ross, no buried lead here. A brilliant introduction to the sad state of today's affairs.
1
Hopefully, this will end the undemocratic caucus system. It should end the undemocratic system in which a few very small, rural, white states have undue influence in choosing our President.
We should have a few regional primaries!
2
Iowa is meaningless and so making a big deal out of it is simply hype for the sack of clicks, or whatever it is that drives a delusional right wing pundit. The best that can be said about it now is that it is over and we can go back to ignoring the people that send Steve King and Chuck Grassley to Washington.
1
American politics at its sensible best is based upon the initial energy of Momentum but as ultimately restrained by the pragmatic logic of Moderation. Given the twin mandates of Democrats, Independents, and some suburban GOP Moms (a) to beat Trump in 2020 and (b) to address the pernicious effects of Citizens United (read: money-politics in Washington), (1) the “co-wins” for Bernie (with a recent heart attack) and Mayor Pete (who is 38 and untested) and (2) the decisive “loss” for Uncle Joe (who is losing coherent train of thought beyond scripted sound bites) will result in an eventual victory for Warren. Liz is now pragmatically distinguishing herself from Sanders without alienating his energetic base (as Hillary did in 2016). Good ol’ Joe is over-the-hill and assiduously avoids the press and the scrutiny of focused Q and A; and Mayor Pete has the McKinsey “magic of words” but in reality has little experience other than grooming himself for office with ”a little bit here and a little bit there.” Warren, on the other hand, has seen it all and has consistently fought for the folks stuck in the Last Mile. She is “a capitalist to her bones, but has an Oklahoma heart.” Think about it.
2
Ross you are such a Republican stick in the mud. Trump wins in a landslide using paper ballots, which you don't comment on (and is repulsive in light of his party sanctioning his corruption), but lampoon Iowa Democrats, who, in a non tech state, tried new tech and struggled. Iowans did the right thing by waiting to get the results right. I'll take that over hanging chads anyday. Your prognostications about each candidate after this less and less important caucus seems premature as well. No need to rush to judgement, the convention is not for months. Let's see what the voters elsewhere have to say.
5
The winner of the Iowa debacle was Trump.
1
Debacle? Absurdity? Fiasco? Those are words I'd use to describe the Republican Senate impeachment trial, not the Iowa primary. They're having trouble tallying the results. By taking longer and being transparent, they'll get it right. I have a feeling Ross Douthout had a really negative column in mind no matter what happened. The main "take away" (how I hate that phrase, but it's become a Times favorite) is that Biden is doing poorly, despite the DNC bias in his favor.
2
Tonight we may have seen the last gasp of the Obama-Clinton power moderates in the form of Shadow, the misapplication that ate Iowa.
Ms. Clinton's Shadow-like vestigial curse is the Clinton gift to Republicans that keeps on giving.
1
Who gains the most? Mr trump in his big speech tonight. The Iowan Democrats are not just sloppy, they have been had. This was planned.
Watch! I bet all precincts will magically appear as soon as the speech is over
1
Unbelievable. Bernie just doesn't exist for you people at the Times and the rest of the mainstream capitalist media, does he? Which is another way of saying, his millions of voters, and the working class people he is reaching don't exist. We don't exist.
So, Sanders got MORE votes in both rounds than any other candidate, but that never got mentioned, and if and when all the votes are counted he MIGHT even have the most delegates, which you have all decided is how you will pick the winner this time, since it is currently, given the probably cherry-picked 62% of the votes counted after two days, that would be Buttigieg.
But whatever happens, Buttigieg has been declared the winner by the press and himself, he gets to keep the delegates, but Bernie is not declared a winner, the moment is lost and so is the momentum, and the victim is....Buttigieg !
I am starting to like you about as much as I like the Trump people. You have no scruples, and all of this is just to stop people from having jobs at living wages, strong unions, health care, affordable college, peace, and a future for our children. That makes you and the DNC our class enemy.
So think about whether that is where you want this to end up, class against class, instead of Democrat versus Republican. But stop ignoring Bernie and his message and his voters.
Ross,
Congratulations on a fair minded analysis. My only quibble is that Biden's campaign is probably on life support. Fourth place is hardly any evidence of electability. If he fails to win in Nevada, the Democratic establishment will be wheeling poor Joe off to the nursing home.
You'll be surprised that your analysis is almost in complete agreement with Cenk Uygur. Is there a bit of a socialist streek in you? :-)
1
The article’s premise is flawed. Pete’s integrity was the biggest loss in Iowa, well after Shadow Inc, the DNC and Perez. We see you and will vote accordingly.
So very sad that tens of millions of dollars and thousands of hours of candidates' precious personal time resulted in such a fiasco. The caucus system is not democratic and Iowa's demographics and economy are not representative of the country as a whole. Stop the madness!
1
Iowa was alway a very small and unrepresentative State. The whole idea of spending all that much time, energy, money, media attention on Iowa has always been a corruption of the American democratic system of choosing presidential candidates. The Iowa system was always a bad idea; tonight it was an absolute disaster.
Imagine all the waste of time, energy and money on a State with 0.9% of the American population!!!!
13
@David Iowa was probably representative in the early 19th or 20th century.
No offense to Iowans but that the number of people that participated in this fiasco are now creating all this buzz is a joke. 170K??? That's a small city in so many states (an all white small city). Is this really the best we can do?
12
Hilarious. These people want to expand control over every life choice you make, and they can't run something as complicated as a state-wide bake sale.
Trump will walk away with the election, only because this will probably be the first of several significant missteps by the D's on the way to the convention.
1
A high school election for student government was more organized then that mess. Spending four or five hours playing musical chairs was chaotic and crazy.
Actually, I'm hoping Biden stays strong. Just strong enough to avoid dropping out. We want moderates split three ways on Super Tuesday. Klobuchar should stay in the race too. That makes four. The only person I'm rooting against right now is Warren.
Not because I don't like her. She's an excellent candidate. However, progressives need to consolidate their support early to stand any chance at all. The DNC is already plotting to change convention rules against both Warren and Sanders. If Warren truly believes anything she says, she needs to get out before Super Tuesday or we all lose.
Without an upset in an early state, Warren only serves to siphon delegates away from Bernie leading to a brokered convention Democrats are designing for him to lose. The 30 percent plus independents who support Bernie are not going to respond well to getting cheated a second time. Trump gets reelected.
You got about one month. For the good of the nation Warren, if you can't turn things around in one month, drop out and endorse Bernie.
Biden certainly suffered from an enthusiasm gap vs the other 3 top finishers. If the turnout was 30% less than it was in 2008, the implication is that the unenthusiastic stayed home, very disproportionately Biden supporters? Maybe there was a 3-foot snowfall in Iowa on Feb 3? Maybe many Iowans think that their caucus process and position in relation to the rest of the country in the election is wrong or silly? Maybe they haven't heard that Donald Trump is president of the United States and in 4 years we could be the Philippines With Nuclear Weapons?
2
The logic of the last paragraph is that somehow the Democrats should "come together" and unite around a candidate now. But that's not going to happen.
Actually, the first paragraph is the most interesting one. The day will come when American dysfunction causes a really serious problem. For example, the federal government has neglected to invest the few billion dollars needed to harden the national grid. One day a massive solar flare will reach earth when the US just happens to be in the wrong place (i.e., directly in its path), and we'll all be without power for perhaps years. Millions of deaths and possibly even the loss of national independence would result.
2
Strange that this article that purports to ID winners in the Iowa fiasco glosses over the two real winners: Trump and Bloomberg. We've heard Trump's gloating elsewhere, but more significant is Bloomberg's massive ad buy. Bloomberg got in the race in the first place because he saw the Democrats were on a path to give us four more years of Trump.
6
Southbend (Pete) v Burlington (Bernie) v NYC (Mike). The battle of the Mayors is shaping up. Biden and Klobuchar are not gonna make the cut. Nevada is the the sorter. It is an early, sufficiently diverse state - larger, younger and browner than Iowa and NH. Whomever can convince the union organized white voter in Nevada while also appealing to multi-generation immigrant citizens of which there are many there can perhaps do the same where it counts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. That is the answer for the Democrats to prevail in November 2020.
5
Mr. Douthat, you have chosen to describe reality’s everpresent interacting dimensions - uncertainties, unpredictabilities, randomness, impermanences, unintended and unexpected outcomes, and
lack of total control, notwithstanding one’s efforts, timely or not, as a “disaster.”
Consider: Failure, whatever its sources can be/is an opportunity to
“FAIL BETTER.”
When will each of us learn to embrace and engage with “failures,”
however delineated, and by whom, for whatever purposes?
When will each of us, whoever and whatever we are,
are not and may never BE, or
may yet BEcome, “risk,” separating our experienced
self-created Identities, those ascribed to us by others,
with tagged-FAILURES, and our many diverse overt and
covert Behaviors, with their FAILURES?
WHO I AM, is more than WHAT I do!
By choice or not. Whatever the outcomes.
The complexities of Democracy are playing themselves
out. In Iowa, as well as elsewhere. All of the time.
Challenging the complacent about...
Challenging the complicit in...
Challenging each of us to contribute to make a needed
difference that will achieve sustainable differences of
equitable wellbeing for ALL, and diminishing our enabled
toxic culture of policymaker personal unaccountability.
Disaster? An opportunity to...!
1
Funny that one would call a democratic process a fiasco because the results were delayed by a faulty app. The process served its purpose - votes were cast and delegates apportioned. That hardly seems like a fiasco.
9
@Cornflower Rhys
It demonstrated for all the world to see that the Democrats are going to hand this election to Trump by their incompetence, unless some white knight comes to rescue them.
I fail to see what is disastrous about the Iowa delay. It is unfortunate, inconvenient, maybe disappointing, but I don't see that the world has come to an end. As a matter of fact, it may be a blessing. Instead of hard-breathing comments by pundits and experts of dubious sort, everyone has time to absorb the results and ponder over their implication. Moreover, since not all of them have been in, all speculation has to be tempered by the uncertainty of the figures. Douthat could not resist the temptation to move in immediately, however. But, hey, it's a gift for hard pressed writers of columns. Another benefit is that the expected influence of the caucuses is reduced, as everyone wishes that it were.
13
@Frank Casa Wouldn't it be amazing and refreshing if the political media and pundits such as Ross Douthat simply followed and reported on the developments in this race AS THEY DEVELOPED instead of trying to create and get ahead of the narrative for their own personal gain?
1
The problem is not the Iowa jokels. The oldest “democracy” is not a democracy at all. Having intermediaries to choose the president robs the will of the people, while a primary system allowing more relevance to some states over the others gives unequal voice to the citizens depending on where they live. Superdelegates? What kind of contraption is that? Each state’s electoral system is rigged one way or the other, often making voting access difficult to minorities. It is time to substitute the hodgepodge of systems with a national one of regional primaries, and to directly elect the president in two voting rounds.
10
@Jorge An interesting point of view, but it does not fit very well with the history of why we made the decisions that we did, and, in all likelihood would leave the choice of the president to a small number of large populous states to the exclusion of very large areas of our country which would, no doubt, feel entirely left out of the process, and likely would be. Note, for example, that Bloomberg, largely ignored Iowa and is focusing mainly on the larger states.
2
“...it is time to...”
It is also time to get rid of policymakers who are
personally accountable in their daily behaviors;
harmful words and deeds.
Perhaps it is time to consider “licensing”
candidates to be elected and selected, at all
levels, for the types, levels and qualities of
awareness, sensibilities and sensitivities, knowledge,
understanding, judgements, decision-making;
skills and abilities to learn and to “Fail better,” and
to effectively integrate their learning into future
words and deeds.
Teachers are licensed.
Doctors, ranging in specialties are licensed.
Lawyers are licensed.
As are drivers of vehicles.
Plumbers; what ever the depth of their work and it’s toxicity and foulness.
Oddly, paradoxically, parents and policymakers
remain unlicensed. The former, creating offspring
through loving to unloving intimate intercourse.
The latter, creating needed, as well as harmful, policies
through hidden as well as more public “s......g.”
It is also time to effectively diminish harmful complacency and complicity. Voting, for example, a right that many have died for, lost limbs
and been traumatized for, is also an obligation in a civil-democratic-
diverse society.
THE Time, in which IS, transmutes into WAS, and
hoped for, WILL, or will-not-BE, is NOW!
So far the left (Sanders+Warren) has 44% of the vote as against the center right (Everyone Else) with 56%. But the center right is split many ways whereas the left only two. It looks like the two tendencies are about evenly matched.
4
@Phred In most general elections, a 56-44 result would be labeled a landslide. Also many women not Progressive, are attracted to the very accomplished Warren.
Amy Klobuchar is the best-qualified candidate in terms of age and experience. She also has the best explanation of how she will beat Trump, lead Democrats to a sweeping victory, and then work to overcome divisions between Americans. She ran into very tough competition from Buttigieg in Iowa, but will not face that problem elsewhere.
11
@Kenneth J. Dillon Democrats aren’t partly the reason for “divisions between Americans “.? If I recall there were major demonstrations in Washington against Trump before taking office. Let’s not pretend Democrats have reached out to him to reach common goals and work on those divisions.
Andrew yang , has the energy , capability and heart to lead the country. He needs to present his more serious side and break into the as a main stream candidate.
1
@cag
That's not going to happen, so then what?
We need a buzzer: BZZZ—You STILL haven't reached double digits. TIME'S UP!!!
1
Who won - Trump
Who lost - Fools in Dem Party who are running after Sanders and AOC.
Remember it was Sanders who complained about the Hillary win in 2016 in Iowa and that resulted in the 'socialistic solutions of over-engineering' in the party primary.
Biden is lost too. I doubt going forward Centrists are about to waste their votes on him. They have choices in Mayor Pete, Klobuchar, Bloomberg or staying out of voting.
But if Dems want to be competitive and claim their primary process more reflective of American Voters - they need to stop Iowa dictating the initial innings of the primary process.
Else Republican Presidential candidates will continue to win.
7
@Umesh Patil FYI Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not running for POTUS. Are you on the right already starting a smear campaign against her as you did with Hillary for 30 years?
That was a weak reveal. And you might as well just have said it regardless of the caucus failure or order and strength of finish of the candidates. Your point is that this primary competition weakens whomever the nominee is relative to the incumbent.
6
Thanks Mr. Douthat for a great sum up. I fear for our Democrats, I now feel less loyalty to Biden and as the California vote nears I want Bloomberg's power and leadership. I want a winner. I just cannot stomach the socialism and disdain for corporations in a nation where private enterprise is what works. Bernie is a spoiler. Oh boy, this internet politics is for the birds. As a gay man age 74 I love Pete and I hear that he's smart, I want an experienced leader who can beat Trump. What we see in Washington is that they have the corporate power and money the real power of propaganda. How did his approval rating go to 49%? Mr. Douthat is right to point out that this crazy system is whacko.
10
@Bill Evans But private enterprise isn't working, at least as currently constituted. Outrageously expensive healthcare, rampant degradation of the ecosystems upon which all life, human and non, depend, and an allegedly 'booming' economy in which more and more people scramble merely to eke out a marginal existence whilst a small fraction of people skim off more and more wealth, all these signal the vasr dysfunction of our current economic system. Moreover, Bernie Sanders is just about as radical, as Marxist, as the nth center-right politician in Western Europe. He advocates, gasp!, for universal health and and equitable distribution of economic power not state ownership of the means of production. If he seems far-left it's only because American politics has drifted so far right over the past four decades, beginning with Ronnie Political.
No, no more panty-waist half-measures. This time real change or leave it to the tRump GOP to engineer us to the crisis that will leave radical change as the only alternative.
13
Thanks Mr. Douthat for a great sum up. I fear for our Democrats, I now feel less loyalty to Biden and as the California vote nears I want Bloomberg's power and leadership. I want a winner. I just cannot stomach the socialism and disdain for corporations in a nation where private enterprise is what works. Bernie is a spoiler. Oh boy, this internet politics is for the birds. As a gay man age 74 I love Pete and I hear that he's smart, I want an experienced leader who can beat Trump. What we see in Washington is that they have the corporate power and money the real power of propaganda. How did his approval rating go to 49%? Mr. Douthat is right to point out that this crazy system is whacko.
2
In the end, winners win, and losers lose. If you don’t know how to game the system, how will you ever be an effective president? That’s what Sanders supporters don’t get, for all their bluster. Buttigieg won and Biden lost. Sanders seems to have come out about the same.
4
Per the last sentence: the losers once again are people who have no idea how thoroughly the use of technology for greed rather than good, is threatening their very survival.
7
Indeed absurdity, which can be said of American politics since DT was elected.
5
The very fact that Joe Biden, a (the) front runner in national polls, did not win a delegate in Iowa informs us all of the uselessness of the Iowa caucus outcome.
Beyond it's failure to function correctly and beyond the absurdity of in-person caucusing as a means of "voting"; the debacle in the management, handling and reporting of the so-called "outcome" is indeed absurd, if not beyond that level of unreality.
Enough of what they're thinking in aging, white Iowa (full disclosure: I am an aging, white male) a state unrepresentative of either the Democratic Party or even the nation as a whole.
The media needs to stop this ridiculous frenzy on meaningless states (yes, including New Hampshire) and focus on Super Tuesday when truly pivotal states start of express their preferences.
8
@George
No, it informs us that Biden is a weak candidate. He's a nice person who's had a lot of trouble in his life and many years in politics, but that isn't a platform. Trump got elected because people wanted "change," and Democrats want it now.
@George There are no “meaningless states”. Pure Identity politics, Typically Democrat thinking in 2020.
Once again, Trump has the greatest luck of any mortal. Who could bet against him now?
The Gods obviously favor him and his monarchy.
(The Democrats are just not good at bookkeeping or business.) How can they be trusted to govern the nation?
All this impeachment talk about safeguarding our elections...who will safeguard the election from the Democrats?
Could it be any worse, and didn't it happen at the worst possible time?
It would be truly funny if it weren't so important to make a good beginning, and now it's such a botched calamity for the nation to reflect on.
Democrats who think it will be easy to defeat Trump on November 3 should wear this disaster for as long as it takes to learn how to avoid it again, ever.
7
@Dennis
Please.
This is exactly what happens when an understaffed, inexperienced vendor promises more than they can deliver in the timeframe, is short on staff and inadequately tests their product internally and with the end user.
It happens in a large percentage of new implementations. As a senior IT administrator, I know.
The sky is not falling. They’ll work it out. Anyone drawing negative conclusions towards the Iowa Democrats is naive.
13
@Dennis The results were delayed by ONE DAY due to a glitch. Hardly a calamity.
5
@Kate This isn't about the vendor. It's about the Democratic party picking a vendor who obviously was not up to the task on such a high profile assignment.
This negatively reflects on the Democrat's inability to run a pretty simple operation. Trump will use this as a classic example of why you can't trust these guys to run the government.
Very good for mayor Mike, who is increasingly likely to win the nomination on the first or second ballot.
5
It'll take two days for before we know who won in Iowa. IMO, if anyone but Bernie had won (or Tulsi) we would have long since known about it. It's highly unlikely Buttigeig won (at least legitimately)... this is Day Two spin.
5
For crying out loud. Why are we so short-sighted? It's not about Pete or Joe or either party. It's about a society that prefers to believe what it wants to believe. Horse race announcers. What about facts? Most important, what about the fact that the United States of America can't be sure to have an election which can be trusted? All the campaigning and punditry is worthless if we can't all agree that we want free and fair elections, and work towards that end. I generally trust the scientific validity of polls, but unless we can trust the elections, Win or lose, Trump will get traction when he whines about vote counts in November. And Putin will laugh. Biggest bang for the buck: fix the election system with paper, not apps.
19
Weird how people keep saying Mayo Pete won, even though had had fewer votes than Sanders but mysteriously more delegates.
Weird how Sanders supporters keep thinking the system is rigged.
3
@Trevor Bajus Weird how Sanders supporters think Sanders should be allowed to run in a Democratic primary when he's not even a Democrat.
15
@Trevor Bajus Buttigieg had a few more votes than Sanders ... but more. And they have the same number of delegates. If your connection to Sanders is based on your connection to reality you are in trouble.
2
@rah62
If Sanders isn't a Democrat, neither is Bloomberg. I believe Sanders has joined the Democratic Party? Bloomberg started out as a Republican, then called himself an independent, then a Democrat.
1
Looking back to 2016 it seems clear that in the Democratic primary what happened in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada didn't really matter except to perhaps eliminate Martin O'Malley from the race. I think the same may apply this year. The real contest may start in South Carolina. And given all the delegate votes that are at stake on Super Tuesday this year it seems likely a clear winner will emerge after that vote. If not, it could be a brokered convention with no candidate getting enough delegates. And if it goes to a second round of voting the super delegates will vote. This primary could get really interesting.
6
They was a House of cards stacked on so many assumptions I lost count. Great read as usual though. I don’t think the night was as bad for Mayor Pete as you’re suggesting here. Perceptions of his McKinsey approach are not necessarily translating into negative momentum.
I worry about the fervent nature of Bernies base ie will they undermine the final nominee if it isn’t Sanders?
Also, major elephant in the room : shouldn’t a 70 year only recent heart attack victim be recuperating ... instead of trying to win the most difficult contest on earth? What happens if he actually dies on the trail? Or in his first few months of office? Voting top of the ticket is not going to happen if he gets the nom.
As for Bloomberg, I genuinely do not understand how he has a shot even though he doesn’t even seem to be in the race? Just wait till everyone drops out or dies of a heart attack and then waltzes up to scoop the prize? Bernie would be better off taking that approach for his own health.
Meanwhile, for my opinion for what it’s worth: Buttigieg remains the smartest, youngest and most energised and compelling candidate since Obama (I’ve been saying that here on the NYT since he was first introduced); Warren made a grave error is trying to cast ultra liberal Bernie as sexist; and Biden is cumbersome but good for the race, even though he won’t succeed.
12
@Reasonable
"shouldn’t a 70 year only recent heart attack victim be recuperating?"
Bernie is 78.
1
Iowa has shown us the future of the Democratic party of Clinton and Obama. I guess hoping for Yang and Steyer to finish fourth and fifth was too great a hope where much of the population was born in the 1940s.
Here in Quebec the economy is booming, the people are optimistic the Nuclear family is from the last generation,we have a solid social safety net and for the first time in 50 years fertility rates are on the rise.
I know Iowa I know its people but I remember when they were optimistic and our ultra conservative Catholic theocracy assured our stagnation.
Iowa was a crystal clear indication that there may be hope for America. Iowa will vote for Trump and a year long campaign was wasted in a place whose future seems much poorer without change. Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren showed the desire even in Iowa of a better future. I can't say what I think of Ernst, Grassley and Whittaker my father's greatest epitet was gonif.
I live in farm country and our farmers are secure and their children are healthy, educated and secure.
We are committed to separation of church and state and we are under the control of we the people. God only blesses those that understand we must take care of each other.
I once loved America and I still hope for the best but everyday brings alternate feeling about whether America is on the brink of failure or recovery. I hope and pray those young Iowa Democrats find reason to stay the Nihilism of conservatism in a world of dynamic change is frightening.
16
@Montreal Moe I should have moved to Canada years ago, too old now You do have a solid safety net, they are trying to kill it here and if they are successful they will kill millions.
People talk of a brokered Democratic convention. But they give far too much credence to the notion that all the candidates will hold together and stay within the party. That is unlikely to happen -- neither Sanders nor Bloomberg is even remotely loyal to the party.
Whatever Democrat rises to the top will not even come close to 50% of the votes. And that will open the door to a third party candidacy, which Sanders and Bloomberg would surely pursue rather than conceding. On top of that, the third party candidate -- who would likely be a moderate -- would surely attract moderate Republican votes.
So the most likely outcome is a contest between three candidates -- maybe three New Yorkers (Trump, Bloomberg and Sanders) of comparable strength, none of whom would come close to carrying a majority of the electorate.
Those who speak frequently of the bipartisan split in the country are wrong. The country is split into three factions each of which controls about one third of the electorate. And in such circumstances, it is my understanding that the election would decided by the House -- good news for the Democrats.
@michjas Go read the Constitution - it's online. Or just Google "house decides Presidency" ... You will find that "decided by the House" would not be good news for the Democrats, because in that case the House does not give each member one vote; it gives each State one vote ... and which party do you think controls the most States?
You might prove to be 100% right in what you say here. But you are just speculating, and very well might be overthinking the situation--we don't even have the final results yet.
Breathless pronouncements about the significance of the Iowa caucus to this candidate or that are to be taken with a heaping teaspoonful of salt. What if it turns out that it wasn't decisive, or even important, for any of the campaigns?
About all that can be said for sure now is that the boondoggle in counting the votes is embarrassing. (Do we really need apps just to add?)
However I wonder if this horse-race-oriented coverage/commentary may be detrimental to thoughtful assessment of the candidates as candidates.
6
I don’t typically agree with Douthat’s POV’s, and often find his views to be somewhat clouded by party bias. But this is the most spot-on take of the Iowa debacle that I have read thus far.
It’s hard to see how clarity somehow magically appears after the next few primaries. It’s becoming easier to imagine a contested convention.
But given that so many of the usual rules and trusted political norms have been upended, it’s also hard to imagine what will happen next November. And just as today it may seem like Trump is a sure bet, anything can happen.
"As the biggest winner from the reported results, Buttigieg is therefore the biggest loser from the botched count."
That depends on what the full numbers show.
If the botched count produced initial numbers that are representative of the total numbers, then yes, this is true.
However, if this limited count over-performs for Mayor Pete, then he got an artificial high, and will then get a gratuitous knock down. That is a big plus followed by a big minus.
If the limited count actually under counted his real performance, then he gets a double bump up. That is two big pluses instead of one.
What this means for Mayor Pete depends on what we don't know yet.
3
The Democratic party lost. At the end of the day, the DNC is responsible for logistics and execution of the election. The DNC was incompetent in 2016 and this is more of the same. Many people in the middle regard Democrats as well-intentioned but incompetent. The Iowa Caucus reenforces this stereotype.
The Republican Party is the obvious winner, with Donald Trump being an important part of that group. The Republican Party is competing in a head-to-head race with the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party just shot itself in the foot.
This essay is a microcosm of the Democratic Party and the left. The Democratic Party lost the confidence of many people in the middle and likely as not any chance of reclaiming the Senate in November - and the Democrats are spending time and energy discussing which of the six incredibly similar DNC candidates benefited or suffered. You really could have stopped after the first, excellent paragraph.
P.S. Mr. Douthat - I did not care for the swipe at Mr. Bloomberg at the end of the essay. I thought it was unfair.
11
@Joseph Dipietro Your claim that "the Democratic party lost the confidence of many people in the middle" is supported by zero evidence. It's a fear, not a fact.
5
@Joseph Dipietro
Joe, why is it so difficult to understand that the DNC has zip, nada, nothing, nary a smidgen to do with running the Iowa caucus?
1
In addition to your excellent analysis we would like to add that Pete Buttigieg wrote in his website that as Mayor of South Bend "his "first-of-its-kind municipal identification cards for undocumented immigrants brought residents out of the shadows" We know that Iowa is not South Florida, therefore we are extremely happy to enjoy the fact that he obtained the unexpected results you mention. We know that the process to elect the final candidate is very difficult, but this was a very good result for we the immigrants. Comprehensive immigration reform anybody?
5
"for Sanders ..... the solidity and national spread of his support means that he has the clearest path to the nomination in a permanently divided field"...... Douthat has a short memory. In 2016 Sanders fared very well in states where caucuses were held, but not so well in states where there were open elections. Sanders was competitive in states like Iowa with limited diversity, but was soundly beaten in states with a significant percentage of minority voters. Iowa and for that matter New Hampshire are not the end of the primary campaign, maybe not even the beginning.
14
Dear DNC:
The debacle in Iowa is inexcusable. Get help and/or immediately replace your leaders at the top.
To the Democratic primary voters: Focus on winning the swing states in the general college election.
These are conservative leaning states, and centrist in nature. Think about the big picture; or as our "friend" Mitch would say, the "long game."
So forget about who you "like"; this is not the Bachelor; it's Survivor: Democracy.
Who can beat trump in the conservative-leaning, electoral college states that matter?
14
Pete is worried about medically useless insurance middlemen losing jobs. I am worried about constantly having to pay those middlemen their welfare through the astoundingly high medical plan bills on offer. We need to get those typewriter manufacturers and repair people back working. And and and. I will vote for Pete if nominated, but once he said that, zero donations and zero primary votes from me. A sad and misguided effort to differentiate himself.
12
I find Amy Klobuchar much more appealing
and much more prepared than Mayor Pete
to become President.
Please don't drop out Amy
no matter what the Pundits say.
Stay the course and offer the United States
a choice between three 70 year olds
and an overly ambitious unexperienced Mayor
of a small city.
9
@John Brown
I will keep my two Amy stickers on my car. So far the only ones I have seen in Fairfield County CT. If in the end it is not Amy, I'll pray that Democrats get their senses in order before it is too late. ( She would make a wonderful VP especially for Bloomberg )
7
@John Brown
Im with Warren all the way.
If Amy is the nominee, I'll back her.
I wonder if these two powers should join forces?
Otherwise, I would like to see a Warren/Booker ticket.
Today, Bernie came out in favor of the Government taking over all of the electric utilities over the entire Country.
He also wants to raise taxes to pay for health care INCLUDING health care for illegal immigrants.
No moderate voter will ever vote for those things. Do not vote him in as our nominee. We will lose big time and we may lose our Democracy.
14
@Bodyman
In. case you haven't heard, most community owned utilities charge far less than the privately held ones , and a modest increase in taxes for Medicare will result in a far greater savings for almost every single person now covered by private, for profit, insurance
8
The Iowa results, such as they are, demonstrate hardly anything. Not only are the caucusgoers an unrepresentative sample of Democrats; the question of who got the most votes in the caucuses is pointless when the percentage differences are small. I guess the media need something to talk about, but there's nothing of any great significance here.
Perhaps the sharpest message of the Iowa fiasco is the vital need for the Democrats to get their technical act together.
9
Anyone notice that Bernie won the cities while Pete won by rolling up the county votes? Works great in Iowa, but if this trend continues in states dominated by huge urban populations, Bernie will come out way ahead.
6
@Sea Wolf
I don't think that tells the entire story. He appears to be capable of building a broad coalition, having captured nearly 40% of the delegates in suburban areas, over 30% in rural areas and 21% in urban areas, per the campaign
9
Fine! I’m a Pete supporter who has no problem with that. But don’t whine about how Pete used a conspiracy to win Iowa.
1
The economy is strong precisely because of the trillion dollar stimulus the government pumps into the economy each year in the form of federal spending deficits. Why oh why don’t the Democrats point this out?
Under Obama, the right wing people whined constantly about the deficits. Now, higher than ever, it’s Thank you President Trump.
24
@Earl M
Since when have Democrats cared about deficits?
Democracy lost, once again in this downward spiral of decadence where only Wall Street financiers win Which brings us back to Michael Bloomberg and his freewheeling expenditure. Did he finance the glitch? Did a secret service organization made the votes disappear from real time the way Jeffery Epstein was? Nothing is impossible.
5
@Ted why not blame the Russians?
@Ted
All of the voting was in public and recorded on paper. Sheesh.
@Ted
Could we please leave the conspiracy theories to trumps base?
Yes. Biden was the big loser. Also those who advocate an App as the solution for all human interaction. Also this software company that built the App because tabulating votes is a very simple exercise. Of course, the Iowa Democratic Party.
The big winner, Delegate counts and the electoral college that applies the same principle as delegate counts.
The final vote is as yet to be determined so far but apparently, the network executives , NY Times and Mayor Pete regard delegate counts as more important than the popular vote which Sanders won by 3%, the same 3% won by Clinton over Trump.
Now mayor Pete when he first started was against the Electoral College. Now after 12 months , filled with vacuous and robotic talk, Pete really is in favor of the principles of the electoral college
13
Delegate counts is the way Iowa has always arrived at it’s results. The only reason this year is different is because Bernie complained that it was rigged because Hillary squeaked out a win in 2016. He wanted an extra count and THAT is why everything is now messed up. Now watch him complain about them messing it up.
12
@Bodyman Bernie didn't ask for an 'extra' count - he just asked that the initial and final counts, which were always done, both be reported publicly, for greater transparency.
But apparently the app, created by a company with staffers from the Clinton 2016 campaign, couldn't handle this transparency.
4
@mbaris1 Apparently Sanders supporters can't read.
Pete Buttigieg
26.8% 419 votes 10 delegates
Bernie Sanders
25.2% 394 votes 10 delegates
2
Congratulations to all the Democratic candidates, Pete #1, Bernie #2 and Elizabeth #3 on their three tickets out of Iowa. I will talk with local democrats to put forward a resolution to change the Iowa caucus to a primary in four years, and yeah, no need to be 'first'. I don't usually quote Bible verse, but "the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen" comes to mind tonight. Iowa came first in the 2020 election year, but ended up last in public opinion on February 3rd.
5
@Moover
They are not 1, 2 and 3. Partial tallies. But you're talking the message many want to get out.
3
While I want to see how real people actually voted, let's not go too crazy anointing a front running who garners 30% of the vote. Especially when more people ride than subway than vote in Iowa.
11
Today I watched an Iowan woman who voted for Buttigieg say can I take my vote back, I didn't know he was gay. He may be smart enough to be President and I'd vote for him, but Trump will have a field day with the bigotry. This country couldn't vote for Hillary because it believed that where there's smoke there's fire. Biden in the race delays the inevitable for him. I hope out two women candidates survive.
4
@Richard G I saw that video online as well, what gave me hope was the response of the precinct worker, Nikki van der Heever. She used considerable diplomatic skill to make the case to the homophobic woman for acceptance and understanding.
It was so moving, I wept as I watched it.
11
Martha, thanks for mentioning that. I just found the video and watched it. Nikki was awesome, far more patient with that religious conservative older woman than I would’ve been.
I find it so sad that there are many religious people who are like that older woman and so heartening that there are many religious people like Nikki.
6
Buy bye, ethanol
1
Buttigieg's declarations of victory before the fact are just the kind of arrogant garbage that turns me off.
If he's the candidate I'll vote for him. But right now he's at the bottom of my preferred list.
10
@Talbot That isn't what I heard him say. He did say the campaign did beter than expected and that was a victory. He was clearly NOT saying that he would finish in first once all the votes were counted.
23
@Talbot
I felt exactly the same. No class at all. Buttigieg is selling an image, not a plan.
1
@Talbot It had nothing to do with arrogance. His assertion was based on his well-oiled campaign counting the numbers. It just showed, yet again, he knows how to run a tight ship.
This just in: after a 3rd recount, DNC announces that Hillary Clinton won the Iowa caucuses.
Confusion is blamed on The Russians hacking the Shadow app.
20
The Democrats need to join the 21st century - this NYT quote says it all “ The smartphone app was the work of a little-known company called Shadow Inc. that was founded by veterans of Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential campaign, and whose previous work was marked by a string of failures, including a near bankruptcy.” Losers hiring losers. The Democratic Party needs to apologize to the candidates and voters. And “you’re fired”. A cakewalk for Trump - sad to say.
12
@Barbara
Non-technical people thinking because they desire something to work that it will.
Hillary’s former staffers are not alone in this regard.
2
Biden is the biggest loser because even the delay can't mask his failure from the big money bundlers. He will be virtually broke by the time SC arrives.
7
Greatest sub-headline in quite some time. Hat tip.
1
Biden the biggest winner? Seriously, Mr. Douthat? Biden, who was supposed to be part of the "big three" at the top, was trounced. He never could gather votes nationally on his own, and it's all downhill from here. He's done.
And no, Buttigieg declaring victory when things were in chaos wasn't "obnoxious," it was impressive. His own polling showed he would win, and he was right on the money.
President Pete. Get used to it.
20
Pure spin. There are many terrified that Buttigieg can't beat Trump, because of his sexuality. I worry. But I think Iowans really thought about it, and decided he can. And I'll take their word. As for Biden, no amount of spin can hide the fact that he lost big.
43
I thought Joe Biden was the only Democrat who could beat Trump, but the media seems intent on writing his political obituary, and he's having trouble raising money, so it may be lights out. I know this---a gay man like Mayor Pete could NEVER get elected in this homophobic country. This sexist country would never elect a female, largely because women don't vote for women. Scratch Warren and Klobuchar. Bernie Sanders is absolutely unelectable and is almost as divisive as Donald Trump. So who's left? Michael Bloomberg, who has a net worth 50x greater than Donald Trump. I wouldn't hold his money against him. If he can sell his competence, anything is possible. As a Democrat, let me say, ANYBODY BUT BERNIE.
37
@baldinoc In the general, anybody but Trump.
1
@baldinoc
"..almost as divisive as Donald Trump." who won the Electoral College and is now (unfortunately) the U.S. President.
We need a candidate who can divide the citizens from the criminal who now lives in the White House.
@baldinoc
"Women don't vote for women" ? REALLY? What women do you know? 95% of the many women I know (in multiple states) voted for Hillary the last time and they would gladly vote for a woman again.
2
The DNC was/is demonstrably incompetent and so trump won.
4
@Brad The DNC had nothing to do with the Iowa caucus.
I’m hoping for the 2 mayors ticket, Mayors Mike and Pete.
17
Why not wait until the results are in to weigh in?
4
What does this say about party politics in fly-over states?
Your last paragraph sees things clearly, Mr. Douthat.
1
'"..and so punditry of some sort is required."
Well, no, actually.
4
A Bernie/Bloomberg ticket looks good, if you think about it, from many perspectives. Bernie at the top, though.
1
@Fourteen14 - - - Wouldn't that be like King George the Third and Thomas Jefferson running together?
"Disaster"? "Fiasco"? "Meltdown"?
Really? I just saw a delay of less than a day in getting results from the Democratic Iowa caucuses. There is no reason to question the voting data -- none was lost and it has all been verified. The only problem was collecting all the voting data from the precincts, and most of that has been done with the rest on the way.
I'll bet Pete Buttigieg fades fast after the first contest or two. He's not ready for the presidency and the nation is not ready to have a First Gentleman in the White House (especially with a male president). And I agree that Amy Klobuchar doesn't have a chance.
So who does win the Democratic nomination? I'll still bet on Joe Biden. He didn't do well in Iowa, but he's still the only one I think can get any traction. After all, Bernie Sanders is not even a Democrat!
10
@John Smithson Bernie is currently a Democrat, he became one last March in order to participate in the Democratic Party's presidential primary.
1
DianaF, Bernie Sanders filed to run for president in the Democratic primaries, but his party affiliation in the Senate is still "Independent" as it has always been, rather than "Democrat". He has also filed to run for the Senate in 2024 as an Independent rather than a Democrat.
Bernie Sanders in the past ran in the Democratic primary to win the party's nomination and then with that competition out of the way ran and won the office as an Independent. He clearly has not, and has intention to, become a Democrat.
That's only being honest. Although many Democrats on the left share his views he is an unapologetic socialist while the vast majority of Democrats are not.
I don't think Bernie Sanders will win the nomination. If he does, I don't think he will win the presidency. If he does, I don't think he will be a good president. In fact, I think he'll be a terrible one.
Not that I have anything against the man. He seems honest (for a politician, at least) and principled. Those are not bad things. But he has never, in his long career, shown any ability to get things done. That is his biggest fault.
3
@John Smithson
It's been more than a day and the results are not in.
It's a disaster and a fiasco. Sanders pushed for a reform of a system and the Democratic party's execution of that reform was a ridiculous failure. The party is going to be hammered over this.
I'm not rooting for Bloomberg but thank goodness he avoided this train wreck.
Whoever gets the nomination every Democrat in a state where there's an election for senator needs to vote. Democrats tend to be obsessed with the presidency but there's a limit to what a president can do (even Trump) without control of the Senate.
6
If this continues it will be a disaster for the Dems and we'll be doomed to another four years of Trump. It's like the Dems have a death wish. I live in a blue state and even here, I have met no one who wants a political revolution. And sad to say, some have said that they would never vote for a gay man.
Biden has to right his ship and breathe some life into his campaign. If he cannot, he had better get out and let Michael Bloomberg take on Trump. The other Dems in the race sadly are not going to be able to do it. People can delude themselves all they want. But Biden and Bloomberg have the only chance of winning.
25
'...a fiasco that speaks for itself so completely that all commentary is superfluous'
- Love it!
I might argue a few points with Mr Douthat but overall a very sound comment.
3
Who lost? American citizens. One of our major political parties can’t even operate a mobile app. Who lost? Every candidate. Many people aren’t going to believe any of these results, as integrity of the data has been destroyed. Who lost? Shadow Inc., who isn’t the first or the last company to launch an app that doesn’t work, but their failure is a national embarrassment. Who lost? The people who will rightfully lose their jobs, starting with those in the Democratic Party who signed off on this.
What a farce. The only people who won are those who take pleasure in a major mis-step of our elections at work.
83
@Myjobisinindianow
Yawn. No one lost. Let's call this a three way draw. No conclusions, No momentum. No remorse. Relax. The news cycle is so fast this will be forgotten by New Hampshire or Trump's next outrage (next week, or this).
@Myjobisinindianow
The integrity of the data has not been lost. People voted in public and the results were recorded on paper.
The fact that the results were transmitted by texted or emailed photos or phoned in rather than transmitted by app is of zero consequence.
20
@Myjobisinindianow
"As Democratic elites braced for a Bernie Sanders triumph in Iowa, a mysterious piece of technology spun out by a group those elites supported delayed the vote results, preventing Sanders from delivering a victory speech., and Pete Buttigeig exploited the moment to declare himself the winner.
The App may have been intended to deliver the win to Buttigeig… in as plausible way as possible.
For this to work, the Iowa poll had to be cancelled, or a Buttigieg win would not have been plausible...
But, The App didn’t work and made a real mess, and maybe the real results will be outed…
The App was developed by a company appropriately named Shadow Inc." "This firm was staffed by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaign veterans and created by a Democratic dark money nonprofit backed by hedge fund billionaires including Seth Klarman. A prolific funder of pro-settler Israel lobby organizations, Klarman has also contributed directly to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign.
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/04/pro-israel-buttigieg-seth-klarman-iowas-voting-app/
Shadow Inc launched on 17th Jan 2019. Mayor Pete announces run for President on 23rd Jan. CEO of company that owns Shadow tweets out her support.
Shadow inc, The App and Buttigeig, reek of mendacity.
The Iowa process is so bizarre, I don't know how it can be taken seriously -- but it is.
3
Really tired of all of the discounting of Mr. Buttigieg in this paper. He is quick on his feet, gives thoughtful answers, and is focused on improving the tenor of our national politics, without which improvement all Democratic plans are bust. Please recognize that you will have to start giving him his due, instead of trying to convince voters he’s not a good bet. Let us decide about him for ourselves.
59
@Bill Garr
He mouths pre-canned talking points. When Tulsi cornered him in one of the debates he sputtered and had the look of a 10 year-old caught red-handed. He's easy to throw off his stride.
Pete has always out-performed expectations, and it almost doesn’t matter what happens next. A gay 38–year-old has won (or come in second) in the Iowa caucuses. He’s energized huge numbers of supporters, and he’s made an enormous impact—for the good—on the Democratic Party. He is a knitter upper in a splintered country. Other than Bernie folks, people of all political persuasions like him. I would agree that SC and Nevada don’t look good for him. And Bloomberg may well be a insurmountable threat. But I’m grateful for Pete’s campaign, which shows that moral leadership and inspiration still matter. I’ll always be a Pete fan.
61
@Carol Buttigieg is impressive in many dimensions. But keep in mind that while he came in first (so far), he got 419 votes. Not 419,000; not 41,900; not 4,119 ... 419. There are more votes than that in my polling precinct.
@Carol - I so agree with you about Buttigieg. He has the qualities and depth of character and intelligence so important in a President.
Buttigieg is who I'll be voting for in Idaho on March 10.
In the General? Vote Blue No Matter Who.
1
I think there are electability issues with all of the top 4. Bernie and Elizabeth are too far left. Joe's best days are behind him and Pete's best days are ahead of him.
Trump is going to fight dirty and all of them have weaknesses Trump will exploit.
Frankly, I think Mike Bloomberg is the best equipped to win this fight. Democrats trust him and like that he's on their side. But he also has the strength of character many Trump supporters wish Trump had.
Priority 1 has to be to beat Trump. Without that nothing else matters.
75
@JimmySerious , Bloomberg can win over alienated Trump voters because of all the Democratic candidates, he most avoids playing the identity politics game and most avoids embracing extremist and divisive political correctness (while still standing strong on core issues like pro-choice). The goal is not to win another 500,000 votes in California but to win back purple states.
36
@JimmySerious - I agree completely. Bloomberg is the best one to beat Trump. He has it all- tough, accomplished, socially liberal, business savvy. We need someone to help stablize America. I pray he is the nominee.
31
JimmySerious, are you serious? Do you think Americans will let Mike Bloomberg buy the presidency for a billion dollars or two? I don't.
10
Sanders will outperform Buttigieg in most or all of the remaining primary states through Super Tuesday. Biden’s campaign is toast. I’m still rooting for Warren. She’s a persistent fighter and relishes being the underdog and rooting for the little guy. Elizabeth is also more brilliant and accomplished than any of the other candidates. Her work ethic? Unimpeachable. She conceived and built the CFPB to protect American taxpayers against fraudulent products peddled by financial institutions. She could be an extraordinary President, but only if we’re brave enough to nominate her.
22
@Dabney L
No, Bernie won't.
Bernie's great strength in 2016 was his performance in caucuses, however this time around caucuses have been reduced from 19 states to 2... and he just lost one of them.
If you think that coming in second place (for the second time) in Iowa will help Bernie, when what he needed was a big win, then you're going to be disappointed.
4
@James Constantino that was when Bernie ran against Hillary. Who in fact was highly popular among Democrats in the primaries. Bernie is not running against Hillary now. The early indicators are he stands a real chance. I'm not a fan of Bernie and prefer other candidates but the outcomes and polls don't lie. He has a very good chance of taking the nomination. His performance is likely to improve in the next series of states. This result is good for his campaign, and Pete's.
3
So Buttigieg is the establishment alternative to Bernie?
But I thought the establishment’s case against Bernie had something to do with Biden doing better with black voters.
Of course, Bernie does pretty well, especially with younger African American voters, but Mayor Pete polls terribly.
I guess we’re about to find out whether centrists in the party were sincere about not taking black voters for granted...
9
I can't see how Mayor Pete is better for Sanders than Biden.
Pete and Biden represent the moderate wing, except that Biden gets a lot of votes as "the most likely to win". Now that Pete showed he can contend, a lot of those votes will siphon off to him.
5
Very nicely calibrated early results... favoring Bernie in popular vote and Mayor Pete close and able to claim victory... but the final results should show Sanders victory.
That said, this entire Iowa spectacle helps no one other than Trump.
Once again, many thanks Iowa for this grossly bungled opening to 2020 campaign and for giving us Ernst and the Grassley. Trump will know that farm subsidies will win the day and your electoral votes.
11
We have been counting popular votes in America for over 200 years. Before electricity. Ross is right about these “technological improvements”. The app was clearly not tested as it should have been. Sadly, integrity and selflessness are needed to run a democratic voting process.
7
Why is it that when Sanders doesn't win a state, it automatically becomes a DNC conspiracy to keep him from winning. Maybe he just did not get enough support (at this stage anyway).
30
In this case so far its a matter of popular votes vs how many delegates that translates into. But yes, goaded on by Trumps Sr and Jr, certain Bernie supporters just reduce it to “rigged”.
4
@Sipa111 , not automatically and who is saying that? It's just the optics of failed Clinton operatives making money on apps that fail and the DNC's silly embrace of techno-utopianism. It plays into that narrative, that's all.
6
Can we wait until all caucus results are in... if that ever happens. Sanders will have won popular vote easily but how Iowa chooses to alocate delegates. .. or release results... that is up to establishment Democrats and we all know how that could turn out.
5
I have a sinking feeling that it all ended the night of November 8, 2016. Then having to witness Trump sitting next to Obama in the Oval Office being handed the keys to our democracy. We're just finally starting to get the full brunt of the dark message now.
Maybe Bloomberg will save us, but I'm not holding my breath. Trump is taking time to redeploy the "little Mike" nickname. I fear it will be an effective one. Trump has a pretty good understanding of basic human psychology from his time spent manipulating people on reality TV and at his many political indoctrination rallies.
It's going to take America a long, long time to recover from this crash-and-burn nightmare. Maybe that will never happen.
If our lives were meant to be easy, if "good" always triumphs over "evil," then we wouldn't find ourselves living in this world, now would we? Perhaps that is the central dark message that we are being forced to absorb, because it has come home to roost, and it is now in our house, and with a terrifying vengeance.
16
@Blue Moon I am clinically depressed and have taken prescription medications for it in order to function like a regular human being since I was a teenager. Maybe understanding my condition the way I do allows me to view the nightmare that is Trump as just that: a nightmare, a bad night's sleep, and something most of us will wake up from, go to work, and get on with our lives.
6
@Blue Moon
I'll take Little Mike over the Big Baby any day.
15
Many thought the world was ending in Nov 2016. We’re still here
3
After working in tech for 43+ years, I find the inability of the Democrats to do anything right in the tech arena not so surprising.
Look at the rollout of the ACA, hiring two guys who had no experience in major project management just because of their racial identity was the first ring of the death knell. The longer they worked the worse things got.
Questions on the ACA enrollment were in such disorder that my poor wife was in tears. Just for fun I sat down and started her enrollment all over. Taking the route of selecting the most inane answer form a sequence of questions, I got my wife enrolled in 20 minutes.
We don't all read from bottom up and right to left, but that's the assumptions the Democrats made in deciding who would develop the ACA enrollment software.
Now, it appears that their ineptness in anything more complex than a horseshoe has done the Democrats in again.
I am hopeful that Bloomberg is the Democratic candidate and won't let the Democrats touch his campaign. If the do, it's for more years of you know who.
15
@William
Didn't you hear diversity is our strength.
Whether the Iowa caucuses are truly representative of America is debatable, but beyond THRILLED to see Mayor Peter leading. He and Klobucher are the only "electable" candidates in my view. I hope Buttigieg keeps up the momentum. He will slaughter Trump on stage, but do it with grace.
39
unfortunately, mayor Pete, senator klobuchar, senator Warren and senator Sanders are not viable candidates in the south or parts of the Midwest. Trump will win in a blowout and carry the house, the Senate and a good portion of the states that Democrats won in 2018, thereby cementing Republican control for the next 10 years.
3
@Tom I am hoping that his win in Iowa proves his viablitly as a candidate and will increase interest in him and hopefully gain him more support.
11
@Tom - Agree with you, Tom, except for the Klobuchar factor. She's barely at, what?, 10% in polling? There is something about her that isn't appealing. Smart? Sure.
A good person? I'm sure. President? Can't see it.
Vote Blue No Matter Who.
The flurry of columns, including Mr. Douthat's, extrapolating to a Democratic meltdown because of the Party's use of some beta version software is nonsense. We can all agree it was a hasty move and embarrassing, but on the positive side I certainly prefer to be able to vote for my preferred candidate when the time comes. The Iowa caucuses are sort of like Ground Hog day, very quaint but not predictive.
11
@Victor Parker It's wish-fulfillment on Douthat's part; he's pretending he doesn't want Trump to be re-elected, but he actually does, and he also knows that the brilliant Buttigieg would slaughter Trump in any kind of debate, so, believe me--and watch--he will continue to derogate Buttigieg all the way to his nomination as the Democratic Party's candidate.
5
Democrats: Service gigs, finance, technology, Krugman and imports;Republicans: agriculture, resources, energy, manufacturing and President Trump.
Krugman is bonkers; God bless the president. America first.
9
Pete is to too young, Bernie too left, Biden too old, blah blah blah. How about this: Trump is too sick and destructive. The former are all opinions. Only the latter is fact. I don’t care which candidate makes it out of the Democratic nomination process. Pete, Bernie, Elizabeth — or anyone else. He or she’s got my vote. Delayed caucus results are not a “fiasco.” The current Presidency is.
319
@Cal Prof
The best hope is to bring the non-voters/third-party voters, those who threw away their votes in 2016, back into the Democratic fold. Without them, it's going to be very, very difficult for Democrats to regain the presidency this year.
18
@Cal Prof Bernie and Biden are both too old. And that is a fact. They'll both be about the age my parents are now if they serve for a second term and common sense says loud and clear: that's TOO OLD.
2
@Cal Prof. Pete is young. He would be about four years younger than JFK, the youngest person ever elected to the post before. Trump will no doubt be preparing special bear traps for him to catch him out and make him seem inexperienced in any debates to come.
This all recalls Will Rogers:
“A fellah asked me the other day, ‘Are you a member of any organized political party?’ ‘No’, I told him. ‘I’m a Democrat.’”
19
What a ridiculous, meaningless sham the Iowa Caucuses are. Iowa is not a reflection of the United States.
23
The caucus is an idea whose time has gone. The sooner we see the last of this, the better. Many losers but just one winner: Twittie.
6
The subtitle of this piece left me with an immediate impression that the biggest loser was the author. Such a flawed premise. Sadly, reading the article did not dispel it.
6
Third Party, where you?
6
@STEPHEN We don't need a third party. Instead, let's work together and vote the Republicans out of the White House and the Senate in November.
We need to show Trump and his party (and the world) that they can’t continue to steal government from the people.
4
The Democratic Party is the big looser. They have come across as the people who can't deal with modern technology. Trump is sure to make a big deal out of this.
8
What a silly column. Who cares if there are minor issues in counting the vote. The integrity of the vote is not in question - there is a clean paper trail.
18
Sorry Mayor Pete. Americans are fine with a President that is a sexual predator, but they will never accept one who is not heterosexual.
19
@Seabrook I think they just might. He breaks all the homophobic stereotypes.
7
@Seabrook
Imagine Trump doing an impression of Pete on stage. He'd do it too.
Might be like Lloyd Bentsen's "I knew John Kennedy and you're no John Kennedy."
Game over.
This has Putin written all over it.
1
@Mike Clarke Couldn't agree more...especially each time we were all assured it wasn't hacking.
2
@Rob
I was being sarcastic.
Pete's gonna win.
30
The whole episode of idiocy in Iowa reminds me of the clown car act in the circus... clowns pile out of the car and do stupid things... sort of like the candidates. And these people think that they know how to run the country? Four more years!
4
What an odd column analyzing how the reporting snafu helped or hurt the candidates. I guess it's hard to find a new angle on this race.
5
I hope Biden realizes how swampy the Ukraine thing looks and how much it hits his credibility for anyone who actually followed the impeachment testimonies. (Obviously the evidence is pretty damning for trump at the same time)
My suggestion would be for Biden to drop out and endorse a viable moderate- aka Amy. Pete is a swell guy but let’s be realistic people, who is he really winning from the trump camp? My wife works in critical swing state Ohio and they have a larger evangelical presence than you seem to think.
12
Biden is the only candidate that will win African Americans, moderates, former Republicans like me. I I'm so disgusted that Americans are so gullible that they believe Russian propaganda about Biden. Trump wants Biden out of this race because he realizes Biden is the one person that beats him consistently
1
it's so ridiculous to write about the 'early states'.
3
Winners are losers,
Losers winners.
Cages are for innocents,
crooks walk free.
News is fake, and
Fake is King.
I'm a regular Dickens!
You read this far ---
shame, shame, on you!
1
It’s all too reminiscent of the Weimar Republic.
9
This never would have happened with Bloomberg, who can outspend the GOP, use an advanced system to collect data matching GOP prowess, and, best of all, get under Trump's thin skin and watch him lose control. We need a tested warrior. If he is the nominee, and people like Charles Blow continue to excorciate him because of his search-and-frisk program and blacks don't vote, they're giving the election to the current racist-in-chief. If blacks do the same to Buttigieg, Trump will be re-elected. Usually it's red state GOP supporters who vote against their own interests, but in this case it could be African-Americans who pave the way for Trump if they don't vote for whomever Dem nominee is. Same for Bernie supporters if they don't vote at all instead of voting for Dem nominee. I love Mayor Pete, but I think his time will come in the future.
15
"Obnoxious McKinnsey move." Grow up Ross. Once you all get off this nonsense of him working as an underling, like I'm sure you did in your 20s too, the better off we'll all be. I'm not a huge Pete fan, but you all need to get off your nonsense of someone's job they held when they were in their early 20s. Who cares?
28
Who won? Trump. The DNC handed him more fodder. Regarding the failed new app, the plumber's creed applies. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Stick with what works.
14
@Joe
Unfortunately Bernie insisted on more rounds of reporting of preliminary results, which would have (and did) overwhelm the volunteers on the phones.
All because he wanted to show off that he got more votes, when it’s the number of delegates that counts.
Are you really calling this, Ross, with only 60% of the vote in?
6
I can still enjoy my fantasy of Pete Buttigieg debating the current horrific inhabitant of the WH. A young, sharp brained Rhodes scholar taking on a crass and vane snake oil salesman. It would be a sublime moment. Mayor Pete would run rings around him.
53
@Tim while you and I would enjoy that, many voters would be turned off by what they consider to be an intellectual elite. Clinton ran rings around Trump in the last debates.
12
@SR Actually she didn't; she let him push her around. Yes, she had her facts straight, but she still let him intimidate her on stage, and refrained from calling out his abusive behavior.
8
@Tim
Words don't win debates. After a powerpoint presentation how long do you remember what it said? Maybe 2 seconds. But you remembered the impression of the presenter for months.
Pete is a poodle to Trump's junk-yard dog and the voters don't like McKinsey-types and Rhodes Scholars at all.
If this is a win for Bloomberg, as some comments suggest, then it’s a loss for democracy. A gay former mayor has ascended from nowhere into the stratosphere after having started this all a year ago with 4 people, an email list, and zero slush fund money, and he’s the one now flipping former Trump counties like pancakes. So I think you’ve already got the guy who’s shown he’s capable of uniting the party and it’s not the billionaire buying up TV ads
24
@Jennifer Pete has a huge war chest from Wall Street and other billionaires. Don’t be fooled by his aw shucks story.
3
@Laxmom
His aw shucks story? Do you mean the one where he left future millions on the table when he left his six figure job in order to devote his life to public service? He has the grassroots support of over 700,000 donors, some of which have contributed the maximum of $2800 (which is the maximum that those billionaires and Wall St folk can contribute as well by the way...)
6
This was possibly the break Bloomberg needed. He'll be buying with both hands.
7
Why the hysteria over only one business day in a delay?
11
Such an absurdly sophomoric & avoidable technology fiasco certainly isn’t good PR for a party that is arguing it could do a better job than the private sector running the vast & complex American healthcare system.
6
I am confused as to why Democratic voters should care about the opinion of a religiously biased conservative pundit like Ross.
Tell us who you would vote for and why! Isn't that the job of the pundit? If you are going to vote for Trump, or for someone meaningless, like Bill Weld, or Joe Walsh, spare me.
If you do not consider Trump an existential threat to our democracy, and are not willing to act on that belief, given your exalted platform, then you are really not worth listening to for a moment.
19
Who won the Iowa Caucus fiasco? Donald Trump. And the day before, who lost the Super Bowl? Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Flashback to 1971 and this Coca-Cola commercial... "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect har-mo-ny..." Have you noticed the diversity in present-day prime time TV commercials? White, black, Hispanic, Asian, mixed race skin color, mixed race marriages, mixed race children, men kissing men, women kissing women, chubby people, pretty and handsome people, strange-looking people... The progressive miracle is happening on TV, and entering the American consciousness through the back door, entertainment. The excruciating madness comes for History majors on the left when we realize that the social change we seek will take decades, maybe even centuries. Let the Republicans enjoy their occasional gloat-fest and do not fall into despair. Advertising is on our side.
2
@poodlefree
You are assuming that blacks, hispanics, asians and mixed race people are not conservative and Republicans.
Can the Democrats formulate a single plan and see it to its fruition ? It’s as if a truckload of rakes were dumped along the sidewalk and they marched upon every single one of them, hand in hand, blind leading the blind.
2
Punditry or promotion? - see Douthat, "The Case for Sanders" ...here is the Case 2.0 0 nobody's won anything yet, to br clear -- caucuses are nuts, anyway - all those folks we Democrats calin to be all for - but shut out from "voting rights" by having them after middle- and upper-class working (or retiring) hours versus those who keep the stores open for us at night, run the buses, drive the taxis and Ubers. clean our offices and the like just to get by. And as for a "secret ballot"? the very opposite.
2
Iowa is all malarkey.
who cares.
there is ZERO chance sanders or warren or the kid from south bend can get elected in a corrupted national race.
Bernie Sanders has been in Congress forever and hasn't gotten not one thing done. just what we need.
8
Am I the only one noticing trump supporters licking their chops for Pete? I don’t have a problem with him, but I am aware enough to know we live in a country where trump was just elected president.
I know it’s not the ‘woke liberal’ thing to say but ... what are we doing here?
Is it more important to be woke or to pick someone with the ability to be elected?
8
@Jeff Sir, you live in Alabama; it's not representative of the rest of the nation's population, who have, for a while now, banished homophobia to the margins of society.
5
No Democrat will win Alabama this year. That is a certainty.
Just what we need - another fantasy plucked out of thin air. Okay, students - I've given each of you a random order of candidates. Show how journalism works - conjure up a reason why those results are true. Be sure and show why none of these candidates are "Socialists," but an American response to the dictator in the White House.
Gender bias is on full display when an inexperienced and overconfident young man is chosen over two remarkably well-qualified and experienced women like Warren and Klobuchar. Warren has the charisma and smarts to go the distance. Klobuchar unfortunately should drop out as she struggles to inspire. I support Warren as the nominee as she is head and shoulders above everyone else. When voters are asked that question if you had a magic wand who would make the bast president Warren always wins. Courage over fear sums it up best. Vote.
8
@MCC You said it yourself - Klobuchar doesn't inspire.
And I like Warren a lot, too, and think she would be a good president; but her political instincts are off - accusing Bernie of being sexist? Weak. Letting herself get boxed into a corner on M4A, from which she had to weakly retreat. And other missteps; she's getting bad advice, at the least. I don't have confidence that she would manage a strong race against the bully in the WH.
Pete Buttigieg has executive experience and is obviously running a very strong, strategically sound campaign. He has my primary vote.
What's absurd is that there are more than 12 candidates on the ballot at this point, and that anyone thinks that Yang, Steyer, Gabbard, Patrick, Bennett, Delaney, Klobuchar, or even Mayor Pete have a chance at the nomination nationally, let alone to beat consummate conman DJT. Please get out of the race, stop wasting resources, and focus together on beating our disaster of a president. It ain't you. Run again in 8, 12, 16, 20 years. This is an embarrassment.
8
@Gern The guy who appears to have come in first in the Iowa Caucus is not like the others on that list.
The winner in Iowa was President Trump. He also had a caucus which was very well attended. The Democrats were the losers because this caucus fiasco could have been avoided if they had been better prepared. The people who caucused in Iowa and the volunteers were shortchanged last evening. They worked very hard and for what purpose. The Democrats owe them an apology. This is a terrible embarrassment.
7
An old political warhorse is that when your opponents are doing their best to destroy themselves, don’t just stand there, get out of their way. Trump should waddle on down to Florida, throw his cell phone away, play golf for nine months, and let the Democrats do the rest. The party that was too stupid to campaign in the upper Midwest in 2016, now produces this — after wasting an entire year, and untold labor and money, in one small, unrepresentative state. And a significant hunk of that party wants to throw out every private insurance plan in the country — on trust and faith.
7
What a mess. Trump must be having the time of his life tonight.
Buttigieg looks terrible. His chief strategist is married to the CEO of Shadow. Leaked Shadow docs demonstrate an anti-Bernie Sanders culture run amok. Buttigieg paid Shadow for texting services.
Incompetence and corruption on full display.
8
I think Klobuchar should stay in. As the Biden collapse unfolds she could benefit. Most likely it’ll be Bloomberg or maybe Buttigieg if he can expand his national support, but klobuchar has as good a reason as any of them to hope for some good fortune.
10
Mayor Pete! It’s clear. He’s innately whip smart and well educated. He likes to learn....imagine that! He’s a team player. He’s a tried and true soldier. He has irrefutable integrity. He’s likable. He doesn’t scream, shout, wag his finger and have a blinding ego like Sanders who doesn’t care if he ruins the Democratic Party.
As for what happened in Iowa I have only one question: why is Tom Perez still the head of the Democrat Party? He should have been replaced a few months ago. He cannot do the job. After Iowa it’s painfully obvious.
12
Iowa isn't on the High Plains. That's western Nebraska and Kansas and the Dakotas, extending into Wyoming, Colorado and Montana.
3
Ah, punditry! It served us so well as the forecaster of the 2016 election and again it proves itself as wise as an owl on LSD.
7
What nonsense Douthat. I am old enough to remember when we had to wait days before a winner was announced. All of this instant gratification is in part what is wrong with our culture. No candidate lost anything by the delay. A winner is still the winner. Stop making things up, that is the purvey of FOX.
18
RD is correct. Mike Bloomberg won Iowa. Biden came in second for all the reasons that RD mentions.
Pete and Bernie Hit The Wall in SC. Black people are not going to vote for them. Can joe keep them is the question.
4
RIP Joe Biden. You should have known better but then how could you?
2
In a few days this will all be forgotten and have no impact on the Presidential election. The swellings will go down and the headaches relieved with aspirin---or something stronger. No one will care what any columnists says or thinks especially when he or she concentrates on a one night event. My old publisher who was also a cracker-jack newspaperman used to say "talk to the readers about the forests, not the trees."
1
@Oracle at Delphi You obviously don't know the history of Iowa in Democratic national politics.
President Trump won.
3
the american election systems can't be trusted, punch cards, scanners, apps- all can be manipulated
i'l vote for paper ballots like everywhere else in the democratic world, no hickups, no hacks, no half-punched holes
4
Enough with this Iowa nonsense! We should have a national primary that represents the whole country and no just a Lilly white state.
1
"As Democratic elites braced for a Bernie Sanders triumph in Iowa, a mysterious piece of technology spun out by a group they supported delayed the vote results, preventing Sanders from delivering a victory speech. And the politician many of them supported, Pete Buttigieg, exploited the moment to declare himself the winner. In such a strange scenario, the conspiracy theories write themselves."
"Democratic Party’s Iowa caucuses ended, the results have not been announced. The delay in reporting is the result of a failed app developed by a company appropriately named Shadow Inc." "This firm was staffed by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaign veterans and created by a Democratic dark money nonprofit backed by hedge fund billionaires including Seth Klarman. A prolific funder of pro-settler Israel lobby organizations, Klarman has also contributed directly to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign. https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/04/pro-israel-buttigieg-seth-klarman-iowas-voting-app/
Interesting twitter feed on caucus software, https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1224561674679488513
Shadow Inc launched on 17th Jan 2019. Mayor Pete announces run for President on 23rd Jan. CEO of company that owns Shadow tweets out her support.
Shadow inc, The App and Buttigeig, reek of mendacity.
8
A fascinating apologist piece for Biden - who clearly was the big loser. The only conclusion one should draw from this bungled mess is that Biden is a lost cause. Democrats are just not interested in the same old, same old. Biden represents everything that will cost Dems the next election.
It’s time to look beyond the old white guy with a lifetime of political deal-making that has made him radioactive to anyone with a conscience.
If Pete is the nominee (I know, not likely), and he fails to garner Christian & African-American votes (despite DJT), will we be allowed to talk about it? Doubtful
4
"Who Won and Who Lost the Fiasco in Iowa?"
Who cares? People hear that Iowa is fighting over 41 delegates, and they think it means something. It means NOTHING. The only thing that means something is that Iowa has 6 electoral votes. Six. Whole. Votes. It takes 270 to win the election. 6 is chicken feed. But the media is going berserk about this. It's completely a media manufactured crisis. They make it sound like the world is about to fall apart because a stupid app didn't work.
This is insane.
Come on, folks. It's time to move on. Forget Iowa. It means not one thing. The media should be ashamed of this nonsense.
6
Hey Democrats! We’re laughing at you!
3
after squandering so much energy in futile impeachment charade, now the democratic leadership has disappointed me again with incompetence in Iowa. What the heck is going on?
Meanwhile, Trump's approval rating is at an all time high. Latest Gallup poll released today:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/284156/trump-job-approval-personal-best.aspx
2
The disaster in Iowa is twofold: the botched vote count has given Trump's campaign plenty of ammo regarding Democrats' incompetence; and the pretty much even split between Sanders and Buttigieg brings us no closer to a consensus. It seems the Democratic electorate is evenly split between the centrist and left-leaning camps, and if that continues to hold true as other states' primaries roll out, it does not bode well for the Democrats' chances in the general election due to the likelihood that whoever ultimately get the nod will have support from only half the Democrat voters and nobody knows what the Independents will do. (My guess is they are split in their preferences too).
So what Ross Douthat is saying is that up is down, down is up and there is a wealthy politician gathering the spoils?
This has been the dominant narrative of US politics for some time now.
2
Trump's move to pick a candidate gets results in Iowa. Serious Democrats know that Sanders has little chance of beating Trump, much less Buttigieg. It could really happen - Bloomberg, a Republican vs Trump, a Republican. Two billionaires (one supposed) from New York City. Who would have thought?
4
Biden's done.
Waiting for him to pull from a distant fourth to a sweeping first is like waiting at green traffic light to turn greener. It ain't changing. Biden ain't winning.
3
The biggest winner from the Iowa debacle isn’t Biden or Sanders, it is Bloomberg.
6
What in the world are you talking about? Who cares about technical problems, issues tabulating the votes, etc. It was botched. So what? Does that have anything at all to do with any of the candidates? Nope.
2
This was a tech failure. We need to give credit to the state of Iowa, who in the Democratic Party caucuses has voted for a biracial man, a woman, and now a gay man. In fact, Hillary Clinton only lost by a little more than what the 3rd., 4th, 5th., and 6th. party candidates votes totaled in 2016, 147,314 to DT. In fact, sadly it was that way in Arizona as well. The state of Iowa is way more progressive than are a number of other states, when it comes to being open to all.
2
Biden lives in the past. He is out of touch. The real news is how terrified of Bernie corporate old-school Wall Street-Democrats are. They fear a fair America, where American voices are heard directly and not watered down through lobbyists and superpacs. Times are changing. Just as American families don’t want a middleman insurance broker burying our voices and wants, we don’t want corporate bought Democrats pretending to attend to the people’s needs one drop at a time. That is Reagan trickle down theory. It never worked. It was a method to shut We The People up ! Corporate Democrats are Republican Lite. It’s time to seriously hear the people! There are a lot of attempts behind the scenes to undermine Bernie’s campaign. And it doesn’t surprise me that Times’ Bernie headlined articles do not permit comments. Mainstream media has of course corporate blood in its veins and is also terrified of not calling the outcomes. Imagine - real Americans being in charge of their own lives without middlemen. One can pray that truth and justice finally wins.
2
It seems it me that the big winner is Pres Trump. When you opponents look like the gang that couldn't shoot straight that has to be good for you. Not to mention the party that wants a government takeover of the economy doesn't appear to have the technical skills to build an app to count 170,000 votes. Pretty weak.
4
Sorry Ross - to my horror - the biggest winner of the night was the Trumpster.
In an honor roll performance of incompetence:
1. the Dems managed to blow up their management of the Impeachment
2. they managed to prove that they can't manage a modest assemblage of caucuses let alone the country and
3 - they gave an early lead to mayor Pete [who no one with any brains would give the keys to the country to] while dismissing the Biden-meister who though diottering could easily beat Trump
A trifecta of epic proportions
I look forward to much gloating and mockery tonight during the third State of the Union
4
I would vote for Donald Duck over Donald Trump, any day. But I greatly fear that Trump will be re-elected, come November. The mess in Iowa mirrors the mess that is the Democratic effort to unseat Trump. Sorry to say, not one of the Democratic candidates can beat him. They are either too old, too young, too inexperienced (municipal governance is NOT a training ground for national governance), or too tied in to a single issue (with a passion for such issue that is not shared by the vast majority of voters). In essence, Trump will win by default. And the biggest loser will be American democracy.
3
Money talks ... Bloomberg + Democratic Establishment put in the "fix".
1
After this infuriating display of utter incompetence I find myself supporting Mike Bloomberg and his decision to forge his own path without the bumbling Democratic Party and by ignoring small, unrepresentative states like Iowa.
Figures that the people behind this app were from the Clinton campaign -- the same ones who forgot that the popular vote doesn't win the Presidency.
10
Apparently rural Iowa is given more voting weight than urban Iowa.
Another case of the popular vote being discounted and lessened.
Welcome to the Republic.
Gamed and machinated to death.
3
I have no idea why people would vote for Mayor Pete over the experience and true visions of Warren and Sanders. Pete wasn't that good of a Mayor, so now people want him to be President. Oh boy...four more years.
2
Congratulations to billionaire Bloomberg and CIA-Pete for winning the Iowa caucuses even though Bernie Sanders had the most votes.
So, to summarize, within a few days we had the Corporate News Network and the Des Moon Register cancel the release of their supposedly amazing polls because it showed their preferred candidate getting utterly destroyed and Bernie winning.
The DNC changed the rules of the debate to roll out the red carpet for right wing oligarch Bloomberg, after blatantly locking out Tulsi in spite of the fact that she met all the criteria they supposedly laid down.
And now an app financed by Mayor Pete and his shadowy SuperPAC, built by the DNC Shadow spooks, and overseen by Hillary's campaign manager causes a shutdown as soon as the Iowa results started to show Bernie surging.
I’m SURE this is all just a coincidence, like all the negative coverage from the NYT journos, columnists and editorial board members leading up to Iowa.
Unfortunately, none of this matters, because unless Sanders gets a majority on the first ballot at the convention, the super delegates will put in some corporate pro-war stooge anyway.
The whole process is rigged from start to finish.
And they are getting so cocky that they are hardly even pretending that the system is on the up and up.
It’s a good thing Bernie’s people kept their own records, or we may never know what happened.
The Dems have hit rock bottom and are making a mockery of our democracy.
No winners, only democracy lost.
14
@Chris , they are a joke. They would much rather have Trump reelected than dare jeopardize the military-industrial gravy train by elevating anyone like Tulsi Gabbard. Sad to say but deserved to lose in 2016. And the Nobel Committee should have retracted and withdrawn Obama's peace prize retroactively. Obama campaigned like he was Bobby Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy circa 1968 and governed like a slightly more liberal version of Bush-Cheney.
3
Can we have any new information about getting the full, final results and vote counts, please?
2
Curiously, and let me jokingly feed a baby conspiracy theory here, the fact that the Iowa caucus results were delayed... doesn't look like an accident, on the face of it. A firm tied to Hillary Clinton, herself tied to Biden (as Kerry and Bloomberg, both billionaires, are, at least in spirit) set up an app which conveniently crashed. Hence the fact Biden was severely rejected in Iowa is masked by this delay: Biden doesn't seem to have finished among the top third, and is slugging it out with Senator Klobuchar...
What is clear is that Sanders' greatest adversary is not Trump. Oh no. Trump is actually running a strident anti-drug companies advertising, explaining to "Americans" that they pay much higher prices than any others around the world for the same exact drugs. The exact sentence used by Trump was used by a progressive such as yours truly, for years. So yes, Trump is a so-called "populist", so is Sanders, and the establishment hates them, because they will reduce how much money flows to the greedy elite....
So, yes, it looks like an accident favoring the established Elite. But conveniently the fact Biden lost is drowned by a talk about an app... How many accidents do we need, before we suspect a conspiracy?
8
Umm, can we wait until the final results are in before declaring winners and losers?
Or is this part of the plan?
3
Unfortunately, the biggest winner will be Trump. He will undoubtedly point to this debacle as an example of the Democratic party's ineptitude and he'll use it to plant more seeds of doubt about the reliability of our national institutions.
1
Just the other day we were all outraged at the fiasco called the “Impeachment Trial”. Today it’s the Iowa Mess. Who knows what tonite’s State of the Union will bring?
Let’s just all take a deep breath, and finally realize Joe Biden may not be electable!
4
The Democratic Party lost. Could they be any more clueless. What voters want are thoroughly documentable paper trails not apps vulnerable to hacks and glitches. Just watch in the next few days as the rumors fly and the Bernie people get angry. Jesus, have they learned nothing? I think the leadership of the Party needs to resign. And that includes Nancy Pelosi who botched this impeachment by trying to make it a faceoff between Biden and Trump, which apparently they thought would benefit Biden. They are empty vessels stuffed with cash from plutocrats who are paying them to lose.
5
Sadly, Pete is a spoiler. The majority of the American people are not ready for a man married to a man. Maybe twenty years from now when the demographic has changed, as it inevitably will. The Republican party will die with the old white guys.
Elizabeth killed herself with the repeated phrase, "I have a plan." Not the same as "I have a dream."
Bernie might beat Trump. Contrary to what Hillary says, people don't like HER.
My bet is Bloomberg this time around. Trump has nothing on him.
5
I spy:
Voters looking for a new Obama
Voters not wanting another Hilary (unlikable though qualified)
Voters saying: chuck it! I think this candidate will make a good president.
A reminder: Ted Cruz won the 2016 Iowa Caucus.
2
Perhaps the media should stop overhyping the importance of winning the first few Democratic primaries. Only candidates who are barely hanging on need to do well in these primaries so that they can remain in the race. The rest, not so much. As far as the computer glich is concerned, this too shall be quickly forgotten, almost as quickly as the public forgets about Donald Trump's last outrageous lie or display of ignorance. (Remind me, what was that silly thing Trump tweeted right after the Super Bowl?)
1
Clearly Sanders is the biggest winner, for one very, very, simple reason: he earned the most votes. If the Democratic Party wants to put the small "d" back into the party name, they would embrace a more democratic way of picking winners and losers.
1
Iowa is not representative of any US State; Bernie is the
obvious choice; not afraid of Trump or the phony Senate
GOP...: Mayor Pete....is a very intelligent man; but is NOT
representative of USA as a whole....someday we may have
a gay US President; but not 2020....I hope Pete goes on many
PBS programs to bring his message and views...but he does
not have the governing experience of a Governor...not yet.
We do need someone who has had governing experience;
I suggest Bill Weld who will bring back the Party of Lincoln.
2
The entire Republican primary and general election was far more absurd than anything that occurred in Iowa yesterday. Come to think of it, just about everything happening in the White House and Senatecsince that time ate also absurd. My 2014 self would not have believed any of it. If you'd described what was actually to happen I would have laughed, and said it must just be a bad Netflicks series.
Disaster? We didn't get instant results. So? This is a media made mountain from a molehill.
The biggest loser is the primary process itself. Candidates have spent decades focusing months solely on Iowa and New Hampshire and their idiosyncracies to the detriment of the rest of the country. It's time for a change!
1
It was a great night for the Trump campaign! Tweet away! Trump has proven again that it is possible to tar and feather any viable opposing candidate and win bigly with tremendous help from the Dems. Should Feb. 3 become a Republican holiday? Was this fiasco caused by a Republican Sleeper Agents in the Party? What will the Trump campaign have ready for Pete and Bernie? This colossal dog and pony show demonstrates complete incompetence. These results will stick in the minds of voters like Burisma and PizzaGate, and delegitimize the eventual nominee. At least this current media circus is good for ratings and Fox News, a warm up for the super bowl of all media circuses in November. Dems claim to be the Party of Voters Rights and Reform. Iowa was none of that.
1
So the faulty app was originated by a group founded by veterans of the Clinton campaign. (And ha ha -- the name of the group was Shadow, Inc. Please.)
I'm a yellow dog democrat, and I'm just going to come out and say it -- Democrats, have nothing more to do with anything that has anything to do with the Clintons. If it's fool me twice, shame on me, the Clintons have made fools of us so many times we're running out of numbers.
The swamp will never be cleaned but at least we can clean our slate of everything Clinton. It's not working. We need to think new and fresh, forward-moving and ready to lead the country and the world into a new future. This is not what the Clintons represent. Hillary didn't even have enough sense to separate herself and the rest of her party -- us -- from Anthony Weiner, after he'd proven what a liability he was, and look how well that worked out. And it's not just that. The list is long. And it needs to stop. Now.
Please. Enough. Thank you for your service, Clintons and everyone associated therewith. We're moving into the future.
7
Congratulations to billionaire Bloomberg and CIA-Pete for winning the Iowa caucuses even though Bernie Sanders had the most votes.
So, to summarize, within the last few days we had the Corporate News Network and the Des Moon Register cancel the release of their supposedly amazing polls because it showed their preferred candidate getting utterly destroyed and Bernie winning.
The DNC changed the rules of the debate to roll out the red carpet for right wing oligarch Bloomberg, after blatantly locking out Tulsi in spite of the fact that she met all the criteria they supposedly laid down.
And last but not least an app financed by Mayor Pete and his shadowy SuperPAC, built by the DNC Shadow spooks, and overseen by Hillary's campaign manager causes a shutdown as soon as the Iowa results started to show Bernie surging.
I’m SURE this is all just a coincidence, like all the negative coverage from the NYT journos, columnists and editorial board members leading up to Iowa.
Unfortunately, none of this matters, because unless Sanders gets a majority on the first ballot at the convention, the super delegates will put in some corporate pro-war stooge anyway.
The whole process is rigged from start to finish.
And they are getting so cocky that they are hardly even pretending that the system is on the up and up.
It’s a good thing Bernie’s people kept their own records, or we may never know what happened.
The Dems have hit rock bottom and are making a mockery of our democracy.
What a disgrace.
5
Klobuchar, Biden, Yang -Lost
Buttigieg--got a Stay--I'm minority--I would not vote for him unless I had to
Sanders/Warren-- Fantastic Team
3
Mr Douthat forgot to mention the biggest winner last night:
Donald Trump.
The entire Iowa debacle is a gift to him in shiny paper and ribbons.
3
The DNC is the big loser. Intended or not they came off as incompetent at best, fraudulent at worst.
Pete overperformed, but his victory will only last until Super Tuesday when he hits higher levels of minority voters.
Bernie is starting to look like he may knocking up against his ceiling as the 2nd round voters appeared to go for anybody but bernie.
Biden is done, capute, finito
Warren is holding on to a lifeline, and can benefit if Bernie declines.
2
It looks to me like Bernie’s winning no matter how hard the DNC tries to stop him.
3
Clearly, the dems are parading one potential candidate to the fore after another for public inspection. Now it's Mayor Pete's turn...
Hopefully Mayor Pete won because - simply - he makes the most sense. He lacks nationwide support because most Americans have paid too little attention to the Democratic field. We shall see. How about Mayor Pete and Michelle Obama or Kamala Harris? Now that would be fun.
3
The author is clearly a Bernie suporter. Can we get some objectivity please?!
I would much rather see Pete debate Trump than Bernie. None of Bernie's lofty promises would get through congress.
2
Yeah. American people can’t have what they want and need. Big Insurance and Big Pharma have the power.
It's so refreshing to see Joe Biden collapse in yet another Presidential primary race.
The guy is patently unelectable; he's a pair of comfortable old bed slippers, not Presidential material.
Looking forward to Biden's withdrawal speech.
11
I’m afraid he’ll stick around till SC.
Then he’ll be all Jeb! and ask his Republican supporters to “please clap” as he tries to leave the stage.
1
OK, so what are Sen. Warren's "weaknesses" besides her female organs? I used to hear that finishing in the top four in Iowa kept you in the running. Whatever happened to that? Or does that only apply to men. We've got Sen. Sanders who very, very recently suffered a pretty serious heart attack that his campaign appear to be minimizing, and Mayor Pete, who does not do well with minorities. I'd say Sen. Warren is not in a weak position at all.
Her weakness is the same as Hillary’s. The conservative machine has been priming her in a negative way for 4 years now, knowing she would be a front runner. She also has some pie in the sky wishes. Things will turn into a dogfight between her and trump.
That said I think she would make a fine president.
1
Why should the results in Iowa be any more legitimate than the last election if the guy who wins the popular vote comes in second? Iowa Democrats don't believe in equal rights for voters. Bernie was robbed by the partial results so far.
3
The biggest winners are the American people who wish to have their votes counted on an equal basis because Iowa has put the spotlight on the many ways that our votes are unequal.
Ditch the caucuses. One person one vote.
And ditch the electoral college for the same reason. IF we want Democracy, one person one vote.
Why in the world are we allowing slaveholders from the 18th century to dictate how we count our votes in the 21st century.
6
Because the rest of us don’t want California and New York to pick our President.
3
@M As If there's a popular vote, states wouldn't be picking the president, it would be individual citizens. That's the beauty of one person, one vote. Everyone's vote counts, not just the votes in a few swing states. And, by the way, if California and New York had picked the president in 2016 we wouldn't have that venal, grifting ignoramus as president right now.
Yeah, so the results aren’t in yet. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There is certainly something disturbing about Buttigieg donating 100k to get this app rushed to market.
54
@Not optimistic This was such a stunning claim that I hastened to find confirming sources. I found only a comment from "tempsy" in a Hacker News chatroom from earlier today, copied here in toto:
"The conflict of interest here is stunning. The CEO of this company Acronym, which owns the app developer Shadow, received $100K from the Buttigieg campaign and her husband is an advisor for his campaign. Buttigieg's organizing director is also a former employee of Shadow. And the entire company is all former Hilary Clinton employees e.g. centrist democrats."
I find it disturbing when an opinion is presented as if fact. It adds to the fear that we've now slid past a point of no return, into the Trumpian morass.
(Mayor Buttigieg is not my top choice of the candidates, and it would comfort me deeply to be proved wrong.)
6
@Not optimistic
Exactly what evidence is there that Buttigieg donated “100K to get this app rushed to market” ?
My understanding is that the facts are that Shadow makes software for Dem candidates and that several candidates, including Buttigieg, bought some their stuff ( but not this stuff).
15
@Not optimistic here is a link to an article that may help explain the "disturbing" feeling: https://inthesetimes.com/article/21945/pete-buttigieg-McKinsey-consulting-firm-2020-election-elitism
1
It’s almost laughable — and I don’t mean the Iowa fiasco — I mean that the party is fighting over candidates who don’t stand a chance.
Bernie is in fantasy land; Trump will eat him for breakfast. Pete is so knowledgeable, but he’s too young and experienced.
Joe is in meltdown.
Bring on Mike Bloomberg; he’s really the only one with the knowledge and money to take on Trump. And he knows all his soft spots, probably a lot more than any of us yet know.
6
Bernie will eat Trump for breakfast. You forget. Bernie has a brain.
If the election comes down to the minority vote, Pete will do just fine. He is running against Donald Trump, the guy who has alienated every single minority, including white college male graduates.
The AA community is well aware of what Trump's judges are going to do to their lives, and it is not good.
9
@GP Turnout, turnout, turnout.
2
Maybe you’re right.
But the party of civil rights shouldn’t begin by taking black voters for granted.
@GP
Maybe you’re right.
But the party of civil rights shouldn’t begin the campaign by taking black voters for granted
Ross, usually I disagree with your premise, but I buy your argument. In this case i disagree with.
The news today with be the SOTU and Trump. And Pete will of gotten one news cycle. This way, Pete will news tomorrow and maybe the next day. He will get his air time.
3
As far as I am concerned the pundits are the last people I trust. Fiasco in Iowa? Bah humbug! So Douthat has an opinion column written for him. He should be saying thank you.
Look at Trump's election. The best thing for him was the fact they gave him three to four times the air-time as other candidates. And yet predicted he would lose (he did , but that's another subject). What say you?
I make up my own mind given what sense the candidates make to me. Every time they speak. Sorry Ross, but Buttigieg
right now is making the most sense. Stop making a mountain out of a molehill.
8
@Daniel I thought that same thing. Him saying, now the story will be the systems and not Pete! If you want it to be Pete, it will be Pete. But, that's not sensational enough.
2
Why are Democrats excited about their party's chances in November? Two of your leading candidates are so far to the left it's like having Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on the ticket. Wake up Dems, this isn't the 1920s in Berlin. Another of your candidates is too young and inexperienced, and another is too old and too experienced; while yet another somewhat viable choice is too unknown, and of course, there's the guy who doesn't need the party at all, he'll pay his own way; I think everybody pretty well understands that he's just showboating and really represents only himself-- for him it's all billionaire's ego. Whoever gets the nomination will have the honor to walk right into a buzz saw. Give up, Dems, fold your tent and wait for 2024 when you can hopefully field some energetic, appealing candidate to face off against the colorless Mitt Romney.
3
@Ronald B. Duke
No, a more astute student of history would conclude Sanders is more like having FDR on the ticket.
3
@Corbin; Even if one agreed with you, FDR ran in the depths of a depression when people were ready to try anything new, but today we have a booming economy, what's the incentive to hand management of it over to government bureaucrats?
1
@Ronald B. Duke
Trump had ZERO experience. Besides, do we really want a lying, cheating, treasonous grifter for prez for another 4 years?
1
Talking about candidates winning and losing in the wake of the Iowa disaster overlooks the most important takeaway. The leaders of the Democratic party are risking another loss in November because they think the preferences of their members do not matter. How many times can the Dem leadership manipulate the results of its elections before significant numbers of its rank and file membership permanently walk away in disgust?
It seems like they are trying to rig their primaries at least one more election cycle.
6
I realize it's far too early to do any serious celebration, but at least for now, tonight, I have a smile on my face because of where Pete B. placed. This is the best I've felt for a long while.
I refuse to allow this brief respite in time be stolen or marred by anyone. Tomorrow is another day.
Way to go Pete! And thanks to everyone who voted for him, whether it be a paper ballot or electronic version.
A vote for Pete B. is still a vote!!!
56
@Marge Keller
MK: me too. I’m even happy and impressed with Bloomberg, because he avoided this train wreck.
Cheers to you !
4
@Phyliss Dalmatian
I will vote for whoever ends up as the Democratic candidate. Still not 100% on the Bloomberg broom but I am keeping all options open.
Take care my dear!!
4
@Marge Keller
Liz and Pete, in that order.
That’s my preference in the current lineup.
Thoughts ???
3
I’m a fan of Mayor Pete—a small-dollar donor even—so I’m happy with this outcome on some level. But I know he has a Sisyphean battle ahead of him with African-Americans.
This may be where we, as a party, open our minds to the Bloomberg candidacy. He is technocrat, good at governing. Someone who for years has poured money into two issues Congress willfully ignores: gun control and climate change.
Ask any New Yorker, the guy can govern. He is incredibly smart and hires smart, competent people.
You will sleep well at night with him in office.
123
@Sara
Or open our minds to a great ticket. Buttigieg-Abrams. Way to go!!!!
6
@Sara
God no. Bloomberg is the one Democrat running who I would not vote for, even against Trump. No billionaires please, especially ones who think term limits don't apply to them and like to make openly misogynistic comments. OK, Bloomberg cares about climate change. But he doesn't care about income inequality, our broken electoral and governing system where money talks, or healthcare for all. If Bloomberg buys the nomination, I will show up to vote for the down ballot Dems, but either leave the President spot blank or write in somebody, anybody, else.
3
really? you think people of color like Bloomberg more than Pete? I think perhaps you're asking the wrong New Yorkers.
9
Hard to really judge who will statistically prevail given 62% of the results so far. However unlikely, the top five could all be re-arranged by the final tally count. Of course, the Democratic party of Iowa lost big time. Given the changing demographics of the Democrat party, I would be surprised if it gets to be the first state to decide in 2024. Last night's mis-step may have been the final straw.
5
The important thing is that Clueless Joe Biden is finished.
Now we can move onto candidates who have some vision, some passion and who appear to actually be interested in the job of President.
160
@Socrates
When one looked at the Biden sparse turnout at each caucus venue, it almost seemed like he was "throwing in the towel" before it even started. For him and his cronies to believe he can count on Super Tuesday, he might want to think again and now perception is everything. Sanders is leading in 9 out of 10 polls in NH with the 10th a statistical tie and if Biden ends up in third or fourth in that primary, he is in trouble.
In addition, he started out with a comfortable 30 point lead in SC which is now down to 5 with Sanders and Steyer nipping at his heels, there is no guarantee that hi so-called "firewall" will remain. I guess that is why Bloomberg wrote the BIG check to the DNCs coffers so they could change the rules for him to "come to the rescue" of a flailing Biden campaign.
In Biden,we have another DNC "annointed" candidate that will ultimately fail again because the establishment refuses to accept the reality outside of their "Washington Bubble".
27
@Socrates
After one primary I wouldn't be so sure.
12
@Socrates
Biden is counting on his Obama association delivering African American turnout in South Carolina, which could yet materialize. It remains to be seen, and it bears watching whether African Americans switch their preference to another candidate, because while they are unlikely to vote for Trump in droves if their preferred candidate isn't nominated, as we saw in 2016 enough of them might stay home to make the difference in a close swing state like Michigan.
8
The code required to add numbers and total them is pretty simple, even for a Democratic Party employee.
These are the people that want to run healthcare? No thanks!
6
@RobF I will take these guys over insurance companies charging us 50% more for our healthcare any day Thank You!
2
@RobF
Don't forget that in 2012 the GOP also had an Iowa caucus debacle, just as unable to "add numbers and total them."
3
Insurance companies don’t charge you for healthcare. The charges come from doctors, hospitals etc. insurance companies reimburse healthcare costs incurred if they are in line with the coverage policy.
Even with only 62% of precincts reporting, this is a huge win for Pete.
And Ross, isn't it also possible that the Iowa fiasco might help Pete by extending the news cycle for a few more days? Pete's biggest challenge has always been name recognition.
30
Let’s say name pronunciation.
When one sees the arcane and artificial method that the Iowa Democratic Caucus allocated delegates so that the popular vote winner does not get the most delegates, I wonder why the Democrats are so disturbed by the Electoral College.
7
Do you think most Democrats enthusiastically support the Iowa caucuses?
Why do we even pay attention to polling data? The polls appear to have been off by 10-20% with this small state caucus with oversized influence. The polls also predicted an easy win for Clinton in 2016. The science of polling is deeply flawed.
6
@Donna Kraydo Is it the polls that are wrong or something else? We don’t honestly know
"[T]he flimflam 'improvements' of the tech economy" - is a great and concise summation of what has happened to America over the last 15 to 20 years.
5
I am tired of the media telling us who should win Iowa and pundits over analyzing. Sure there was a technology blunder, but clearly Mayor Pete has an early edge because, as we say in the service, he put boots on the ground in the rural counties. He did his homework! He’s also capable, smart, and does well in the debates. Let him enjoy this victory if the final tally gives it to him. It’s still early and this country is incredibly diverse. I find many of the candidates appealing. I look forward to seeing how the field narrows.
47
Why is every single turn of events in this insufferably long election season must be reduced to who won and who lost? Why treat every development like some game? What happened in Iowa simply shows the absurdity of treating an arcane system of allocating delegates for president like it should mean something.
12
Chaos and debacle and fiasco are words in many headlines and articles, but are those truly descriptive of what happened? An app malfunctioned; gee what are the odds of that in so many thousands of apps in use?. Rather than tolerate misinformation or wrong counts, another view is that the election officials quickly identified and took control to perform due diligence and will still do that. The addicted appetite of the public to call a winner minutes after polls close or based on exit polls and who cannot wait 24 hours to get things right- that seems more of a fiasco to me. Ok, something went wrong, at least Iowans are acting responsbily and not hastily on important matters. If anyone should pause it might be some of the reporting about it and of course the President and his followers who are quick to blame in the absence of real data.
18
Way too kind. Entirely mismanaged by the DNC, which ought to be alarming when considering what this party might do if they try to reboot government. And candidates declaring “victory” based on their polls rather than the vote count is utterly irresponsible. They are “stealing” the election, but this is ok for Democrats?
9
This entire fiasco was predictable. Not in the exact way it would become meaningless and irrelevant, but WHY. Sure, Little House on the Prairie was fine and workable in the 1800s, and even part of the 1900s. Check the DATE. It’s past time for a National Primary Vote, or at least Regional Primaries.
Bloomberg WAS the biggest Winner. By luck or design, he didn’t waste His time or money. In this Race to dethrone Trump, I would never discount Luck. Congratulations, Mike.
5
E-voting systems are the last refuge of vote suppressors. Every other voter suppressing technique is already strained to the limit. (Dems are suppressing Bernie like in 2016.) Once the vote enters a computer, it is no longer secure or verifiable. Demand paper ballots, hand counted, and hand reported. Scream if necessary. No other way to make a real election. An e-vote is no vote.
45
@Dave E-chads, anyone?
1
@Dave
You state:
"E-voting systems are the last refuge of vote suppressors."
Your comment is THE single most important in this thread. It frames the biggest lesson from the debacle in Iowa, far more than any other evaluation of which candidate is up and which is down.
Digital ones and zeros will ALWAYS be hackable, something the aging whiz kids of Silicon Valley seem unable to comprehend about their own creations.
The essential feature of any democracy is a credible electoral process. While there is still the possibility of good old fashioned paper-ballot-box-stuffing, that bit of fraud takes a lot of work and there is physical evidence after the fact. It cannot be accomplished in seconds by some malign technician sitting in his office in the Kremlin.
As Churchill said of democracy as government, paper ballots counted and tallied by hand are the worst way of accounting for elections EXCEPT FOR ALL THE OTHERS! In our hyper-automated lives, we forget that a certain amount of actual labor is involved in anything worthwhile.
Speaking as a one-time systems analyst myself, there will never be electronic systems that are truly secure. Digital technology has its conveniences, but it has essential and inherent weaknesses that cannot be overcome, ever. Iowa illustrates this in high relief.
What civic function is more important than elections? If these are not worth our manual labor, and we are too bone-idle lazy to count our votes, then what hope have we for democracy?
1
Ross, your op-ed points to the conservative right of middle point of view. But anyone (I'm one) left of middle or further left see this simply as a victory for Buttigieg, a good showing for Sanders, and Warren is still in the race.
That's it, on to New Hampshire for a good ole primary with paper ballots.
48
How quickly people forget the mayhem that accompanied Trump’s eventual victory over more than a dozen Republican rivals of all ilks in the primaries — and then his ultimate defeat (albeit with some questionable help) of Hillary Clinton. This too shall pass.
When it does, my hope is that all the acrimonious infighting will morph into a relentless mission to eradicate the monstrosities that currently occupy the White House and rule the Senate.
I will support Sanders, Bloomberg or anybody in between to save our wonderful country from its slide into a glorified version of Putin’s Russia. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
90
This is a shining sentence: "...it’s tempting not to attempt political analysis at all and just let the thing stand as a kind of outrageous art installation, a fiasco that speaks for itself so completely that all commentary is superfluous."
11
Go Pete! Clearly the best candidate out of Bernie, Warren, and Biden. Now to NH. I will be this week to help him win the Granite State.
29
@William I Save your time. His campaign's a dead end by February 29.
Mayor Pete's very likable, but I don't see deep passion or urgency around his campaign. Instead, I believe Iowans were expressing what most Democrats believe, that only a moderate can unseat Trump, and Biden is too wobbly.
4
@Livonian pete is also the youngest on the stage,i think his winning might be more about that!
4
@wallys smith
Given the released videos of his caucus group, it also looks like his supporters wear down people who wanted to change their vote, and refused to respect their wishes.
It's hilarious that people complaining about the lack of democracy in the Electoral College think the caucus system is in any way democratic or respectful of people's wishes.
1
Really, the only outcome at this point is that Biden lost. This result showed he doesn't draw a lot of support in places he should. That is a real problem for him. It's a strong showing by Pete but Iowa is basically Indiana so he didn't show much of a broader appeal beyond the Midwest. That helps him but how will he do in the Pacific Northwest, New England and the South? Bernie established himself as easily being in striking distance of taking the whole thing. So he had a good outcome. What we can project from this likely that Sanders will stay the same in the next series of states, Pete will probably drop (maybe) and Biden come up a bit in New England. This is all pretty good news for Sanders overall.
However, the real outcome is that there was no definite winner but Biden was the loser.
10
@Steve
Spot on.
Does anyone really care about Iowa? Super Tuesday will be the defining moment. It will thin out the herd then we’ll see the true field.
14
Here's my 'First 3 States' proposal for future Democratic primaries that would help us secure the presidency in future elections.
The first 3 presidential party primary elections would be held in the states that:
1. Last selected the primary candidate who went on to win the general presidential election.
2. Selected that winning candidate by the widest percentage margin. The biggest-margin states would vote first, then in margin order (high to low).
Benefits of the 'First 3 States' primary model:
1. Would start presidential primaries in a way that gives the party a better chance to select candidates who have a broader national appeal from the start, and who don't have to curry the favor of the most extreme elements of their parties early on (as is now the case in Iowa), which can ultimately ruin their chances for broader national appeal later.
2. Reward states that have best predicted the mood of the nation by allowing them to vote on the full range of candidate choices instead of later winnowed choices.
3. Give states the incentive to elect ultimate winners who would have the broadest appeal in order to retain their special early & influential primary voting status.
4. No state would have an inherent advantage in being selected as one of the 'First 3 States' primary states.
5. No consideration would be given to states that selected a candidate who went on to win the national primary, but failed to win the general presidential election.
Clearly, Trump is the biggest winner because the Democratic Iowa and National Parties look like buffoons, the winners with less than 30% are all selective issues candidates and the number of Democratic voters yesterday is only 20% of those who vote in the presidential elections: very unrepresentative of the non-representative Iowan electorate. First point: skip Iowa! Second point: select a diverse state or states and use ranked voting to start the culling process.
8
It’s not over but the corporate media will report this as a Pete win and then in a few days we’ll find out Bernie actually won.
If Buttigieg ends up losing not only the popular vote as he’s doing, but also the delegate count, as he’s close to doing, think of the millions in unjustified media “victory” coverage he will have been handed by this completely outrageous decision to release partial results.
Perception is reality. I expect a lot more deliberate chaos in the coming primaries. This only benefits Trump and the neoliberal tools that run the state and federal Party chairs. Do the Democrats prefer a second Trump term over a Sanders candidacy? You betcha!
Assuming Buttigieg wins the whole thing.
Does the DNC really think Sanders supporters will shift to Buttigieg in the Presidential elections after this fiasco, especially after what happened to Sanders in 2016?
Democrats have just lost all their wiggle room for shady behavior. Everything better be on the up and up from here on out or the dems will bring crickets to the polling booth this fall.
Federal campaign finance records show that the Iowa Democratic Party and the Nevada Democratic Party retained Shadow to develop its caucus app. Shadow has also been retained for digital services by Buttigieg’s campaign, which paid the company $42,500 for software-related services last July, and by Joe Biden’s campaign, which paid Shadow $1,225 for text messaging services, last July as well.
And suddenly, Buttigieg is winning.
14
@Chris It’s suspicious. Combine this with the last Iowa poll suddenly going poof and one doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder.
2
@Chris
It's one state. We've got 49 more to go. The most worrisome possibility to me is that after 30 or more states, we still have a dead heat in delegate count between a moderate and a progressive, let's assume Buttigieg and Sanders for now. If as a country the Democrats can't decide between a centrist and a progressive, we end up with a brokered convention, and no matter who they pick, there will be a big question as to whether supporters of the other candidate will show up to vote in the general. I will vote for either one of them happily (or anybody but Bloomberg, who should not be permitted to buy the nomination), but please let somebody build enough momentum to be convincing that we've picked an approach and can win.
2
@ Nikki
Sorry, but I couldn’t vote for Biden, Buttigieg, or Bloomberg.
The whole point of this primary process is to keep Bernie from being the nominee.
1
My personal reaction surprised me. I feel hopeful, relieved, about Buttigieg's strong showing. In recent months he's turned me off. Too packaged, too flawless, almost artificial. But that he may not suddenly disappear makes me feel good. I'm uneasy about Sanders, an embryonic autocrat complete with bullies and enforcers, trolling the internet, and whose plans will polarize the country more than it is now if not bankrupting it. Yet I fear that the Democrats' ineptness with technology reveals a larger ineptness, the skill necessary to win an election like the one ahead of us.
18
@blgreenie
The GOP has tech problems too. The app glitch is not a big issue. Buttigieg's strong performance is, and a welcome one.
2
The only unequivocal winner was Bloomberg, who looks like a genius for keeping his distance from the county fair circuit and its dreary denouement. He will gain some traction down the road as offering a new old face unsplattered by the cold winter mud of Iowa. The curse of Iowa will be that the virginal collective novelty of the candidacies will have been squandered with very few positive rewards to show for it. America is left still pining for the excitement of the Next New Thing.
A second potential winner from Iowa could be Klobuchar, who performed just well enough to stay afloat. If Biden fades, Mayor Pete fails to thrill beyond the mostly white bread Midwest, and Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk baggage with blacks holds him down, then next up in the centrist lineup is Amy Klobuchar.
She lacks real charisma, but her personal resume is impressive and she checks the right demographic boxes. Over time her dogged steadiness in the midst of chaos may come to be seen as a virtue. The big question here is whether she has enough financial backing to keep her campaign viable until, on the verge of national exhaustion, the trumpets sound and her name is finally called.
37
@woofer
Good analysis, but you're leading with your heart, which never works out. From an objective perspective, Klobuchar was the best candidate in Iowa -- even a Trump loving friend, before last night, told me he'd vote for her if she was an R -- but that doesn't count. To survive, she needed to either win or finish a close second. Didn't happen, and so I hope that she gets a lovely parting gift. Definitely VP material.
10
I like Amy because if you see her in an interview she is genuine. She also has a proven track record of working with republicans which to me is critical for getting our country out of this nasty party feud.
@woofer
Had Bloomberg run in Iowa he'd have ended down at the bottom, so by not engaging in a fight he could not win, he won big. Same with his not joining the debates.
1
I support Biden but I have to admit that sometimes seems to be phoning it in. Last night his speech was pure boilerplate. Plus, despite his decades in politics, he can’t raise money. I think he would be the best president. And he has been hammered for months by liberals like Van Jones, as well as conservatives and neo-fascists. But he has a ton of stuff he could turn to his advantage. Why he is not doing that is a mystery. But his campaign is taking on water and will sink if he does not come up with something.
11
@Mike Just like his other campaigns have sunk in the past. I like Biden and attribute a large part of Obama’s 2012 re-election to Biden’s absolute drubbing of Paul Ryan (seriously), but he is what he is.
1
@Mike This is Biden's third try as a candidate for President. His first attempt resulted in him dropping out because he was caught brazenly plagiarizing speeches. The second ended because he couldn't poll out of the single digits. Biden was able to get elected Senator in Delaware but he has never been able to run a compelling campaign for President.
1
It's over for Biden, Mike.
He ran out of gas years ago.
2
The Iowa caucuses were a debacle that tars the Democratic Party. The party shot itself in the foot. The candidates were just innocent bystanders. By the time the convention actually nominates a candidate, Iowa will be last year's news.
That is unless the delegate count going into the convention is so close that one candidate can win on the first ballot by challenging the credentials of the Iowa delegates. That might create a division in the Democratic Party sufficient to insure a Trump victory.
The votes that count will be cast on November 3, 2020.
4
@OldBoatMan this "debacle" is a tempest in a teapot. so technology didn't perform- won't be the last time, and it certainly isn't limited to dems.
3
I lived in Iowa for over 30 years and I’m most disgusted with the media and the individual campaigns for creating unrealistic expectations about how this event works - it’s more of an an organizing meeting than an an election, run by volunteers, in which both state parties decide how they will proceed through this election cycle. People who contend that it’s not democratic have far too tidy a concept of democracy. By its nature democracy is messy and occasionally slow and sometimes require that participants make themselves known to their neighbors. Those who insist on a nice neat result in time for their 11 PM news cycle would perhaps be more satisfied with a dictatorship, which are known for efficiency in political matters.
92
@Lweb
fortunately we can remove Iowa and move them to the back of the pack.
2
I'm afraid the winner is Bloomberg who is a match for Trump in so many ways. No, I don't mean a match as one who is equal to the task of defeating Trump, but as a match like salt and pepper or oil and vinegar.
2
Not so fast. I am an Amy Klobuchar supporter. I am much more likely to hear my vote to Buttiegieg than Biden for the simple fact that I want America to look forward and we can’t do that with septuagenarians. I’m not about to wear a MAGA hat, be that blue or red.
29
@BWCA
The results in so far are from the more urban areas, we still need to hear from the rural ones. This is a case where they really should have waited to release the results all at once, rather than trickling out teasers.
2
@BWCA
Biden doesn't have a blue maga hat.
Biden is the biggest loser in the trump impeachment. He and his son might not have acted corruptly but it looks pretty swampy.
GOP Pundits still trying to promote Bloomberg the Republican turned Democrat. The problem with the Democratic party right now is it's willingness to open its arms to money by letting non Democratic people enter their primaries. Of course they are afraid that Independent runs by either Bernie or Bloomberg will damage any chances of a Democrat winning.
How about just finding a Real and Honest Democrat to run and then make sure your platform is inclusive but also reasonable (centrist) and not too liberal for the rest of America. Money is always the influence. Free Press is not free but rather also controlled by money - more candidates, more spending. Billions spent on campaigns could have help find cures, fight climate change and elect decent people in every city and state. For us Ok Boomers! we have gone through Recessions and Wars (albeit not WW), but we are also pragmatists. Obama was HOPE until he succumbed to influence from Lobbyists for re-election. Give me a POTUS willing to serve the country's best interest not a Party or a Lobby Group (Pharma, Ins, Auto and Fossil Fuel Industries).
6
You want a non-corporate type Democrat. Donate to Bernie. Vote for Bernie.
After last night's "fiasco," as you rightly call it, with, what?, four years to plan ahead?, I'm starting to think the Dems are doomed and Trump might as well be president for another four years and I can just enjoy the late night talk show hosts and SNL making fun of him (albeit without health care, clean air and water and Ukraine and Poland, et. al., a part of Russia and South America part of China). Good times.
6
The primaries are not a horse race.
The purpose of the primaries is to inform the voters of the positions of the major candidates, and to see how those issues play out with voters in various states.
Issues like climate change and immigration. And the devil is in the details.
On climate change, not even the NY Times pundits have fully grappled with the issues, let alone Joe Sixpack in Des Moines.
The future of planet earth looks grim. We waited too long. Even if we do everything possible to fight climate change, we face considerable global warming already baked into the cake. By 2100, parts of the tropics may have become uninhabitable, and sea level rise will be in motion.
And "everything possible" is not being discussed. For example, we should be at least discussing nuclear energy. Yes, it is dangerous, but absent nuclear energy, Japan is choosing coal power, which adds to global warming.
And population growth is the ultimate cause of global warming, yet nobody seems to take it seriously. The population of Africa is projected to double by 2050. That is a disaster in the making.
Global warming will change our perception of economics. Continued growth will not be possible. In a world of limited resources we will need to help countries like Guatemala achieve zero population growth.
It is innumerate to suggest that immigration to the US will change significantly the plight of the third world poor.
Open borders is a fantasy as toxic as denial of global warming.
7
@Blaise Descartes It was the Iowa caucus. It was not a primary where people get a party ballot and vote for one person and put it in the box.
I was watching MSNBC last night, and one of the things that jumped out at me was the fact that Bernie did not bring in large numbers of young supporters. Yes, his supporters at the caucuses were primarily young. But there were not an abundance of them, even in the precincts from college towns. I'm not sure what that says about his supposed ability to capture of wave of new and young voters--maybe nothing since it was just Iowa. But it is interesting to ponder.
12
@Karen Craddock
Watch MSDNC with a grain of salt; or two.
1
@Karen Craddock
I wonder if Buttigieg captured a lot of the younger voters. He polls well with that demographic too, since his relative youth and inexperience, and his being gay, are not a turnoff to them.
If the DNC thinks Buttigieg is their savior saving the party from Bernie, they apparently don't care that he doesn't have a prayer to get votes from a vast number of Democrats (both black and white) who think being gay is immoral. I live in South Carolina and if he is the nominee there will be many people who will sit out the election, not that it matters in SC since it is reliable red, but there is prejudice nationwide.
We started out with some outstanding candidates. What happened that they no longer seem viable. And no, we don't want a rerun of Hillary, though she's trying to stay in the picture.
42
@T. Dillon
Hate to agree with your cynicism regarding the ability of many Americans to accept Mayor Pete, but you're right. For a very similar reason I don't think nominating Bloomberg is a good idea. Nor Sanders.
With so much at stake in this election, the very fate of our country, its laws and the Constitution, are we seriously going to ignore how racist, prejudiced, and fearful of change so many of our fellow Americans are? While it would be absolutely wrong and unethical to appeal to these base qualities, as our current President does, that doesn't mean we don't take them into consideration.
After all, do we really think someone who voted for Trump is going to switch parties and vote for a candidate who's homosexual, Jewish, or Socialist? I feel so sad saying it, but can we please, please play it safe this time and rally behind a centrist that will appeal to independents and the older generations? In the end, any candidate who wins will do their best to reverse Trump's policies. Because of Republican obstruction in the Senate, there will be only so much legislation they will be able to pass. Electability is all that matters right now.
The Democratic party needs to win the Presidency for the sake of all Americans, and for future generations. 2008 was about hope; 2020 needs to be about pragmatism.
4
Lots of evangelicals will acknowledge that Trump is immoral, his behavior reprehensible, a sinner, dreadful person, etc. etc., yet claim that they vote for him nonetheless because he delivers the program they want.
Buttigieg is an ethical person, married, faithful, embodies numerous virtues. OK maybe those voters who think he's nonetheless "immoral" for being gay will do as the Trump evangelicals do, vote for a candidate because he will deliver the program and policies they want.
9
@T. Dillon I am a Sanders supporter. But if there are any Democrats out there who refuse to vote for a candidate because of their sexual orientation, they deserve four more years of Trump. I'd rather have a principled gay man (or woman) in the White House than a serial-groping President.
11
Bloomberg benefits the most. He announced staff in 40 states today. The watering down of the importance of Iowa benefits him the most, since Pete will get crushed in some of the upcoming states.
15
No matter what happened, I’m thrilled by Pete’s performance in Iowa. He truly showed what is possibly for a candidate to win (especially in counties that used to support Trump) with the right message and organization. I’m so proud of him.
199
@Mandy Feuerman
I could care less about him. he doesn't have any experience.
2
@Mandy Feuerman Reality check. Only 100 Democrats vote on average in those "Trump precincts" that you are thrilled Pete won. Thousands of people live on those precincts and 65% or more vote GOP decade in and decade out
2
"The disaster in Iowa on Monday night exemplified so much about the American situation at the moment — the failure of our parties, the self-sabotage of our institutions, the disastrous interaction between creaking political systems and the flimflam “improvements” of the tech economy — that it’s tempting not to attempt political analysis at all and just let the thing stand as a kind of outrageous art installation, a fiasco that speaks for itself so completely that all commentary is superfluous."
I almost never agree with you Ross, but in this assessment you nailed it. What is both amazing, and at the same time, distressing, is how our supposed intelligently managed systems can still be so out of touch with the reality that most Americans see. And what they see is the consistent failure of our institutions to make their lives better, and instead, make them worse. It was this decades-long frustration that built to rage that led to Trump being elected, and Sanders giving Hilary a run for her money. And yet, 3 years later the people in charge don't seem to get it.
With this latest debacle, enabled by the lack of oversight and accountability that has become the norm for both parties, Americans are perilously close to losing all faith in the system, and when that happens, the system will collapse.
23
Despite the fiasco that played right into Trump's tiny hands, it's nice to see Mayor Pete emerge with the edge-edge.
231
@day owl
This is only 62% of the vote.
The larger urban votes are still out.
2
@day owl
This is a HUGE win for Bernie Sanders, because Buttigieg has zero support with black voters and he never will have the support of black voters due to his handling of race issues in South Bend.
Sanders two real rivals are close to demolished. Buttigieg is a non-factor, because he will only do well in "white" states like Iowa.
Now, the threat on the horizon for Sanders is Bloomberg. That will be an interesting one to watch!
1
Iowa doesn’t have urban.
Trust me on this one.
1
Who lost, the Democrats. This app showed what will happen should a Democrat be elected. Can you imagine what would happen if something like this were used for Social Security, Medicare, etc? And, the numbers still aren't complete. I don't know what the answer is, there are smarter people out there than me, but the wizards with this type of stuff need to fix this fiasco. One thing for sure. they need to get into the real world, with real world speed, and accuracy. I can only imagine what Trump will do with this joke of a presidential vote counting system.
8
I agree Mike Bloomberg is one of the winners in this mess. But why do you assume he can only gain the nomination through a brokered convention? With 49 states still waiting to weigh in, and with such as divided field, why would he not be able to get 51% of the delegates, if not more
Yes, he passed up the handful of delegates from Iowa—because he's focusing on gaining the delegates in states like California, which has 13 times the delegates of Iowa.
And yes, President Trump would seem to have profited from this mess—except for the fact that it also helped Mike, who I feel is the candidate most able to end the Trump nightmare and start getting our once-great country back on track.
25
The horrifying news here is that a company associated with Clinton's 2016 campaign created the bungled software. It suggests the otherwise ludicrous possibility that the software was designed to fabricate Superdelegates for someone who isn't even in this contest.
13
@Long Memory
The Clinton Curse will take a long time to exorcise from the Democratic Party.
Let's call in a priest ASAP !
1
I'm just not going to vote for Bloomberg. If the Democratic Party keeps colluding in his effort to buy his way to the presidency, then I'm abandoning the Democratic Party. I could see good in voting for any of the other candidates--I'd have to hold my nose for Buttegieg or Biden, but I'd do it.
But a party that changes the rules to help a multi-billionaire into office is not a party that works for me. If Bloomberg becomes the candidate, then the Democratic Party deserves to crash and burn. At that point, I'll start looking for a third party to support.
48
@Harper Thanks, Harper. I'm looking forward to another 4 years.
- The Donald
63
@Harper Just to be clear, you believe in keeping a candidate who polls double digits off the debate stage because he he hasn't asked supporters to part with their hard-earned, often scarce money?
57
@Seth D.
That isn't what Harper said. He objected to changing the rules to accommodate the billionaire Bloomberg (when, I might add, they wouldn't change the rules to accommodate Corey Booker, or Andrew Yang for the last debate).
Bloomberg has an enthusiasm gap that you cannot fill with dollars.
8
Ugh. If this is our best hope for democracy, then I supposed we’re in more trouble than we might have thought... but given the fickleness of the social media, the news media, the American public and the 24-hour news cycle ... this may just be a long forgotten blip by next week.
But just in case, I’d like to request a paper ballot. Although being from the great state of New Jersey I guess my vote really doesn’t count.
5
@Julie M
Hear, hear. We in NJ are the truly disenfranchised. Who cares who wins what primary. The only vote of *ours* that counts is Nov 3. So our house is voting for the Democratic candidate, period.
2
A Bernie victory would throw the election to Trump as would have a Warren victory. Bernie can't get crossover votes. Plus, many of his supporters are turning off possible voters by coming across as cult-like.
Klobuchar and Buttigieg were both viable in my precinct with Kloburchar having slightly more voters on her side. Both are moderates and deserve attention.
Biden was not viable and his demographic looked old. It will be interesting to see where Biden supporters move to. I can't see them moving to Warren or Bernie because both are regarded as far left liberals. Klobuchar and Buttigieg are moderates with Klobuchar having more significant experience than Buttigieg got as mayor. Voters should give Klobuchar a chance and ask themselves if she were a man, would she get their vote.
99
@Charlie We need a democratic ticket with Pete & Amy. A double dose of incredible talent and intelligence-- and Pete’s fresh perspective counterbalanced by Amy’s deep experience.
17
@Charlie I love these "Centrists" who make all sorts of claims about which candidates or are not viable, based upon their own proclivities, in the face of all evidence. Look at the results from Iowa, Charlie. Klobuchar got clobbered in your lily white state. She came in third among the "Centrists." No one really likes her that much; and her jokes are excruciating.
I'm a Sanders supporter, through and through. But if the Centrists want to win, I'd recommend you all line up behind Buttigieg and hope he can find a running mate who can pull in the left. Bloomberg is a non-starter for me and, doubtlessly, for many on the left. And frankly, Biden is about as inspiring as a lukewarm bowl of porridge.
But just to set the record straight, the idea that Sanders can't get "crossover" votes is completely absurd. There is no candidate who is more likely to pull in working class voters who went for Trump in the last election. And the fact that he leads all candidates (including the Fraudster) in contributions from active military people suggests his appeal is far, far wider than you would like to believe.
60
@Charlie
Really?
With 62% of the Iowa vote in, Sanders is ahead in the popular vote. Buttigieg leads with the undemocratic over weighted rural Iowa vote. We are still waiting for the urban Iowa vote.
By the by...Sanders also leads amongst Independents, POC and women nationally amongst Dems.
Your observation needs a little more work.
16
The Dems list and Trump won.
This is definitely going to undermine people’s confidence in the Dems ability to successfully run our Healthcare.
I mean if you can’t use computers right to count votes well then....
That speaks volume.
Optics matter.
16
@Norville T. Johnson — you worry about people’s confidence in the Dems ability to run our healthcare, but if they choose the Republicans, they can be confident that the GOP will seek to END their healthcare.
23
@Norville T. Johnston There is no excuse for the Iowa Democratic Party choosing an unproven and unqualified app developer. But it is ludicrous to think that that decision means that the Federal Government's computer systems would suddenly stop functioning with a Democratic party POTUS. Presidents don't choose the systems that the government uses.
12
@Norville T. Johnston Optics like Trump's taxpayer-funded $20 billion border wall falling over from a gust of wind?
5
The thing is, for whomever is ultimately declared to have won Iowa, the victory is going to be loaded. Since there was such a crisis with tabulating the results the final numbers are not going to be trusted at face value.
16
@NM I completely agree. It's a disaster.
3
Um, pretty clear who the big winner was and it is not any Democrat. This is a big problem. Let's hope this is the Republican high point of 2020 or those of us who like democracy are in big big trouble.
66
@KO
Exactly correct, and you can be sure he will be crowing about it in tonight's SOTU. The Democratic circular firing squad is off to a roaring start in 2020.
4
@KO : Trump triumphs over the failed impeachment coup de etat -- and then the Dems follow that up with "the Fiasco in Iowa".
His approval ratings are at 49%.
Wow looks like Biden just collapsed. My two favorite are Bernie and if we have to go centrist then Buttigieg so I'm really stoked on these results. I wish Bernie was on top but I'll vote for whoever is the nominee. For those who think Bernie fans are recalcitrant home-wreckers I can say that I personally will vote for the Democratic nominee.
163
@Jacqueline I think Bernie, Buttigieg and Warren are all deeply impressive (in slightly different ways) and we'd be lucky to have any of them. I also think we (and they) focus so much on their differences that it's easy to forget how much overlap there actually is, policy-wise between them.
While the process may have been a fiasco, it seems like the actual result is a win for substantial candidates with ambitious policy and vision.
8
@Jacqueline - Beautifully stated.
2
@Jacqueline
And you’re a Woman, correct ? Please, talk to your Bros.
And Thank YOU.
4