Buttigieg may be the best democratic contender. But he is naive if he thinks that a large fraction of the general US population would vote for him, once Trump attacks him, which his Democratic contenders are loth to do. The way things are going I expect a Trump victory
Maybe those worried about the Iowa muddle need to watch the 1964 movie "Zulu", about the 1879 British defence of Rorke's Drift in Zululand.
In the first attack, Zulu cheif commander Dabulamanzi sent second-line warriors armed with spears against British rifles with an inevitable result. The British defenders wondered about this until realising that Dabulamanzi's attack was actually a feint to test the strengths and weaknesses of the Rorkes's Drift defenders. Dabulamanzi's best troops meanwhile were held back armed with the latest model rifles themselves.
Matbe the Iowa caucus "debacle" was not really a debacle at all; maybe a feint so that Trump would under-estimate the Democrats' real strength.
This close race underscores the real battle for power in the US: It's not between Trump supporters and the democrats. As a united body, dems simply outnumber them. See popular vote victory in 2016 despite a record low turn-out. The real battle is between Neo - Liberals and Progressives. The former want to keep money in the hands of 1% while putting forth a progressive facade. The latter want to change the system. There is overwhelming public sentiment for all the issue's Bernie's platform represents. Come heavy or don't come at all.
1
Please no 4 years of cranky, irascible Bernie. Not an ounce of charm or diplomacy in him. My understanding is no one in the Senate talks to him and after years of hearing his one note, unrealistic health plan ,hands flailing and sputtering I don't want to either . I do not understand his following. There have been far more populists around for years. Most likely we all are. Can you imagine him in Brussels trying to be diplomatic? Or hugging a baby ? Or listening to anyone ?
1
It’s hard to believe that the Dem machine is making the same mistakes as in 2016.
Pandering to Republicans and alienating the Left.
This is what happens when a tiny clique of out of touch people, from the same socio-economic backgrounds, who are all in bed with each other, make all the decisions.
This is why nobody trusts the Democratic Party any more.
Totally unethical and compromised. There are a lot of people out there trying to make a buck off of our political system and government. We - the people - just want to be able to have a fair vote for the candidate of our choice.
But, don’t despair.
Bernie will triumph despite Hillary's shrieking, CIA-Pete's billionaire handlers, a racist billionaire from NY, a hostile media, and a mendacious DNC party machine.
Buttigieg is a politician without a soul, a construct of focus groups and opinion polling. He has no path forward past NH.
4
The New York Times reported that @PeteButtigieg
personally attended a secret meeting of big donors as they formulated plans to try to destroy BernieSanders. https://nyti.ms/39gfY0X
Not only did Pete pay for the infamous Iowa app, Iowa & the DNC manipulated the data and the release of that data to step all over Bernie's victory, Pete craftily claimed Bernie's victory as his and cable news and the corporate mediate sold the misinformation to the public for him. Warren's campaign is currently accusing the Buttigieg campaign of coordinating with its super pack. Buttigieg is a manipulator and a cheat. If he is willing to do this to voters now, what will he do to them once elected?
The day before Bloomberg made the debate stage, he gave the Democratic Party over 1 million dollars. http://bit.ly/2S64HKU The DNC stacking their committees with anti-Bernie people, Buttigieg stealing victories he did earn, and Bloomberg buying his way onto the debate stage is why people want the Democratic destroyed.
Bernie isn't a "real" Democrat but the billionaire who was the Republican Governor of New York until 2013 is.
4
Trolls blocked phone lines for hours, messing up the vote. Dems too quick to accept all the blame. Media needs to investigate more thoroughly! Move on to N.H.? Journalists need to stay on this issue: DIRTY TRICKS!
1
My good God, Democrats. Why all of the infighting? Why not discuss things like people who pretty much want the same thing but only in a different way?
If you keep this up traitor trump will surely win another 4 years, or maybe more. If he is re-elected expect him to want to be "president" for life just like Putin and the Chinese "president." And you can bet your bottom dollar that the crooked GOP will go right along with him.
So quit your stupid quibbling and work together. And don't think traitor trump won't play that up.
1
Nobody is "hurtling" to New Hampshire. The NYT needs to calm down.
1
wouldn't it be better to have the swing States vote first. Iowa is going to vote for trump in big numbers in the general election and New Hampshire has few electoral votes. If Pennsylvania went first we would have a much clearer eye on who can defeat Trump. The real question is why did they all spend so much money on Iowa. Bloomberg as always has the wisdom of Solomon, he completely island hopped Iowa and NH and set his energy on Super Tuesday. Trump to his credit played it the same way in 2016. Seriously, you have to know how to play the game. Rick Santorum won Iowa, that's all you need to know about Iowa.
7
We don't know whether Iowa's electoral votes will go to Trump "in big numbers". Keep in mind that Iowa has gone Democratic in six of the seven previous Presidential elections, going back to 1988.
The most recent public opinion poll about the general election in Iowa, taken January 20-23 and posted on 538, shows Trump leading Bloomberg by eight percentage points, Sanders by six percentage points, Warren and Klobuchar by five percentage points each, Buttigieg by two percentage points, and Biden by one percentage point. The latter two cases, of course, are within the margin of error. And much may have changed after the caucuses, and the mess reporting the results, earlier this week. But these percentages hardly qualify as "big numbers".
2
Stop calling it “turmoil”. It was a tie.
The primary system is undemocratic in the way it is run across the country. If you’re telling me it doesn’t work, you’re not telling me anything new.
It’s time to have a modern, national run-off system with uniform rules across the 50 states and territories.
It’s also time to ditch the electoral college.
26
Why the anguish over the inability to name a winner? Iowa doesn't decide anything; it just distributes delegates, and it did that.
The greater issue is that we Democrats have performed like a VW bug filled with 1,000 clowns.
Independent voters must be shaking their heads in amazement and wondering how THAT party could possibly think it could manage the whole country.
That was 2 strikes on a single pitch.
Get it together, guys. We can't afford another performance like that.
24
@Green Tea
My thoughts exactly. So far we are strictly amateur hour. Not a good look for a party that needs just about everything to go right if we are to rid ourselves of the dictator currently taking up residence in the White House, and his enablers in Congress.
The level of confusion over the Iowa caucuses is seriously overstated. It doesn't matter if one candidate is fractionally ahead in terms of "state delegate equivalents," nor is there any significance to declaring a "winner" in those terms.
The only thing that counts in the end is the allocation of delegates to the national convention. On that count, Sanders and Buttigieg are headed for a tie for most delegates to the national convention, followed by Elisabeth Warren in distant third. Biden and Klobuchar seem to have gotten skunked.
Everything beyond that is just about bragging rights and claims of "momentum." Sanders can claim bragging rights for getting the most votes overall. Buttigieg can claim momentum for a surprisingly strong showing over a large number of Iowa counties. Warren is still in the race. Biden is looking weak and Klobuchar failed to score delegates in a state next-door to her own.
There's not much more of practical significance to be said , even if ongoing recounts bring about slight adjustments to the tallies. The candidates all understand "delegate math," and have moved on to New Hampshire.
10
Forget Iowa.
None of the Dems have the time to quibble over the Iowa fiasco.
In fact, they should hope it's forgotten by the voters as soon as possible, let it slip into oblivion where it belongs.
Yet the brilliant DNC chair is trying to keep it alive, ginning up controversy and press attention by demanding a re-canvass.
The Iowa caucus is not a quaint tradition of pure democracy, it is an absurdity.
My solution is to render it pointless.
Some large, more diverse Midwestern state, perhaps Illinois, or Michigan or Ohio should declare their primary day shall be on Iowa caucus day.
As things stand the Dems seem to be committing mass suicide over Iowa.
I can hear Trump now;
'They can't run a little election in Iowa, how can they run the country!'
And that will resonate with the undecided, the inattentive, and independent voters.
Sad.
7
The competing visions for future government among Democratic candidates — left vs centrist — is a strength and poses a sharp contrast to Republicans’ fall-in-line-or-else stance on opposing opinions within the party. This was writ large in the impeachment vote. I am grateful there are a range of thoughtful, compassionate and committed candidates to evaluate. Let’s stop hand-wringing and berating Democrats. I’ll take well-articulated opposing opinions any day over Republicans’ behavior. Not for nothing, I’m a registered Independent who, for the foreseeable future, can no longer conceive of voting Republican.
11
Let’s get some perspective here. As far as the delegate count, it’s a tie. Get over the obsession with declaring a winner. As far as the popular vote, Bernie did, in fact, win. He got about 3,000 more votes than Pete. Finally, bear in mind how few people voted in this event. The total number of votes cast was not even 200,000. Why do we allow this tiny caucus to assume such outsized significance in our political life?
35
At this point, who won? Who cares? We have two leaders: Bernie and Pete. It's a tie. Yippee. Now let's go forward. If we keep sniping at each other, Trump wins. Let's sort it out quickly, unify, and take care of job #1: de-Trumping America. Most Democrats would vote for any Democrat over Trump. We are graced with a excessively large field of smart, able and willing candidates. Iowa is over. Let's go forward, choose quickly, and not let Trump's vengeful attacks go unanswered. We must control our own message, and can't do that if we're too busy with internal sniping.
3
I am so sad to see Elizabeth Warren, the most qualified and best candidate, fall behind. She is one of the few who might be able to help when the economy crashes, after the Trump Republican vanity parade and giveaway to the wealth and powerful comes to an end. And, of course, the victims will be blamed. What else is new?
That said, I will vote for any Democrat.
We desperately need a Democratic Senate, don't forget!
As to Bernie, I like/love his ideas but dislike his bullying bossy style and the complete refusal to acknowledge reality and obstacles to effective action.
These are not BernieBros, they're Bernie bullies, fully convinced of all their conspiracy theories and unable to acknowledge serious flaws in their leader. I'm sick of them.
Too many people want an old white man to give orders and make pronouncements. Life isn't like that, and it is not enough. Warren gets blamed for being more honest, but the old white guys get a free pass!
But, as I said, I'll be happy to vote for him come November, if he's on top, and wish him the best.
1
First Alignment: Sanders 43,671 Buttigieg 37,557
Second Alignment: Sanders 45,826 Buttigieg 43,195
Even with the IDP manipulating the timing on the release of data....Buttigieg has Never led Sanders in votes cast.
The media has "spun" a completely false narrative for the entire week that Buttigieg won Iowa. And Buttigieg has obliged by making the rounds on Colbert and The View and making statements on caucus night that he "shocked the world" and is "victorious".
I have never witnessed such a brazen level of outright election manipulation by a political party and an eager media to play along with it.
But remember...it is those sophisticated "Russians" and their cartoonish Facebook memes that are "interfering" in our elections.
4
If Sanders manages to survive the calumnies of the DNC, Hillary Clinton, MSNBC, Obama, Kerry and the New York Times and win the nomination (I hope he does), there will be an enormous exchange of personnel between the two major parties. As the comments here suggest, many Democrats will discover that they were really Republicans all along. On the other hand, many people who voted for Trump, in the hope of escaping the arrogance and mendacity of the Democratic establishment, will vote for Sanders.
4
And you want to be my President! Like watching an rerun of Seinfeld.
I don't think so, already got one
The DNC is a corrupt organization that favors neoliberals like Biden, Clinton, and Obama. Bernie won Iowa, there is no question at all about that. The DNC knows it and can't live with it and that's the ONLY reason there's any question at all about the Iowa count.
4
Are we supposed to trust these people to run health insurance or Social Security?
1
Are we supposed to trust the career diplomats at the State Department, our military, our foreign policy “expert” at those “think” tanks, the CIA and the intelligence community that have concocted, botched and lost every war (except Granada!) since 1945 to conduct foreign policy?
Probably not, but we’ve been doing it for 75 years.
I think we should be able to give Bernie 4 years and then evaluate how he did.
It can’t really get much worse than what the Establishment has given us.
2
Here's another question: why is Bernie so afraid of Bloomberg? I agree that they shouldn't have changed the debate rules to accommodate him, but why not give him s chance to blow it? His polls are pretty good. And he was smart enough to stay out of Iowa. He has also promised to throw his gazillions behind the candidate who wins the nomination. Is Bernie going to say "no thanks" if that candidate is him?
We need a major Midwestern state to step forward and slit the throat of the Iowa caucus by declaring their primary day will always fall on Iowa caucus day.
This of course assumes there will be a 2024 cycle.
If the Dems had a political leader there would be no question, "What Do We Do Next?"
Maybe the Iowa debacle was to good thing for Joe. I'm looking forward to seeing him in tonight's debate "unchained." Plus we get to find out what sleeves Pete keeps his knives up.
3
I find it completely unfair that the NYT does not include Tulsi Gabbard in the list of candidates!
She's been running been running since day one, she show's tremendous integrity in her frequent attacks by Hillary Clinton and others.
There are millions of people that are following and contributing to her campaign .
The electorate deserves to be treated with more respect. We want coverage of Tulsi Gabbard! As a current member of Congress she deserves it and her supporters deserve it.
One ending note, who the heck is Deval Patrick and why is he included in the list of candidates but not Tulsi Gabbard!
6
She voted "Present" in the House Impeachment vote. That is where she is as a candidate, Present.
@John Senetto if she’s still running she should be included, but she should not still be running. Voting “present” on impeachment only one of several shortcomings.
@John Senetto
She’s a bit of a nut. And polling at 0.
I will get my ballot in the mail on Feb 21st. I will vote and drop it off in one of the many conveniently located bright red ballot drop boxes. All the ballots will be counted by a computer that is not connected to the internet on March 10th. This is so easy. For a party that opposes voter suppression why is any state still caucusing? Of all the capable people in this large country, why is someone so divisive as Perez still in charge of the DNC? And can't anyone persuade Mrs. Clinton to please shut up? There's nothing anyone can do with the more obnoxious and conspiracy prone Bernie supporters. The Russian GOP must get a real kick out of them.
3
Bernie won round 1 by 6,500 votes and round 2 by 2,500 votes. It isn't a "dead heat."
And SDEs are no longer relevant because, unlike in 2016, they do not affect the number of delegates to the national convention, only intra-party votes of the Iowa Democratic Party.
You are misleading your readers.
9
The most important thing the president has done -- though all the things he's done are very important --
he's finally outed the liberal media.
Just think for a minute: the WAPO has never endorsed a Republican candidate, NEVER, and the NYT has only endorsed ONE in its entire history.
Biased?
5
@Conservative Mom vote the issues not the person. As for outing the liberal media, the media has plenty of right and alt-right sources. And, thank God, in a few places, real journalists and not entertainers running things. Our govt shouldn’t be run by narcissistic sociopath entertainers either.
1
@Conservative Mom
Reality has a liberal bias. Climate change, coming to your dooryard, your food supply, etc. etc.
Try Fox if you want to see real bias. And Trump for lies, victim blaming, and fostering hatred and violence, while stealing from the poor to give to the rich. Some "Christian". Only fetuses matter, not families and communities and children!
1
@Conservative Mom
Entire NYT history back to 1851?
I realize the Times opposed Lincoln, but I didn't realize they were so uniformly partisan.
Sanders won the popular vote by 6,500, and because of the same distortions we have in the presidential election where we count the delegate instead of the total vote (which the Times fails to emphasize in this instance, and the Democratic Party of Iowa continues to recognize), there is the delay of who is the "real winner".
Admit it, Bernie won.
9
One state held a caucus.
Obsessive political junkie press coverage turned it into a circus.
Could the Times, supposedly a serious paper, please assign at least as many correspondents as are running around primary states to cover actual governance, the legislation passed by the unified House Democrats???
The serious legislation passed by the House gives voters a much clearer idea than Iowa caucus vote counts of what would happen if Democrats win the House, Senate and White House
7
So, I wonder if Klobachar counts the Iowa Primary as her first "loss"? Since she says she has won every election she has run in to date. Just saying......
3
@Patrick
A Caucus is not an election.
Amy and Warren have both won every election they have run in.
Because they are woman, they have to be attacked--even about their victories.
Can we ask the UN to send observers to Iowa?
5
@PeterC and the FBI and real journalists to investigate the trolls/dirty tricksters!
This is indeed a mess.
And Buttigieg would make a terrible nominee.
He barely beats Trump in polls, where Dems need a good 5% lead.
Sanders is close to this.
7
The important agenda now is to take back control of the Executive branch from the Kremlin and its U.S. 5th column MAGAts.
It doesn't matter which candidate gets it done.
6
If Iowa weren't first it would matter very little. It's significance for the nation is vastly overblown. There should be three or four super Tuesdays, a week or two apart, in early spring. They should either be organized regionally or with a diverse but largely equal national selection of states. No more of these standalone primaries of single states that signify little but their own parochial interests.
8
Honestly, the winner in Iowa doesn’t matter. The delegate count is settled. The breathless horse race coverage here is awful. The GOP squeals with delight every day Iowa dominates the headlines.
14
I’m enjoying my popcorn watching the disaster movie called “The Democrats.”
Meanwhile, in another theater, the feel-good movie starring Donald Trump is just starting.
I love movies.
5
@JP
Trump is a feel good movie?
Abusing women, locking people in cages, corruption, destroying the planet, watching the rich dodge taxes and get richer...that is a feel good movie?
1
Here goes Bernie again dividing the Democratic electoral, Can't he think beyond himself?
8
Seems you are trying harder than he is.
Be better.
6
@Ellen F. Dobson
He can't.
He is the king of mean which is why the Dems will never get behind him.
He'll run as an Independent and thwart the election.
Bernie and his supporters backed Trump in 2016. We're still paying for that Bernie mess and now they are threatening another Bernie mess in 2020.
God help America.
@Ellen F. Dobson Here goes Pete again dividing the Democratic electoral, Can't he think beyond himself?
2
Yes, Iowa was a total unmitigated disaster, no more of these please!
But have you seen Maddow yesterday refreshing people's memory apropos 2006 phone jamming scandal targeting democratic party .
Would we see their scam again in New Hampshire, or something else is in a offing.
After all that's the only way the republicans ever win, by cheating!
10
Hard to be muddled, and hurdling. Perhaps stop with the inaccurate and generally not true descriptions. No one is muddled, and no one is hurdling. The result in Iowa are just as clear as they have ever been. You just never paid attention because the leaders were always moderates who are safe for the corporate lackeys. Now that Bernie is leading, obviously, their are some bad things happening.
10
While I tend to think that the media frenzy of a race in disarray is overblown, I do think that democracy's best chance would involve some noble, out-of the-box action from the candidates. I'm from Vermont and have been an ardent Sander's supporter, and based on his history I believe that if he were to win he would actually govern effectively and pragmatically while still guided by unshakable principle. But the reality of the (I believe unfounded) fear and arrogant dismissal of him from some circles, combined with the aggressive and dogmatic stance of some of his supporters, is very troubling, and we can't just wish it away.
And while I am impressed by Buttigieg's talent and think he has a great future, you can't wish away his lack of experience and lack of African American support.
My dream solution would be, sooner rather than later, for Sanders to acknowledge this and throw his support, for the good of the country, behind Warren, and Pete and Biden to do the same and throw their support behind Klobuchar. And let that play out. Imagine the impact if a candidate who was not forced out due to lack of support CHOSE to drop out in the name of unity. That person might not become president but would go down in history as the savior of our democracy.
13
@dm Clearly the NYT favors your argument, I on the other hand find it highly invalid. Why should Bernie drop out when he has been the one who has pushed liberal ideologies of the Democratic party?
All those people you mentioned have one way or another adopted his proposals and tweaked them to suit their political purposes.
For the good of the party in '16, Bernie supported Hillary and look where that landed us.
I want Bernie as President. He has the greatest chance of beating Trump of all the candidates.
Bernie frightens the GOP and makes the Democratic establishment nervous. I would like to have a President who is not bought by either parties. Or Wall Street for that matter.
5
@dm
No, Warren trails. SHE should throw HER support behind Bernie.
Bernie is the only one trying to change the system that gave rise to Trump and the only one leading a whole movement to do it.
@dm, not sure I'd choose the two you "anoint," but I'd vote for either or any other choice. I've been saying this since the size of the field exceeded the population of Teterboro, NJ: job #1 is de-Trumping the government. We won't do that if we get lost in yet another circular firing squad. Win power now, parse it when we have it.
With all the craziness in Iowa and the fervent campaigning in New Hampshire, remember that more people have ALREADY voted in California by mail than “voted” in Iowa or will vote in New Hampshire. And I haven’t seen many candidates here.
I support Sanders, but to dismiss some candidates like Biden and Warren because of their performance in these tiny, white states, as is being done by the punditry, is ridiculous...but probably a self fulfilling prophecy.
There is so much care to avoid releasing exit polls in elections before the polls close, but it’s OK to start calling this nominating process before almost anyone’s vote has been counted? How is that supportive of democracy?
4
Friends, why do we need one clear winner from Iowa? Why is that muddled? I find the press is muddled. We’ll sort it out. I’m looking for the candidate who can put it to Trump in the debate tonight. I will not vote for a candidate who attacks the other candidates.
5
The NYTimes sandbags Sanders every chance they get, downplaying the blatant corruption happening that's responsible for the Iowa chaos.
Just To Recap:
1. Bernie leads Iowa polls
2. Final Des Moines Iowa Poll Not Released for the 1st time ever right before Monday's vote.
3. IA Dems deploy vote-counting app developed by Hillary 2016 alums
4. App tested by Robby Mook's (Hillary Clinton's Campaign Manager) consultancy
5. Buttigieg paid $42K to the app developer (as reported by the Intercept along with many other details left out of corporate media reporting like the NYT)
6. IA Dems release PARTIAL results OMITTING Bernie strongholds giving Pete the media bump over Sanders
7. DNC taking over vote count right before an initial final results can be given (satellite caucuses aren't included in the "100%" of precinct results which Sanders is widely considered to have won giving him a definitive victory).
8. Papers like the NYT continue to run headlines like "Sanders declares himself the winner," while for 3 days they had "Buttigieg leads Iowa," - allowing a fictional victory lap to take place with only 62% of the results.
Funny how the errors and chaos always favor the establishment and their candidates.
The NYT is openly biased against Sanders and his supporters, it continues to have Sydney Ember cover Sanders despite multiple piece at places like Jacobin that have exposed systemic bias in the reporting.
Sanders 2020 or expect 4 more years of Trump.
22
@Nick F. While I don't necessarily dispute some of your claims, first, it's a conspiracy theory. You should confront the 'conspiracy' internally inside the party.
Second, the NYT is a private corporation, not State Media or Party media. It has the right to be biased in favor of one candidate or another, but not the right to publish libels or falsehoods.
1
@Nick F. Agree, also NYT is completely shutting out Tulsi Gabbard. She has a tough stand on endless wars costing billions every month.
3
@Tara
Yes, the NYT has the legal right to publish whatever it wants, not because it is a private corporation but because of the 1st Amendment.
But it's not entitled to call propaganda journalism.
The usual internet rule of thumb about the so-called Sanders "supporters" applies here.
Assume that about half of the people on here claiming to be Sanders supporters are actually bonafide Sanders people.
The other half are foreign and Trump trolls using Sanders as a stalking horse to discourage and divide the Democrats, as they successfully did in 2016, as was documented in the Mueller Report.
In a related story, the South Carolina press is reporting that the GOP is organizing a "get out the vote for Sanders" campaign for the open SC primary in order to dilute the Biden vote. Once again, the GOP is using Sanders as a stalking horse.
It's going to be a long primary campaign.
3
If the DNC and big donors want to help sort things out, they could quietly pressure Biden to withdraw. He is the Jeb Bush of the Democratic primary, a presumed front-runner with no moxie in this campaign. His whole operation reeks of failure, like his two previous campaigns for President. He is destined to be Vice-President, not President, and the Democrats should persuade him to retire as an honored elder statesman.
11
"Mr. Buttigieg, however, still enjoyed a slight lead according to the Iowa Democrats’ complex formula for allocating delegates . . ."
Having made this perfunctory acknowledgment, the authors of this article focus almost exclusively on Bernie Sanders and Tom Perez. Therein lies no little drama, but is there not another, equally dramatic story to be told: how an obscure Midwestern mayor, openly gay, uncommonly mature, and exceptionally articulate, just made electoral history in Iowa?
3
Biden or a Biden/Warren ticket is the only Democratic ticket with the potential to beat Trump. I wish it were different, but the country is not yet ready for a female president. Biden has the most experience and will appeal to a wider population than any of the other Democratic candidates. Please let's not fumble this again.
1
@jancathip
Biden will lose.
" some of Mr. Sanders’s most fervent backers said they suspected an establishment-backed conspiracy to slow his momentum."
Also, let it be said, that some non-fervent backers (like myself) also suspect DNC is trying to slow his momentum.
9
The media are helping to destroy the Democrats and I say that with a deep knowledge and respect for journalism, including the good things it can accomplish and the yeoman work that goes into it. But now, as I see The Times and other organizations trash the party and the candidates mercilessly, I come to realize that media moguls benefit mightily from Trump’s tax policies, not to mention the lucrative audiences they attract in covering Trump’s daily circus. I’m coming to think they are as complicit as others in tearing down our country’s institutions.
11
OK, this needs to be declared over. It was a mess, granted. Recounting the ballots will not make a difference in delegate allocation, and it’s clear that, but for a few votes one way or the other, Bernie and Pete are tied. Fighting over who got the .001 percentage will only keep this mess in the news and make the Democrats look worse.
To me, the continuing story is that Trump trolls disrupted the vote count. This is just the prelude to what they will do in the general election. The Democrats should be emphasizing the interference and planning for November. We have been put on notice that the GOP will cheat.
It doesn’t matter at this point who gets the .001 percent in Iowa – Bernie or Pete- what matters is who wins the electoral votes in November, if by only a few votes.
The outcome in Iowa is clear, even if the details are smudged. Sanders and Buttigieg won. Warren is viable but trailing. Biden is in trouble.
Let’s move on to deal with the real issue – GOP trolls and Russian interference in our general election.
3
It's interesting that a candidate that very few knew on the national level a year ago and who has had to build from scratch an organization for running a national campaign actually 'won' over all the other well-known candidates and their established support networks. It's a remarkable accomplishment even if it's too early declare anyone as the front runner for the nomination. So, please let's step for moment and give Buttigieg the acknowledgment he deserves at this point in what has been an amazing accomplishment. And let's step back from the toxicity. It only helps Trump and the Republicans.
7
It seems that Bernie Sanders is in a permanent state of outrage, a word he uses multiple times in this article alone about different subjects. It may explain the state of mind of his followers, but in his populist rhetoric he is little better than Trump, and he will lead the Democrats to a massive defeat if he is nominated.
6
At last count, Sanders and Buttigieg had each won 11 delegates in Iowa. So they’re tied after the first flawed contest, and battling over only a fraction of a percentage point that’s unlikely to change that outcome. Yet they're being covered as though they’re the only two candidates left. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren’s Iowa vote total was notably higher than expected based on pre-caucus polling, and she left for N.H. well-positioned to gain more momentum as the primary proceeds. Biden for his part seems to be in serious trouble, and it’s an open question what impact other candidates may have. The Iowa caucus is an important story; but covering the outcome as though Sanders and Buttigieg are the only ones who count shortchanges other candidates and future primary voters. I was amazed that a reporter dragged the 2016 primary into the story, too. It’s time to acknowledge the media failures of 4 years ago, learn from them and do better this time.
9
You have to be fairly brain dead not to notice that the DNC has done everything it can to slow Bernie Sanders down and cater the election to party loyalists and moderate corporate big donor friendly candidates. So changing the rules to allow candidates with no small donations in the middle of the race for Bloomberg isn't obvious to you? Adding Patrick Devlin after Iowa doesn't make it obvious you think the two leading candidates are too pale? THEY ARE GAMING THE SYSTEM, ITS OBVIOUS TO EVERYONE BUT THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA.
22
Old guy, veteran, trained as an engineer, and served in elected office in two different states...and Democrat for as long as I can remember, heading to New Hampshire tomorrow to knock on doors for Sanders.
17
Bloomberg by definition is a oligarch. Buying a spot on the debate stage proves it with complete clarity.
14
I think some of the most destructive forces out there are HRC and her diehard fans.
They march around calling Sanders paranoid and valid objections "whining."
Egged on by HRC, they accuse people of being Russian assets.
Watching millions of Democrats supporting Sanders, they ask how the DNC can "permit" him to run.
I am thoroughly sick of them.
28
Yes, thank you.
They are also what I call information-resistant. When presented with evidence that contradicts their centrist claims they quickly pivot to “Bernie is not even a Democrat”, “Remember 1972!”, “Bernie Bros are sexist communists”...etc.
Truly annoying. Especially considering that our last American president - and his deranged sidekick HRC - enabled fundamentalists to destroy a key North African state (Libya), plunging Europe into a migrant/terror crisis that is still very much ongoing.
He then did his best to do the same at the other end of the Med attempting to destroy the last multi faith secular state in the region (Syria). The results of both disastrous actions are still with us, and shall continue for decades.
We now have the oaf whose only real quality is Not being Hilary Clinton.
Would Bloomberg be any better? Of course not.
I'd like to see Bernie in action myself. Finally.
1
@Talbot I like your comment, I try to "recommended" but, as in Iowa, I could not record my preference, It never happened before, but yours is the 2nd. in the same article I cannot write a positive for. Well, I hope to do it this way,
@Talbot
Just remind HRC apologists that corporate centrist democrats have not won the presidency in over 20yrs. Obama ran and won as a progressive 'agent of change,' before the reality of his subservience to Wall Street asserted itself upon which his popularity nose-dived. In the last 10yrs over 1k democratic seats have been lost at the state level (mayors, governors, state legislators etc.). The Democratic Party has failed to make a material difference in the lives of ordinary working class Americans for decades and created the conditions that empowered Trump. The Democratic Party must be realigned with working class interests if it is to have a future in power. Otherwise what's the point?
1
Here’s what happens when you appoint a Clinton sycophant to head the DNC. They learned nothing from the 2016 debacle. Think Brazile and WassermanShultz in the tank for Hillary and demonstrated a total lack of ethics to get it done. Now we have Iowa with Perez silent until Bernie is clearly the winner and changing the rules to let Mayor Mike in. All hail King Donald. Thank you establishment Dems.
25
Thank god Bernie called out the Democratic Party for what is at the very least rank incompetence.
The Democrats are increasingly becoming synonymous with incompetence, and Bernie is right to distance himself from the Democratic dumpster fire.
As a registered independent who switched to democrat so I can vote for Bernie in the primaries, here are the other things I associate with Democrats:
Sanctimonious and self-righteousness. The Democratic elite actually believe they’re so much smarter than everyone else that they should regulate every aspect of personal behavior and provide a jail cell for anyone in need of obedience training.
(It was Biden who demanded the escalation in the drug war in the 80’s when he decided the Democrats were losing votes for being perceived as soft on crime, and it was Biden who co-sponsored the catastrophic 1994 Clinton Crime Bill. And Biden still says he wouldn’t legalize marijuana, even though his son has never suffered any consequences for his well-documented crack cocaine problem. Consequences are strictly for the little people.)
So we have incompetent morons who sanctimoniously believe that everyone else needs to be micromanaged.
I’m a Bernie Sanders civil libertarian.
Bloomberg is the worst of this elitist attitude, and I think Trump will crush any of the establishment candidates who have a visceral contempt for the average citizen.
21
I dont believe the result one bit. The DNC is corrupt to the bone and their leadership needs firing after this crooked debacle.
11
The discord theme is stupid and pushed way too hard by the media/pundits. Yes, Iowa DC blew it.
But, we know what happened: Pete and Bernie won. Biden is the biggest loser. The rest are just losers. This was self evident and is all but confirmed by last night’s Globe poll showing Pete catching up to Bernie and them both pulling away. None of this will be changed by some recount showing that Pete or Bernie were a close second ( probably hurts Bernie marginally more since it’s underperformance).
Let’s take it for what it is and move in.
8
@David
Apologies, last line should have been: "Let's take it for what it is and move on."
The circular firing squad continues and only Trump will benefit.
10
Quite an exercise in self destruction. A ship without a rudder is the democratic party. Time to launch the life boats!!
4
Iowa is silly. I have never understood why anyone outside of iowa cares. Same of New Hampshire. These early primaries are just fodder for the media.
8
What happened to those three ways to win the Iowa caucuses that the New York Times was carefully explaining before Tuesday morning?
You know, the complex formula that involved
1) the person who garnered the most votes in the first round of the caucuses, 2) the candidate who gathered the the most votes in the second round and 3) the candidate who won the total vote.
Suddenly silence on this from Times reporters and pundits. Why is this?
Can it be because Bernie was some 6,000 votes ahead of Pete in the first round and about 2500 votes ahead in second round?
Hopefully not, because that would be a perversion of all that principled journalism stands for: to bring the truth to the people without fear or favor.
18
Sanders' statement “What has happened with the Iowa Democratic Party is an outrage” is what puts me off about him. He's a really bright guy. But using the word "outrage" to describe circumstances that are, at worst, merely unfortunate, tells me there's something not quite right going on upstairs. He might be the flip side of the Trump coin.
3
Sanders will never be president. I wish he'd go away.
6
Iowa and Sanders are disastrous for the Democratic Party. Iowa is provided too much importance in determining the party’s candidate, while it is not representative of the entire country’s demographics. Sanders splintered the party in 2016, as many of the Bernie bros, actually voted for Trump or just sat it out. I clearly remember Sanders supporters saying they would rather have trump for 4 years than Hilary for 8 years. Sanders, is not a democrat and the party will go down again with him in the race.
1
It's ironic that Yang's message of a technological job apocalypse didn't resonate in a caucus mired in technology failures.
6
Who cares the democrats lost Iowa by 9% to Trump in 2016? Buttigieg will not beat Trump and neither will Sanders at this rate. Beating Trump is all that matters and this caucus result does nothing to change the dynamics of this race.
1
It is not a dead heat when Bernie Sanders has 6000 more votes. We see what you are doing.
13
I find many of the comments here at the NYTs very dispiriting. Unless Democrats stop tearing one another down, we are doomed to lose. Warren is my top choice but I don't actually dislike any of the candidates. While I will be disappointed if my preferred candidate doesn't win I will happily support whoever gets the nomination.
I am not going to insult or disparage any of the Democratic candidates nor their supporters. That kind of behavior is divisive and counter productive. How can you expect Sander's supporters to ever come over to your side after insulting them with names like "rag tag socialist mob"? I am referring to a specific comment, but it doesn't really matter, we've all seen countless similar comments.
Same goes for Sander's, Warren's, or any of the other candidates' supporters. Let's keep it about ideas and stop insulting one another.
16
Poor Bernie, he thinks it an outrage that Bloomberg has an invite to the next debate. I think it an outrage that a man who has never been a Democrat, never enrolled in the party (Bernie) has been allowed to run twice to be its national standard bearer.
3
@Mary
I think it is an outrage that a former Republican has been allowed to buy the Democratic nomination.
"Real" Democrats, like Joe Manchin are given a pass after voting for Kavanaugh, and voting with Trump 90% of the time, but Bernie gets slammed over and over for the crime of being an Independent.
7
The New York Times and the corporate media have done a great disservice to their profession and the public by not reporting honestly about what happened in Iowa all because they cannot bear the thought of Bernie Sanders winning.
It’s not your job to decide for us or sway us this way or that. It’s your job to report the facts.
12
Really, Truly this is just a dumb article. The entire primary system is dedicated to getting a winner by the end of the process. Why does IOWA of all places have to be ending by absolutely defining a winner going forward. So it's a tight race. So there are still a number of people who could win. So what. It's Iowa, not the Super bowl.
6
I am beyond tired of Bernie and his bros. If they are not winning it's because something is "unfair." Just shut up and try to win with a positive message. And yes, please let Michael Bloomberg debate - we need to see all our choices as we pick the best person to defeat Trump.
4
@APB
Huh...guess it's all equal then, because many of us are sick 'n tired of the sexist, racists that continue to spew their vile vindictive slurs in the comment sections of the Paper of Record and get away with it.
This is shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic, boys and girls.
The country is heading for Failed State and Rogue Regime status. Do you have your exit visas?
3
The answer to all this is already a candidate: Andrew Yang.
1
Call it a tie and move on. It's Iowa for crying out loud.
8
Democrats can’t even agree on Halloween costumes. How do you expect them to choose a candidate?
3
Mike Bloomberg is looking better and better with each passing day.
2
A re-canvass, even a limited one, will not serve any purpose other than to keep the Iowa debacle in the news for awhile longer. Is that what the DNC really wants? There aren't that many delegates at stake to merit dwelling on it. Move on.
Many in the Democratic Party establishment reject Bernie Sanders as not a Democrat, even though he has worked to elect Democrats in down ballot races. So much for the big tent. Would they rather he run as an independent, which would almost certainly siphon votes from the Democratic candidate?
The Democratic Party's rejection of Bernie might be more understandable if they hadn't embraced Mike Bloomberg, who ran for mayor as a Republican, and has endorsed other Republicans. My conclusion: money talks. For the DNC, monetary contributions to campaigns are far more valuable than hard work for the campaigns.
7
Bloomberg has shown a great deal of foresight, not getting involved in the early chaos of the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. There’s a reason he’ been successful in many of his undertakings, and I’m sure he would be the Democrats best choice to go up against Trump. The others seeking to do so, have little chance of doing so. The odds of winning are to go with the smart money. It’s time for the Democrats to get serious. At the moment they don’t look like the party to run the country.
2
@Vin
We already have a candidate that manipulates the system to his own advantage. His name is Trump.
You can't out-manipulate Trump.
You have to beat him the hard way.
Democrats need to hire a successful reality TV director and his crews. To beat a reality TV star, we need a reality TV like display on the national stage. The era of diplomacy, politeness, respect is all gone now. It will take someone like DJT to beat DJT and so far only Bloomberg seem to have the guts to give it right back to Trump.
1
Bernie and his bros should be a lot more concerned that his support dropped by 23% in Iowa from four years ago and that his NH lead over Buttigieg has tightened to 4-5%. He may win CA, a few Midwestern states, and a few other small ones. His supporters need to face the reality, however, that there is no way he will secure more than 30% of the delegates heading into the convention, and that he will not be the nominee. He just doesn’t have the ability to generate support beyond the far left, young people, and a limited number of labor activists.
Please, please, please don’t let your anger about this stop you from voting for the eventual Democratic nominee. All of our lives and the fate of the world are at stake. Berne will continue to fight for medicare for all and income equality from the Senate.
1
Strikes me that Pete is being positive—and staying away from conspiracy theories about Iowa. People like Pete because he’s optimistic and cheerful. Bernie’s folks are never happy and are constantly feeling victimized, which exhausts the rest of us. Let’s calm down, let the top-tier candidates get through New Hampshire, Nevada and S.C. I don’t like the whole Bloomberg thing either, but if he’s going to throw millions at a his campaign, we the people have a right to vet him on the debate stage. Democrats CAN beat Trump. We have to quit the dangerous hand-wringing and stay focused. Panic never helps.
6
The Iowa Democratic party has done everything possible to make people lose confidence in the process. First, by deploying an untested app with no transparency, they opened up suspicion about manipulation. Second, by keeping the results they had under wraps, without giving any explanation, they made themselves look like they were sitting on results because they didn’t like the outcome. Third, by releasing results that contained obvious errors (which tended to go against Bernie Sanders), and delaying a bunch of results that pulled Sanders closer to Buttigieg, they looked conspiratorial. Fourth he arcane delegate math didn’t help: as cable news election experts tried to explain how more votes for Sanders turns into more delegates for Buttigieg, they made American elections look absurd.
But the absurdity doesn't conjure itself up out of thin air. Nor is absurdity without a purpose. This failing app which succeeded in obscuring Sanders' victory was developed by Shadow Inc. and outfit with ties to Buttigieg's campaign and overseen by Obama and Clinton staffers. Qui bono?
6
I would be glad to see Bloomberg debate. His 12 years as NYC's mayor in the post 9/11 era were relatively good ones. He did a good job managing the city, which isn't easy (De Blasio has let a lot of things fall apart). He's smart and has integrity, though is pro-capital--he will not be accused of being a "Socialist." But he has also shown himself committed to fixing the gun problem, the climate change problem, and public health issues. I've always liked Mike's calm, non-egoistic competence and management expertise. Plus, he's a real billionaire, not a fake one, and that really gets under Trump's skin.
Maybe that's what we need right now.
2
I know one thing for sure the Iowa issue doesn't bother me, there are plenty of states left to concentrate on, lets hope the Democrats candidates understand that as well, just keep moving, we (they) don't need any long term distractions. My new t-shirt says it all "Anyone Else 2020". Trump barely got in by 80 thousand votes split between 5 states, which is 16 thousand a state, that's what he has to hope for in 2020, he lost the popular vote by 3 million, I truly believe that gap will be much wider. So if want to rid ourselves of this small pesky man, then we need to continue the blue wave we started in 2018. I would have supported many Republicans that ran against trump in 2016, already knowing when he (trump) entered the race, I was a NEVER trumper. I am going to put my faith and hopes in the final Democrat standing, and vote for them, as 4 more years of trump, would or will be devastating for the soul of America.
5
Another day, another Times article that would have been more complete if somebody there had watched the previous night's Maddow broadcast. The 'could not get through because phones were jammed' was a deliberate Trump campaign interference in the functioning of the Iowa process. Wonder how much of this mess was sabotage. This needs more clarification. Oh well, I'll just wait and see the rest of the story tonight.
1
Rather than focusing on Bernie's complaints concerning the DNC's changed debate rules - apparently solely for the benefit of billionaire Michael Bloomberg - maybe the Times should provide the facts surrounding the change and the DNC's rationale - if it has one. It does seem outrageous to change the debate rules in the middle of the campaign. Blloomberg decided to enter the campaign in mid-stream, nobody coerced him into that choice, why change the rules for him? Bernie's complaints seem legitimate to me. As to Sanders not being a Democrat - well I am and so are the millions of other Democrats that support Sanders. It's not legitimate for the DNC to disenfranchise us. We're asking for a fair process - is that really unreasonable? We'd also like not to be labelled by others with the offensively sexist tag of "Bernie Bros". Again, too big an ask?
8
“...the party’s pro-Sanders left and more traditional Democrats.”
Sanders, who is basically proposing New Deal-type policies for working people, is actually the more traditional Democrat. Centrism is a new phenomena in the Party, and three of the four Democrats who ran as centrists this century have gone down to defeat - the last one losing to a ridiculous, reality TV huckster.
Still, the establishment politicians and corporate media continue their constant refrain that only a centrist can win.
It seems that the establishment and mainstream media would prefer Trump to Sanders.
13
I changed my mind recently. I would like to nominate Bloomberg for POTUS and Warren for VPOTUS.
I think they together have the strongest team-building potential. Most of the rest of all the previous candidates would be great fits within the cabinet and executive staff.
The success for the next administration will be founded on the larger team that will fill out the Executive Branch of the US government.
It's the team that matters. 4-year commitments. Fully cleared background checks prior to appointment. Qualified expert in their field for the position. Firmly committed to working for the people of the USA. Not a party, not for TV, and not for a dictator.
These musical chair caucuses seem a bizarre way to nominate a top candidate.
1
A Canadian here.
It seems to me that the vote counting chaos has diminished the "real" political story - the rise from nowhere of "Mayor Pete". Maybe, the more "traditional" political candidates want it that way?
I can think of no other modern example of someone divorced from any country's party establishment who has done as well. He appears to this outsider to have both remarkably mature policies and a remarkably mature public persona. Bravo!
Too bad the vote counting chaos has swung attention away from his considerable electoral achievement.
4
I read that Trump supporters learned the telephone # for calling in results from the Iowa caucuses, and jammed the lines - is that true? How can we find out?
1
Declare the Iowa caucus a tie between Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, and move on.
Our real enemy is Trump, who is a threat to Democracy. And to the Supreme Court. Enough with the infighting. Let’s focus on what’s important.
The core of the problem is the Democratic National Committee. The problems were evident in the 2016 race, and after the devastating and unnecessary victory of Trump, the DNC never did anything to heal the fissures within the Party, which are now showing themselves in a grand manner. In my opinion, Perez has been missing in action, is pro-Obama/Clinton and so lacks credibility with the progressive wing, and needs to go. He's Debbie Wasserman Schultz part 2. It is shocking that the lessons of 2016 were not learned, and that now the whole nation and the whole world might suffer.
6
Democrats have done this to themselves. Their obsessiveness about diversity has included Mr. Sanders, not really a Democrat, who hangs around them for his own convenience and gain, not hesitating to play the game of political extortion, weakening or killing the Party's chances come election time. It happened in 2016 and looking like it will happen again.
1
The Democrats keep wasting their time by arguing among themselves about who should be the candidate in 2020. This should have already been decided after the loss to Trump in 2016, but everyone holds to the archaic caucus and primary system that says it has to be done in the spring before the election. Trump has been working on re-election for 3 years now, while the Dems are still trying to figure out who can beat him 9 months from now.
The reason that Trump is President is because billionaires are allowed to play by different roles, and change the rules to benefit themselves over the rest of us.
Now the DNC changed the rules to let billionaire Bloomberg participate in a debate he does not qualify for.
You can't run a campaign against Trump's flouting of the Constitution, the law, and the rules, if the Democrats are also fixing rules to benefit billionaires.
They didn't change rules to let other candidates debate. They only did this for Bloomberg the billionaire.
One of the dangers of Trump is that he keeps saying that he will ignore term limits. Even this week he posted a video of himself bring president for decades.
Compare this to Bloomberg having the rules changed to get a third term as mayor of NYC, even after saying it would be "a travesty of Justice" for Giuliani to have a third term.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg ran for mayor of NY as a Republican. Where are the cries from the anti-Bernie Centrists that Bloomberg is "not a real Democrat?"
If Democrats run their own manipulative billionaire against the Republican's manipulative billionaire, Trump will win, because the Left is not going to fall in line behind Bloomberg.
Bloomberg is one of the few candidates that I cannot vote for against Trump, and I consider Trump a threat to the Constitution, the Republic, and humanity.
Stop cheating to help billionaires cheat. That is what Republicans do and that is why I oppose Republicans.
6
A non vote for any Democrat is a vote for Trump thus assuring the exact fear we all have with his re-election.
It seems your principals about billionaires is clouding your purpose to avoid the calamity that you want to avoid.
Vote democratic regardless of who it is at this point. The alternative is much worse.
I'm a little tired of emotionality in politics.
Emotion has its place, it adds spice to life. But we're all on the same team here and the reportage around the Democratic party is always histrionic.
We could have looked at this Iowa story as a cautionary exercise in adopting new technology into an election - it needs to be vetted or it causes extra work for volunteers. Or we can dive into it as a soap opera with he-said she-said drama and recrimination.
I guess one sells ad clicks. It also fuels the Trump circus. It's not good.
1
We are first learning, after the caucuses, that the candidate who gets the most votes isn't necessarily the winner. This is ridiculous, and should not be influencing the primary as it is. It's time to move on from Iowa, both in 2020 and beyond.
Media, don't make Iowa Hillary's emails.
1
The DNC did Bernie and many of its own constituents wrong in 2016. Bernie nevertheless did 40 campaign events for HRC and went on a unity tour with Tom Perez afterwards.
To this day, HRC bad mouths Bernie. The DNC continues to gaslight progressives.
If there was ever a need for "centrist" or "corporate" democrats to be transparent, above board, and conciliatory it is now.
Tom Perez should resign. If the errors in voting during this caucus turn out to be unidirectional - that is hurt Bernie or helps Pete (or vice versa) - then it is likely not accidental and is intentional. That is voter fraud and someone should be going to jail....
9
As I have long feared, the Democratic party has begun their inexorable march towards snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The fact that the candidates are battling each other, while the national and state parties point fingers at each other, does not bode well. We should be shining the spotlight on the corruption and actions of the current administration. The caucus, itself a relic long past its expiration date, is a disaster, as if we need to provide the republican party any more talking points. With an economy that appears strong, and the Democratic party in disarray (whether you admit that or not) the situation is quite bleak. From where I sit this sham of a president will be reelected, and we will not flip the Senate. And this, I find truly terrifying.
1
As I see it this the media making a tempest in a teapot. I understand why a candidate wants bragging rights to "victory", but in the end they are going to get a piece of the pie and it is the totals across all primaries that matter. I am sick and tired of media hype and even sicker of the notion that all that matters is poll numbers and how much money a candidate has. I, for one, prefer to think for myself and while I might be "interested" in how many others agree, I am going to be influenced by what these candidates do and how they behave, not by who won, not by people "threatening" not to vote for anyone else or even by policy proposals that are never going to be what they say they want anyway. Every day the news media has to make a new drama. How about just simple, factual reporting?
3
The irony of a party that was robbed of the presidency by the electoral college in 2016 despite winning the popular vote using a process that invalidates the popular vote in it's own primary election is just appalling.
6
More Bernie Sanders ranting is what jumps out at me. Bloomberg has begun to get voter attention. Yes he is spending a fortune getting his message out. But it's his own money and he hasn't asked voters for a dime. Now the party has amended it's rules to allow Bloomberg into the next debate and Bernie rants it's "absolute outrage and really unfair". America wants to hear him Bernie and your wish to prevent that is what's unfair.
2
@Charlie
A candidate folded by mind millions of small donors is beholden to the voters.
A candidate spending his own money is beholden to himself.
Is there a story here? Not being a journalist, my opinion is amateurish. Yet, Buttigieg, a political newcomer ends in a draw with Sanders, an old political hand. What does it say of both men? A surprise it certainly is. So surprised and happy was Buttitieg that he wept. Maybe Buttigieg's chances are seen as so remote that journalists don't see it as a story. But to me it is.
3
Buttigieg is clearly the new darling of the Democratic National Committee, Biden’s sell by date has come and gone, this was a no brainer after the first debate: I wish I had something great to say about him but I don’t. Mayor Pete is the next all hat no cowboy to be backed by the big bucks of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Wall Street, he’s malleable and big donors know it: almost an American version of Macron; nevertheless a faux populist who the establishment hopes will peel votes away from Bernie, he’s the only one they are worried about: with Bernie would come real change and the that’s not something rich liberals want anymore than rich conservatives: far better to let a Trump have another four years, they can sit around complaining about something else rather than tackling the real problems of gross inequality and fighting endless wars for our “ allies” in the Middle East that has not only robbed us of our ability to ramp up spending on infrastructure, education and real issues that could resurrect our democracy and perhaps give the next generation of Americans a shot at a decent life: it’s stunning to think but the 1950s saw most Americans far better off than seventy years later. We really should think about what got us to this breaking point and do something about it not engage in silly diversions over the liberal topic du jour. Thomas Piketty pointed it out, we have a one party system, controlled by rich neo liberals and rich neo conservatives, hello kleptocracy.
10
Sen. Sanders, by his own admission, isn’t a Democrat. He calls himself a democratic socialist and serves in the Senate as an independent. How is it that the Democratic Party would allow someone who isn’t a Democrat to be their nominee?
10
@Howard By the fact that millions of Democrats want him to be the nominee.
7
@Howard Because people see your party as corrupt and just as beholden to the rich as the republicans. Really does say something that you dont know that.
6
@Howard
Because it's a democracy and he's the parties most popular candidate. What else should determine the outcome in a democracy?
6
It baffles me why the Iowa Democratic Party had the individual caucus leaders tabulate the delegate equivalents. It's a complicated algorithm subject to error when done by hand, but if I understand it correctly, it *is* an algorithm. There is full information for doing the calculation in the final alignment totals.
That being the case, why wouldn't the party collect the the first and final alignments from the individual caucuses and tabulate the delegate equivalents centrally, using a validated computer program? It sure would have saved a lot of anguish. Not all of it, but a lot.
7
Bernie does have a point about qualifying for the debates. He and all the other candidates who have been in the debates have played by the rules, and without rules you don't have a legitimate contest. Why should anyone else get a free pass?
43
@Mark Lebow How is an independent becoming a Democrat only when he wants to be president "playing by the rules"? Sure, technically he can, but Sanders is no different than anyone when it comes to exploiting the system to his benefit.
15
@Virginia
The rules state, sign the pledge and you must preside/govern as a Dem.
Indy Bern signed it, as did Republican Bloomie.
None of this "technically" crud; those are the rules the DP put into place.
The debates have clear rules and guidelines 20+ candidates have been fighting it out for months now, spending millions with millions of volunteers and staff doing the hard work.
Bloomie comes in, donates some pocket change to the DNC and they change the rules only for him.
Some are playing as the rules are laid out. The other is buying off the refs and rule makers and flipping off everyone else who's been working hard and playing as the rules stipulate.
Oh, but everyone does it...No Virginia, NOBODY else did it.
11
@Mark Lebow The Republican lite Corporate Democrats will say the same thing when the corrupt DNC lets super delegates back into the first round of voting. It is coming you watch.
7
Progressives and moderates are far apart on the political spectrum. You have to ask what happens if a moderate and a Progressive are tied at the top. It is possible, even probable, that one will run as an independent. We all know that the two party system isn’t working. This election could be the death knell.
3
@michjas
The "extreme" Left demands that we tax the super rich to invest in Americans and America and that we stay true to the values laid out in the Constitution: union, Justice, Tranquility, defense (not offense) the General welfare, liberty, posterity, and political equality for all citizens.
The extreme Right is against political equally, preaches the values of division, greed, and violence, and are helping Trump attack the Constitution, obstruct Justice, and call for violence against Citizens without due process. They respond to his calls for violence with 90% of hate crimes and 70% of mass murders. (The other 30% are not politically motivated.)
The Left wants to fully implement the Constitution. The Right wants to make Trump King and terrorize those they deem inferior.
Moderates must choose a side
There is no such thing as half a Constitution. There is no halfway between those that want a Constitution and those that want a King of the White Men. There is no center party.
CHOOSE A SIDE.
4
@michjas .... "We all know that the two party system isn’t working".....And a three party system or a multiparty system would be even worse. Our country is not a parliamentary system where the leader (President) is chosen after the election by a coalition of those elected. With a multiparty system our winner take all model would be a disaster.
Bloomberg/Klobuchar 2020.
14
@Landy
I would vote for Nixon over Trump. I would vote for Romney, Biden, Bernie, Warren, Pete, Steyer, etc.
IF YOU NOMINATE BLOOMBERG I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR ANOTHER DEMOCRAT, EVER.
Bloomberg is against all of my values and is a manipulative billionaire, like Trump.
I will not be able to pull the lever for him, even against Trump. The fact that the DNC is changing the rules to let him debate, proves that he is manipulates the system, just like he did to get a third term as mayor, and just as Trump does.
If you want to spend Trump's five terms in office whining about how I didn't vote, nominate Bloomberg, and this will be the first election in forty years that I didn't vote in.
7
@Landy
They'd make a great Republican team.
1
@Landy I won't vote for Bloomberg or Klobuchar. Klobuchar is a Republican, posing as a Democrat. I am not voting for a Republican.
Iowa: Delete Your Account.
Seriously.
9
@Phyliss Dalmatian
Lol...
Better to give EVERYTHING to a trusted, independent election observer. Jimmy Carter does such world wide.
I'd trust his results.
Let Jimmy crunch the numbers in the light of day observed and backed up.
Then toss the caucus in the waste bin.
2
Dems clearly not ready to run the country.
4
@2observe2b
RIght?
They can't cheat nearly as well as the Red Team.
5
@2observe2b So vote for the chronic and pathological liar with multiple bankruptcies behind him, who defends strongmen while sending his personal henchman, Barr, the US AG, around the world to get dirt on private American citizens and our FBI, who mocks disabled people, calls women ugly and "horse-face", attacks captured and tortured US soldiers, who defends war criminals, who attack parents of fallen US soldiers, who admits to serial sexual assault, who, when he actually gets to court, loses almost all the time, who has to pay $25 million for having defrauded people via a scam university and who was ordered to shut down his "charity" due to its massive amount of illegality and self-dealign, though which he also ripped of American vets, who with no foundation accuses others of "rigging" things against him while he is actually out there working with foreign countries to cheat and corrupt our democracy so he can win...that is your right. You will save us from a app glitch in Iowa, though!
2
On our farm here we always try to think 3 moo’s ahead, so here is what may happen:
BLoomberg and Yang join forces to set up a tight web based infrastructure for the Dems
DNC declares no winners, all at large unpledged delegates
Steyer, Warren, Booker, Clinton teach out to a Senator from Utah
1
Get over it, everyone. Boo hoo, a technical glitch. They happen all the time. Remember the hysteria over all the technical glitches when the ACA first started up? we heard the same "sky is falling" hsyterics from the press and the usual exploitation by Republicans...but now the ACA is very popular and Republicans have not been able to repeal it, only damage the country by chipping away at it in pieces. This is how Democrats do themselves in. We have a president who was just acquitted by his fraidy-cat party for at least four serious impeachable offense, all with th goal of cheating to win in November, a president who lies 30 times a day, a president who - now with good reason - believes he is a dictator...and it's a technical glitch in one primary that has everyone screaming the the Democrats are incompetent??? This is how Dems do themselves in every tine. Buck up, Dems, and do what Repubs do and turn negatives into positives. Trump is the end of American democracy, not an app glitch.
24
@Virginia
Sorry, but at this time and in this place a mere technical glitch is an omen of things to come. While the current occupant of the White House and his team have the internet humming and the money pouring in, the Democratic party cannot get a caucus, which is a relic long past its expiration date, right with 3 years to prepare for it. Then the people responsible run and hide, disassociating and distancing themselves from the debacle they've created. Who can blame the republicans from making hay with that, and who can blame the public for questioning their competence? I've been in IT for 35 years, and I'd have been summarily dismissed for putting critical software into use with no rigor. Embarrassing does not begin to describe how this reflects on the Democrats.
4
@Virginia
Word.
-C
@Andy Jay See what I mean, everyone? I'm a lot more embarrassed that the US president and Republican Congress just made this president a dictator, free to cheat on elections, corrupt our democracy, and have absolutely no restraints or checks on him than I am that ONE state out of 50 had an app glitch. Good grief. Get some perspective.
Technology failed at the Iowa Caucus. Why is this not the story?
8
@John L No, what failed this country was not an app glitch in Iowa but a corrupt Republican Party, so askeered of the dictator and thug at the head of their party and of their own base they're supposed to be leading, not following, that they acquitted a US President of trying to corrupt our democracy by cheating in the upcoming election, using foreign help to do so, using taxpayer money as leverage to do so, putting our national security at risk and likely costing some Ukranian soldiers their lives, about as impeachable as it gets, and this was after letting him skate on 10 instances of obstruction of justice, a change they leveled against Clinton in his impeachment. That is a much, much bigger failure for the country than some glitch in an app, which is being overrun, btw.
1
For all those folks who criticized the DNC for changing its rules to allow Bloomberg to participate in a debate; those changes were made partly in response to progressive critics who said that Bloomberg was getting a "free ride" by focusing on his advertising campaign and not being exposed to incoming fire from from other candidates at a debate. Bloomberg is not my first choice, but I'm fine with the logic that someone polling as high as he is should mix it up with the other candidates on a debate stage, so Democratic voters can make a more informed choice.
16
@DanK The change was made after Bloomberg "donated" over $1 million to the DNC and a DNC affiliate. Such a coincidence.
7
@DanK Wait until the DNC reinstates Super Delegates.
5
@DanK
Shouldn't that of been left to the contestants to decide. The ones who are sweaty and bleeding on the field before they bring in a new player because some fans outside thought it'd be fun?
6
The DNC needs to include Bloomberg in all debates IMMEDIATELY! Keeping him out is a disservice to the other candidates and every single voter! He needs to be vetted the same way as the other have. The DNC is a joke, an embarrassment, and a liability to our democracy. Stop the stupidity, for God's sake!
17
@Steve C
Letting Bloomberg into the debate now is cheating all of the other Democratic candidate's that were thrown out of the debates before. It also cheats the candidates that spent precious resources to follow the rules and qualify for the debate.
Is the DNC losing on purpose? How does changing the rules to benefit a billionaire manipulator distinguish the DNC from the Party of Trump? Isn't this exactly what we are fighting against?
If the DNC makes Bloomberg the nominee, I will not vote for him or any other Democrat.
2
What's next on the hand-wringing agenda? "This does not bode well for Democrats in 2024"? Sheesh.
By the looks of it, two candidates come out of Iowa virtually tied, and the next three are in double digits. For the winner, Iowa represents a whopping 0.3% of the total national delegates needed to secure the nomination.
Let's have some perspective and move on, shall we?
68
Trump’s nomination signaled Republicans’ abandonment of party normalcy. There’s a good chance that there will.be a rift in the Democratic Party, with a moderate and a Progressive both choosing to run, one as an independent. We may be looking at a fundamental party realignment. Anyone whose eyes are open can see that business as usual has gone by the wayside.
1
@michjas
I don't see any candidate running against the Party nominee, except maybe Bloomberg. Of course if the DNC keeps manipulating the rules to help BLOOMBERG, it could end the Democratic Party, and make Trump King.
You can't get the Left to vote against a wannabe King, by offering a different wannabe King.
3
Once again, self-serving Bernie & his Bros add to the chaos & the fracturing & the trouble we will have uniting for November. I will vote for him if he's the nominee but I don't think he will (or should) be. Is this how he'll work with Congress & the rest of the world? Remember, how campaigns conduct themselves is both an audition for the h=job & a preview of how they will behave.
And I have no trouble whatsoever with adding Bloomberg to the debate - I actually want to get a look at him on the same stage as the other candidates. I think that serves us all.
37
@Nancy Keefe Rhodes They add to the "chaos and fracturing" by objecting to changing the rules to allow Bloomberg into the debates?
What about all the great candidates--without billions-- who didn't make the debates because of those rules?
I thought Steve Bullock--Gov of Montana--was great. He's out by the old rules and Bloomberg's in by the new ones?
Sanders is right to object.
14
@Nancy Keefe Rhodes You do recall Mr. Sanders' experience with the last Chair of the Democratic Party, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, who was summarily fired from that position during the 2016 Democratic Convention (that was extraordinary!) after an email dump revealed she was little more than a flack for the Clinton organization. I believe her role was to deny Sanders the nomination. Why should Bernie trust the Party if this is the way "campaigns conduct themselves" as you say. It's a good question that no one in the Democratic leadership clique wants to address. You've got it backwards. Bernie was not the perpetrator of this animosity. That's all on the Party elders, who if you haven't noticed are not held in high esteem these days. They're not quite the powdered-wig crowd at Versailles, but they're close enough.
14
@Nancy Keefe Rhodes Dismissing all of Sanders supporters as "Bros" is offensive to the many men and women of color who fervently support him. And regarding "behavior" on the campaign trail I completely agree - which is why Clinton should have been judged for taking debate questions ahead of times from CNN in the 2016 primary.
14
Oh my God! The results, or non-results, of the Iowa caucuses is causing “Democratic Turmoil”
Some say dead heat! Some say ballot irregularities! What to do? This is a monumental disaster in the making! Cancel all future Democratic primaries until every single ballot of the Iowa caucuses are counted and verified. Could take awhile - maybe by early 2021.
6
I agree with Mr Sanders that it is not quite fair that a man worth 55 Billion dollars can just walk on to the debate stage. I don't agree that the DNC is always trying to cheat Sanders, his paranoia is not the equivalent but similar to Trump's. His supporters tend not to be respectful of people with even a slightly different point of view. Another conspiracy presidency we do not need.
We need a candidate who can win which is why when it comes time for me to vote, not some stupid caucus thing, but vote, I will vote for the 55 Billion dollar Mike Bloomberg.
I was against him before I was for him but I think he really cares. I think he does want to solve climate change and health care. He will get it done and he can beat Trump.
Bernie will excite new voters in New York, New England and California. He will lose the mid west and Florida. The dems will lose senate seats not gain. Bloomberg will open up new ground.
He's the best chance to and this nightmare.
33
Uhm. Sanders won my State Minnesota which sits squarely in the Midwest. I'm not sure how you reach the conclusion that he will lose the Midwest.
6
@Duffy
What Republican do you think is going to vote for the guy who wants to take away their guns and their super size sodas? Even the centrist argument for Bloomberg makes no sense
Go back and research Bloomberg scandals, like his corrupt privatization of the NYC payroll system. Look at how he handled Hurricane Sandy reconstruction.
Bloomberg thinks the world should be divided into billionaires and low wage contract workers. He has no respect for those that actually work for living and spent three terms trying to break unions and refusing to give anyone a raise, while he doubled his billions
The Left will not vote for Bloomberg, so he cannot beat Trump.
You cannot beat a manipulative billionaire Republican with a manipulative billionaire Democrat.
If you nominate Republican Bloomberg as the Democratic candidate I promise that I will NEVER vote for another Democrat.
Bloomberg is not better than Trump. He is the same.
4
@Duffy So basically you're a republican that pretends to be a democrat.
In the choice between a republican and republican lite the electorate will choose the republican every time. You will depress the democratic vote as in 2016 vs 2012 4.4 million registered democrats stayed at home according to WaPo. For over 20yrs corporate centrist democrats (never mind a republican posing as a democrat) have NOT won a presidential election. Obama won as a progressive 'agent of change,' before revealing his subservience to Wall Street and losing support.
Further, Trump has the statistical advantage as an incumbent, has a boost in his poll numbers because of the faux resistance democratic impeachment which he can now claim was a witch hunt, and the economy while not good, is not in the toilet like 2007 (which helped drive 2008 turnout). You will lose 2020 with anyone else but Sanders whose appeal stretches beyond party lines, is a real threat to the working class support Trump had in 2016, has the largest volunteer army prepared to work through November, and the only candidate that can excite enough democratic and non-traditional voter turnout to defeat Trump.
4
Wow...is it possible that...gasp...that the winning candidate might ultimately be selected through votes and horse trading at the convention...as was done for nearly 200 years?
Now THAT would be something to see.
9
@Woodson Dart. We get Hillary in that scenario.
3
Garbage in, garbage out.
Based on yesterday’s Times article about internal in consistencies in the Iowa precinct reporting, it appears that a recanvassing or even auditing the precinct reports will not reveal the winner.
If the precinct chairs can’t even correctly calculate who got the votes in the first round, there is no way anyone can determine what actually happened just by doing the math.
I wish this were as easy a problem as determining whether a chad is hanging or pregnant. It isn’t. The causes have to be conducted all over again.
And, Bernie should stop kvetching about the Democrat party. He isn’t even a member.
15
@Bathsheba Robie : Dude, the Democratic Senate caucus proudly includes Bernie on it's page, so of course he should be able to run as a Democrat. See here: https://bit.ly/2Uqkkyg
You cannot, repeat cannot, run as a viable Independent candidate because the Democrat and Republican parties form a collusive mafia that prevent any other party from participating (this has been the case for decades). That's the reason the US is the world's only "democracy" with only two electable parties.
Which is why all of Trump, Bloomberg and Bernie had to switch parties in order to even get to the starting line to run for President.
Even Bloomberg wasn't originally a Democrat, neither was Elizabeth Warren. Does that disqualify them too?
Bernie has very good reason to kvetch about the Democratic Party. They have sabotaged him by cheating and rigging at every turn. That's not conspiracy, that's fact. Even Bloomberg alludes to it in this video when he said "Bernie would have won against Trump":
https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1225521979475648512?s=20
3
@Bathsheba Robie
Bloomberg is a Republican, but you anti-Bernie people never mention that.
1
This is why we need more Democrats running things, so more people begin to understand how awful they are at managing anything.
3
@Peter
Can you imagine if they actually were in charge of health care for the entire country?
@Peter Sure versus the revolving door at the White House, always a sign of a well-oiled machine and good management, multiple bankruptcies, fraud, corruption, self-dealing...
2
Yeah, let’s look back. 911. Afghan War (on going). WMD. The Iraq War Cakewalk. Finding and killing Bin Laden. 2008 financial collapse/near miss depression. Donald Trump.
3
Perez’s comments were thoroughly misleading and incredibly dumb. There was nothing wrong with those ballots which were eventually counted by hand, photographed and examined by Iowa officials. Their app didn’t work, in part because, as we are finding out from NBC, Republican trollbots engaged in a denial-of-service attack against the Democratic Party. By blaming the messenger, Perez is himself creating doubt about the integrity of the process. I can’t imagine what he was thinking.
12
I’m not a bro or a conspiracy theorist, but I don’t think the suspicions of Sanders supporters that something is fishy here are “without evidence.”
The Democratic Party establishment is terrified that Sanders might win the nomination, and Buttigieg has been participating in that conversation, as the NYT reported in August.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/us/politics/bernie-sanders-democratic-party.html?referringSource=articleShare
Just last week John Kerry was overheard talking with someone who evidently thought the threat so dire that he was urging Kerry to jump in the race. Biden isn’t stealing Sanders’s momentum. So it seems Buttigieg is the new favorite to knock him out him, with Bloomberg benefiting from new rules to position him as backup. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton resurfaces to do her part reminding her supporters of their resentments.
How odd a choice of the Iowa Democratic Party to adopt untested new software, written by a startup funded by DNC big names, at the last minute before the caucuses — software they’ve acknowledged was edited mere days earlier, was insecure, and in which its local precinct captains were untrained. What could go wrong?
And no, Perez isn’t trying to heal rifts. The entire nominating convention staff is anti-Sanders, starting with Barney Frank.
The machinations of the DNC in 2016 did not deliver their intended result. It certainly looks to this middle-class, white-haired, news-reading voter as though they’re repeating their mistake.
90
@Portia Part of the problem is that Bernie isn't a Democrat. Who has he in mind for running mate? If he won the presidency and died while in office, then what? Besides how many of his 'progressive' plans will pass the senate?
4
@Fran : both Biden and Bloomberg are just about Bernie's age and Warren isn't far behind. Are you worried about them too?
Obviously, Bernie will pick a VP who is young enough to hopefully not die on the job.
The way that those progressive plans will get through the Senate is for Bernie's young, energetic and relentless nationwide multi-million-strong army to ruthlessly primary all vulnerable Senators by canvassing door-to-door, year in and year out until those Senators vote yes or are voted out. AOC will run in 2028 (if we are still allowed any elections after the First TrumpenReich which only Bernie may be able to halt).
No other US candidate has ever built such a formidable army in service of fairness and democracy, which is why we can't conceive of such possibilities.
8
@Portia You are obviously oblivious to the fact that more and more voters think that Pete Buttigieg is exactly what this country needs at this time and it has nothing to do with Bernie. It might shock you but not everything that happens is about Bernie and if voters prefer another candidate it’s not about some sinister plot to bring Bernie down.
2
Bernie Sanders tantrum after the caucuses reinforce thst he is an inappropriate candidate who will once again hand Trump an election: go Bernie go!
Is he in truth another “Russian asset?”
How dare he condemn and criticize the DNC when he is not even a member of the party?
What is wrong with the Party that it permits someone who is not even a party member to participate in its nominating process?
Our country is doomed. 😢
6
@Edward Potter
What tantrum? I didn't see a tantrum.
I saw a candidate criticizing a bad process and claim that getting 6,000 more votes makes him the winner.
Biden complained about the process. Why wasn't that called a tantrum.
Just be fair. It's not that difficult.
4
@Edward Potter
The fact that your 'he's not a democrat' is only applied to Sanders who is more democrat than most democrats in ideology while not saying anything about an open Republican like Bloomberg who institutes racist policy policies exposes the empty smear you're trying to create.
The democratic party would do better without people that have no connection to the traditional working class ideology the democratic party comes from historically.
4
No need to recanvass the Iowa results.
The unanimous winner by knockout is Trump.
6
Lost in all this is the fact that Sanders is fundamentally right when he says it's an outrage that the debate rules were changed to accommodate Bloomberg. It's not a matter of discord or trying to get the Sanders supporters to calm down. It's a matter of basic fairness from anyone's perspective.
Sanders is also fundamentally justified in claiming an Iowa victory after Buttigieg did so on the basis of virtually nothing, thus grabbing headlines without any evidence to back it up.
Good journalism would look past the surface "discord" to examine the facts of the case on all sides.
56
@Pelham How is it an outrage? Bloomberg is polling at 10% nationally, well ahead of Buttigieg, Yang, and Steyer. Personally, I would like to see every major contender on the stage, so I have more information to make a decision. And it's not like Bloomberg asked them to change the rules. Bloomberg doesn't seem that interested in attending debates, since he could have easily done so by opening up small contributions.
2
@Phillip Vest
Changing the rules in the middle of the process cheats those that were left out of the debates before, and cheats those that spent precious resources to follow the rules.
Bloomberg is manipulating the rules just like he always does and just like Trump does.
I'd vote for any of the candidates that actually participated in the process.
If Republican Bloomberg is allowed to change the rules to suit himself, and wins the nomination, I will never vote for another Democrat.
I would vote for any of the candidates that followed the rules, but not Bloomberg the manipulator.
1
Musical chairs in Iowa dominated by bullies. No winners here because there is no message. Buttigieg is a smiley face gay guy, no message or chance to be elected at large. Sanders message is shock, "you don't like me, I don't care". Overturn, that's not a message. Warren had the message, "take the power away from corporations", but it is lost by the "no borders" mentality- that is political death in the US. We need an interim President. Someone to heal, while the Dems settle on a message that does not alienate voters that want border enforcement and public option health care. Biden may seem dull to radical Dems, but he is electable if not destroyed by his own party.
1
The DNC changes the debate rules, not just any change, but one that is fundamental, the one which indicates that a minimum donor level must be reached by each candidate to be allowed to debate, to a rule allowing one of the wealthiest men in America, Mike Bloomberg, onto the stage, with $50 billion in shekels, having announced he is paying for his own campaign, using zero donors.
This is Democracy in action ?? NO, this is the DNC doing what they said they would do, which is try to stop Bernie Sanders anyway and everyway they can, confirmed by John Kerry when he was overheard by an NBC reporter stating he would enter the race as well to "stop Bernie Sanders".
Well, newsflash - keep it up because every single effort by this corrupt corporate owned Republican-Lite Pelosi Schumer Biden Democratic Party, is causing all undecideds, and tens of millions of Americans to embrace Bernie Sanders and his people policies.
Bernie will be the nominee, the 46th President Elect, and our 46th President.
43
The Iowa caucus is an embarrassment to the Democratic Party. Their inability to run what should be a simple primary or caucus does not instill confidence in the party, especially in this important presidential election year. The Iowa Democratic Party should lose the right to hold the first Democratic primary in the country. Many other states deserve the opportunity to kick off the primary season.
6
@Teresa lane
Here are some questions for those that think Iowa was simply confusion and blundering:
1) Why was the highly regarded, all important, final Des Moines Register Poll - for the first time ever - not released just before Monday's election?
2) Why was an app used in Iowa created by ex-Clinton Alums?
3) Why was that app allowed to be tested by former Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook's consultancy?
4) Why did Pete Buttigieg's campaign (according to the Intercept) invest $42,500 in this app? Why did Pete with only 2% of the results known at the time declare himself the winner?
5) Why did IA Dems release PARTIAL results OMITTING Bernie strongholds giving Pete the media bump over Sanders for 3days?
6). Why is the DNC taking over vote count right before an initial final results can be given? (Satellite caucuses aren't included in the "100%" of precinct results which Sanders is widely considered to have won giving him a definitive victory).
Funny how the errors, omissions, and chaos always favor the establishment and their candidates.
3
In the background of NH another related development is playing out. In some ways, it foreshadows what is to come and will make much of what is going on in NH and Iowa less relevant.
Last night it was announced that the former secretary of the navy, Richard Spencer, who left office when he defied Trump by doing his job, will endorse Mike Bloomberg.
Spencer represents a military that attempts to uphold the tradition of playing by the book. He and his fellow officers found a Navy SEAL guilty of war crimes and wanted him removed. Trump and his goons intervened to support this criminal.
Spencer, a lifelong Republican who has never voted Democrat, is representative of millions of other Republicans and Independents who are disgusted with the crimes of Trump and his sycophants.
He has destroyed his career to uphold the law and like Mitt Romney deserves only praise.
This man is rallying veterans to support the man who will escort Trump and his toadies out of the WH ( hopefully in yellow jump suits) and usher in a new era where once again we can all be proud of our country and our leaders.
Mike Bloomberg, a former electrical engineer who parked cars to work his way through college, is the perfect person to bring us all together. He rose from nowhere to become the most beloved mayor of NYC over 12 years. Engineers solve problems. He has a long record of doing what needs to be done.
As usual, Mike will get it done.
14
@Simon Sez : Here's Bloomberg himself, on the record saying "Bernie would have beaten Trump, the polls said he would have walked away with it."
https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1225521979475648512?s=20
Go figure.
1
@Simon Sez
The Bloomberg groupie is back. My take is that Spencer represents a lot of Bloomberg cheerleaders (not necessarily Bloomberg himself) in that they like EVERY THING that Trump and the Republican Party are doing, every policy,except for Trump's dysfunctional and mentally ill behavior. There is only so much time that one can look at a naked emperor in denial. They are all basically Republican to the core and so Bloomberg is close enough for them.
3
@Simon Sez
Seems like maybe Mike should have stayed the Republican he was and primaried Trump directly instead of changing to a Dem. and trying to buy the presidency on this side.
Does the DP really want to go even farther Rightwards?
America and the world is toast.
By the by...what happened to Pete will get it done?
3
I read stuff like this, infighting, conspiracy theories, "enough is enough" outbursts, I won, you didn't, and I think, wow, it's politics in action. Nothing new here.
Sometime over the summer they'll be a Democrat nomination, and she or he will take the banner, and Democrats will rally around, and then the real work begins.
Defeat Trump.
8
Given that Sanders was close to 6,000 votes ahead, I guess Trump and Clinton were in a "dead heat" when the electoral college appointed him the president. What seem transparent is that there is no level to which the democratic leadership will not stoop to deny Sanders -- and the American people -- leadership. This is the awful smell of a dying republic.
27
The DNC has no credibility! Promoting Perez was a mistake. He is a terrible spokesman and face of the Democratic party. He should be replaced at once. Allowing Bloomberg into the debates ia another error and shows how desperate the Dems appear to be already! I say let it unfold without any corporate interference. Allow primary voters to select the nominee. Without at least the appearance of fairness it will be difficult to avoid the problems of 2016 and Trump must to be defeated.
15
What I don't understand is why so much weight is being put on a bizarre and antiquated method of selection. In a state of 3+ million people, literally only a hand full of eligible voters participate in this ludicrous process since a vast majority of eligible voters cannot spend the time milling around, walking back and forth in a room all day.
9
How could anyone with a rudimentary awareness of the caucus process and this chaotic breakdown conclude that its all a premeditated coordinated DNC plot against Bernie? Its also noteworthy that Don Jr has been pushing this narrative.
11
@Laume..."How could anyone with a rudimentary awareness of the caucus process and this chaotic breakdown conclude that its all a premeditated coordinated DNC plot against Bernie?"....Bernie supporters. That is what they did last time when Bernie lost convincingly in states where there were actual elections.
2
Finally the charade known as the Iowa caucuses is stripped bare for all to see. How absurd that our best candidates spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars in a state that promotes a buggy whip style electoral process and the voters didn't even show up!
7
A tempest in a teapot: the only people who need to be concerned about this is Iowans, it undermines their credibility as a bellwearher, which brings in a lot of money in a difficult season.
Burnie and Pete won the top spots of the dominant wings of their party. No dispute there. The edge, for what it is worth, goes to Saunders for his leads in the popular count. On to NH.
21
.Democracy is messy, dictatorship is not. There are two problems with the Iowa caucuses: (1) we should not begin in the process in the least diverse area of the country and (2) we should not try out a new app for counting votes on such an important election. All of that said, let’s move on and select the best candidate to trounce Trump.
8
The only hope left to the Democrats is tied to the integrity of our election process.
With demographic trends clearly going in favor of Democrats, the Republicans are not standing idly by. They are making every effort to make it difficult for minorities to vote. At least at the House level, they have gerrymandered their way into unfair districts (and, even with that, don't have a majority). They have filled the judiciary with kindred spirits, so that questionable moves they make, will be upheld by the courts.
And then comes Iowa! Do the Democrats need to help the Republicans taint the election process?
2020 may be the last chance the Democrats have. They can ill afford election chaos.
7
Definitely not excited to see how things play out from here.
Will America restore public confidence in its political systems, institutions, and processes? And reclaim its character?
The Democratic party has an opportunity to seize but can’t get out of its own way.
It’s not about healthcare, or taxing the rich, or immigration, it’s about showing that we have a plan to make government work.
4
I read here or somewhere else that if Sanders fails to get the nomination 45 percent of his supporters will not commit to voting for whoever the Democratic nominee is. Recall that the Green Party vote in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan deprived Clinton of those states and gave Trump the presidency.
Of course, if Sanders gets the nomination some moderates and independents will be lost to the Democrats. And Sanders, if he carried all of Clinton's states except Virginia (he's unlikely to win there) plus won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, would still be short of 270 electoral votes. Since Sanders favors a total ban on fracking, Pennsylvania is probably out of reach for him.
Amazing that a socialist who doesn't even belong to the Democratic Party can basically destroy its chances for beating Trump. Trump's chances are looking better and better. He may wind up with fewer votes than last time, but Trump threading the needle looks much more likely than the Democrats doing so. The Left gave us Bush-Cheney in 2000, Trump in 2016, and it now looks like they're going to do it again. Sad!
19
@Jon Harrison if only people would vote like we tell them to, eh?
11
@Jon Harrison : Here's Bloomberg himself, on the record saying "Bernie would have beaten Trump, the polls said he would have walked away with it."
https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1225521979475648512?s=20
The way to beat Trump is to inspire some of the 45% of voters who sat home in 2016. Only Bernie's young, energetic and inspired army can do that.
3
@Jon Harrison
I'm waiting for your speech about how Republican Bloomberg shouldn't be allowed to run, and shouldn't be allowed to change the rules to debate...
Apparently, Republican billionaires can be Democrats but not socialists.
3
The whole reason for Iowa going first is to start to provide clarity in an election as to who the people want to represent them. On that measure, this is an utter failure.
Given the dead heat between Sanders and Buttigieg on the fourth day after the caucuses, that failure is further amplified.
Given the party establishment’s machinations against Sanders in 2016, and maybe again in 2020, and his growing front runner status, this has potential to really blow things up.
7
"Mr. Buttigieg, however, still enjoyed a slight lead according to the Iowa Democrats’ complex formula for allocating delegates . . ."
After making this perfunctory acknowledgment, this article focuses almost exclusively on Bernie Sanders and Tom Perez. That of course is where the drama lies, but is there not an equally dramatic story to be told about Pete Buttigieg, a heretofore obscure, uncommonly mature, and supremely articulate candidate who has just made history in Iowa?
15
@Sandalwood Actually, if the sde errors are corrected, Pete loses the sde count by a whisker. Still, not bad for a CIA asset. Just don't mention Skull and Bones
6
Thanks to the NYT for trying to turn this into a Democrat problem. Iowa's process is the problem.
It excludes everyone who doesn't have several free hours on a work night. It requires physically moving around a room and manually placing cards in boxes. Even with a reporting "app" there is significant manual calculation of local precinct results before reporting. (What year is this?) There's a popular vote result and a delegate count result, with the local precinct awarding the delegates, not the IDC. No wonder it's been a mess for years. This convoluted system has shown widening cracks since 2012.
Iowa's "first and second choice" caucus concept could be approximated by ranked choice voting. It can be run like a regular voting day - or better yet - on a Saturday.
It would be less exclusive, more reliably tabulated, and give us accurate results.
26
Of course the many decades when the process worked really well don't count.
1
We are witnessing–and have been since 2016–the collapse of the old political order in the Western world that has its roots in the rise of neo-liberalism during the 1980s and the economic meltdown of 2008. Iowa shows us that this process is now reaching the Democratic Party as well. Understandably, many are afraid: change, after all, does not have be good, but could also worsen the situation. The liberal notion of inevitable progress is an illusion.
I, however, welcome this "organic crisis." The currently existing institutions have led to the Iraq War, a decline in life expectancy in the US, large parts of our fellow citizens drowning in debt, children in cages, genocide in Yemen, refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, a Trump presidency, and a planet on the highway towards ecological self-destruction.
Am I certain that the future will be better than the past? No. But there is no doubt that the status quo is leading straight into the abyss and radical change is the only hope we have. The DNC, among many other "old players," will not be missed.
19
@David,
This is the best and most succinct analysis I’ve read yet.
3
@David: Good points. But the roots go deeper than the rise of neoliberalism and the disasters it created. The United States was simply too rich and powerful when it emerged from WWII in 1945. It's almost impossible for any individual or nation so favored by circumstances to steer a steady course. For 20 years the US managed to avoid the worst, but eventually it stumbled into a war (Vietnam) that a less dominant power might have avoided. We are awash in debt because of our power: our currency is accepted by everyone, and so as a result all fiscal discipline has disappeared.
Iraq was not the first war of choice; Vietnam was, and the costs (in blood and treasure) went far beyond those of Iraq. The Sixties was the great turning point. The leading politicians in the Democratic Party were murdered, and no one rose to take their place. Look at the Democrats who ran for president between 1968 and 2008; all mediocrities. At the same time the Republican Party went through a transformation that has ended in Trumpism. We could get away with all of it because we are so rich and powerful. A normal country would have had to rein in its excesses.
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@Jon Harrison Fair enough, I certainly do not disagree with your points.
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Blame where blame is due.
1) Bernie demanded the rule change in caucus reporting, so he helped create this mess.
2) Republicans actively swamped the phone lines to deliberately sabotage the process.
3) The Iowa Democrats didn’t test the app.
The best thing about a breakdown is it provides an opportunity for a breakthrough. If we can overcome all this, we’ll inspire the world and we’ll win the White House.
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@James : agreed with all except #1. Bernie's demands are what created the critical visibility and transparency that enabled everyone to see how flawed that process is so we can figure out how to fix it.
In 2020, it's really not a stretch to reliably collect 30-50 bits of information from just 1700 locations. American Idol achieves 1000x that amount every week, perfectly in under 60 seconds.
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Maybe next year they will have a real primary with a paper ballet.
The problem is already done and will not go away.
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If you'll excuse me interfering in your election; why is Senator Sanders running in Democratic party primaries when he's not a member of the party. Shouldn't he run as an Independent?
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@Charles Coulthard charles, I'll explain. In the u.s. there is no viable third party. What you're saying is like me saying, well if you don't like the queen you should run for the position yourself.
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@Charles Coulthard I have wondered this myself. Any answers are appreciated!
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@Charles Coulthard Many democrats would also like to know the answer to this question.
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Not providing adequate training on the new technology imposed on rural Iowan boomers may have been a carefully laid plan to provide the leadership in the Democratic Party in Iowa with "plausible deniability" when they only released selective results nearly 24 hours after the caucuses took place.
Evo Morales may have done the same thing in Bolivia before he was overthrown in a military coup.
The only reason anyone would say that the results in the 87 satellite stations are the "most acute" problem is because these stations were set up to serve voters who could not attend the Monday night caucuses because of a scheduling conflict with their jobs. These satellite voters were overwhelmingly working class minorities...voters who were mobilized by the Sanders door to door campagn.
Therefore, the the satellite stations are "most acute." Here in North Carolina we have another term to this its called "voter suppression."
On the other hand I personally welcome the attendance of Bloomberg in the debate. It will be interesting the see the soft ball questions the press tosses into his lap.
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Sanders won Iowa. By all accounts he's won the popular vote in Iowa (the first time it's been made public), he's positioned to have the most delegates to the Iowa state convention and he's tied with Buttigieg for delegates to the national convention. The DNC needs to be VERY careful to not repeat the 2016 fiasco when it erected roadblocks to stop Sanders. VERY CAREFUL!
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@J Albers Whether Pete or Bernie "won" is pretty irrelevan t when it's this close. We aren't a bunch of six year olds.
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@Bridey Not irrelevant at all. Buttugieg sas declaring victory before the votes were counted. Sanders waited. Seems like Buttugieg was the 6 year old.
I oh so wanted a woman president just for the heart and soul to save our country but we have moved into another dimension and I am endorsing and voting for Bloomberg. He has the backbone to take on Trump and move McConnell back to the kids table and bankrupt the RNC and Citizen United. Go Bloomberg
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The Democrats have shot themselves in the feet so many times over the last three years they have no toes left. If instead of pursuing the impeachment charade they had devoted their efforts to fielding and nurturing a candidate who could heal the divided party and attract enough swing voters they might have had a chance in November. But not now. They've simply handed Trump an easy re-election victory.
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"the problem appears to be most acute in data from the 87 satellite caucuses, locations for Iowa Democrats who could not participate at one of the regular caucus locations. Those are locations at which the state party’s posted results show Mr. Sanders doing particularly well."
The "problem" appears to be most acute in locations where Mr. Sanders is doing particularly well.
As Tom Perez says, we should immediately recanvass only those locations where Mr. Sanders does particularly well.
See that? "Problem" solved.
Thank you to Mr Perez, (and his out-sized thumbs), for correcting the inaccurate scale we call elections.
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@ExPDXer
The same kind of thumbs the DNC has had on the scale for over 40 years, successfully rigging the results specifically to disenfranchise the poor and the middle-class.
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The significance of Iowa was getting an election-night bounce from being announced the winner on Monday night and into Tuesday morning and the rest of the week. The eventual delegate/vote count will have zero effect on who ultimately wins the nomination.
Pete Buttigieg seized that bounce by declaring himself the winner and moving on to New Hampshire while the Sanders campaign was still counting precinct totals. Even if, like Rick Santorum in 2012, Sanders is declared the winner three months from now, it won't have an impact.
The Sanders campaign needs to be quicker on its feet.
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@sthomas1957
Sanders was already in New Hampshire while Buttigeg was "seizing the bounce" in Iowa by falsly proclaiming himself the winner.
The Sanders campaign was still counting and photo/video documenting the precinct totals in case something should go wrong. Hmmm.
It's not ALL about the "bounce" and talking-points to feed the pundits — some of this has to do with honest counting of votes to see who was chosen by the people.
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@T.Remington. Honest counting of votes - no argument there. And you can spend the next six months canvassing each individual to see how he/she voted. It'll make not one whit of difference. The nominee will already be chosen in six months.
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@sthomas1957 "The Sanders campaign needs to be quicker on its feet".
Or.... "The Sanders campaign needs to operate on a level of dishonesty equal to or greater than the Buttigieg campaign". Which is the message you're conveying.
I guess dishonesty doesn't even merit disapproval anymore.
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Can we just stop with the Iowa caucus?? You are giving Trump all the ammo he needs to tell people the Democrats can't do anything. MOVE FORWARD. Admit that the caucus was botched, and leave it in the rear view mirror.
Democrats have an uncanny ability to yank defeat from the jaws of victory. We need to gather together and get this monster and his Republican sycophants out of Congress. Get your act together, Democrats, or we are looking at 4 more years of Trump and a 7-2 Supreme Court, not to mention the end of democracy.
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@JanTG : the reason we can't leave Iowa behind is because it has exposed the cheating and rigging within the Democrat party. The failed app was built by ex-Clinton people and funded by Pete's campaign (which is how he could declare victory before anyone else and before any results were officially published).
Bernie won the popular vote in Iowa but Pete won all the coin tosses for the delegates to "compensate" him for losing the vote. Many precincts which were Bernie-strong had their reporting delayed (despite their results being submitted long ago) in order to make the news cycle friendly to Pete.
This is highest level collusion, cheating and rigging by the DNC and the Iowa Dem Party. Unacceptable. That is why we have no choice but to fight tooth and nail for every vote and every delegate because the playing field is absolutely not level.
The DNC's strategy is to layer their men (yes, men): first Biden (oops, fail), then Pete (collusion and rigging in Iowa and now NH), then if that fails, a $billion bribe from Bloomberg to push his way to the front of the nomination without any of that annoying, you know, canvassing or get-out-the-vote stuff. Anything to stop Bernie's people movement.
The DNC would gladly, gladly lose to Trump before allowing a Sanders win because they like keeping their big bribes from corporations. How do you think Obama made so much money after leaving office (hint: he did their bidding, which was his real job).
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@Jake
Good grief. Stop the conspiracy theory histrionics.
It’s a dumb process amplified by untested technology. The IDP should have known better; they failed, and their chair should resign.
Easy solution: use ranked voting everywhere.
Bloomberg should be added to the debates. It doesn’t matter if his self funding obliterates the “rules.” He’s a serious candidate that should be vetted in that forum. When I see Bloomberg ads on public TVs Lubbock, TX, its time to acknowledge his reach.
Democracy is at times messy. The Dems at least want a democracy, as opposed to the autocratic desires of the GOP.
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If Biden falters and Bernie and Pete show no obvious champion, Mike Bloomberg is the obvious choice. If America wants the real deal in a business guy, he's that guy. He's run the nation's largest city for three terms, has valid liberal and philanthropic cred and has a self-made (not inherited) fortune that makes Trump look like a piker. He'd also blow Trump off in a debate like the poseur he is. Asked if Mike was willing to fight a "battle of the billionaires", he deadpanned "who's the other one?" All Trump could come up with on Mike was his diminutive stature (5'8", same as Putin) to which Mike could challenge him to compare how tall their piles of money. Democrats need to put aside their bias against the rich when Mike's billions make him invulnerable to donor anxiety. He's his own man. Maybe he should be America's as well.
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Bloomberg overrode term limits. We don’t need another power-hungry politician.
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I would vote for Bloomberg in a heartbeat. In fact if rumpled Bernie wins I’m writing in Bloomberg!
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@Jay S "Mike could challenge him to compare how tall their piles of money."
Who needs elections? Let's just find out who has more money.
It is well known that having more money makes you smarter, and more qualified.
So when is Bezos entering the race?
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To any and all who will be posting here...
When you read a comment that is inflammatory, something that brings out that "Those stupid (insert candidate name) supporters!!" response we need to stop.
What are the odds that the post is just disinformation? A little something to help sow division? Quite simply, these forums have become unreliable as a way to exchange ideas, show support, whatever.
Who is feeding the conspiracy theories? Who is making unsupportable claims? Nobody knows. We can all benefit from dealing with actual, factual issues and statements by our man/woman.
Do not feed into the opinions, deal with facts.
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Facts appear to be a rare commodity these days and certainly in Iowa, where simple math seems to be an insurmountable problem.
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@uwteacher
You are absolutely correct. It's unimaginable that there aren’t trolls who live in the comments section of articles like this. Their mission (job assignment?) is to sew discord and confusion...and plant misinformation. Please everyone, read, but read skeptically.
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“Across Iowa, Democrats formed a circular firing squad.”
Here’s a phrase we’ll be hearing again, with expanding geography.
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Dems shouldn't start a fight when Trump needs to be removed in November. Not smart
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Turmoil! Discord! Chaos! Muddled! Troubled! Dead heat! Mired in confusion!
Get hold of yourselves.
I just saw that you are raising your subscription rate by two dollars per month. So, I'm expected to pay more for fear mongering, is that it?
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@Third.Coast
Fear mongering?
I detect no fear mongering except when I look through the lens of extremist expectations such as with the sycophants of the Socialist candidate.
The rest of us are working to send an engineer, a person who loves to solve problems and does, a master manager to the WH.
Mike Bloomberg is the antidote to all this craziness and the only one who will unite this land and lead us back to sanity.
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@Simon Sez The Times is hyping normal events to make them seem abnormal and that makes me suspicious of the paper.
I think Bloomberg probably is the best candidate at this point. I had high hopes for a couple of others earlier and they didn't make the cut or couldn't get their message out. I figure, if you can't distinguish yourself in a crowd of 20 people, then you probably can't run a country of 300 million people. (The inverse is not automatically true...Trump stood out in a crowd and can't run the country. Instead, he has worked ceaselessly to hand over the country to corporations, lobbyists, cronies and spies.)
Regardless, I and millions of other people will make our choices in due time and we don't need the NY Times yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater.
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I’m Biden all the way but I would vote for Pete a thousand times over the rag tag socialist mob.
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@Mary Rivkatot : you should actually look at the policies of the "rag tag socialist mob". They're not socialist at all, they're just fighting for policies that FDR would have considered absolutely normal.
You need to apply the same "socialist" logic to billionaires and companies like Amazon that make billions in profits while paying zero in taxes. THAT's socialism, because your money and mine are paying for their security and infrastructure.
The oil & gas industry is subsidized by $5.3 trillion every year! EVERY SINGLE YEAR! THAT's socialism: https://bit.ly/3bhA10I
I don't want to pay $738 billion for defense (more money being stolen out of your pocket and mine) when every other country (including China and Russia) does it much cheaper. THAT's socialism.
Compared to the above corporate socialism, what Bernie is proposing is a drop in the bucket and it helps people who've been left out in the cold for the last 40 years. I don't mind paying for that.
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@Mary Rivkatot You might as well tell the "rag tag socialist mob" to just stay home on election day because you are certainly not going to win them over by insulting them. It's exactly your kind of attitude that dooms the Democratic party, it's that kind divisive mindset that makes it impossible for Democrats to come together to build a consensus. Nice job, I hope you are proud of yourself.
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@Mary Rivkatot please don't be afraid that implementing fair policies for Healthcare, childcare, public education, social services and fighting climate change will somehow benefit less deserving people at your expense. We will all benefit from Bernie's policies, I promise you.
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NYT articles about how much "turmoil" and "division" exist within America's politic parties for any given event are so mysterious to me. It will all be forgotten in a month.
For years we have had to read about Republican infighting. But it wasn't infighting at all -- it was a purge of the moderates, and now the Republicans are highly unified.
The same thing is happening to the Democratic Party now. The center is coming apart, and the media is doing everything possible to convince people that it's a bad thing. But it's not. When Bernie Sanders eventually wins the nomination (how strange to type this sentence), the Democratic Party will have already become something entirely else. And I think America needs that now more than ever.
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We need an Independent Party where the moderates can organize and safely ignore the screamers and chest thumpers on the left and on the right.
This 2party system has become dysfunctional.
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@N Bro If that happens, there will be a huge exodus of moderates from the party. Bernie is not the one to heal the divide in our party. Personally, I'd rather vote Republican than Socialist.
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@Nick Danger : The real socialism is already going to billionaires and firms like Amazon that make billions in profits while paying zero in taxes. THAT's socialism, because your money and mine are paying for their security and infrastructure.
The oil & gas industry is subsidized by $5.3 trillion every year! EVERY SINGLE YEAR! THAT's socialism: https://bit.ly/3bhA10I
I don't want to pay $738 billion for defense (more money being stolen out of your pocket and mine) when every other country (including China and Russia) does it much cheaper. THAT's socialism.
Compared to the above corporate socialism, what Bernie is proposing is a drop in the bucket and it helps people who've been left out in the cold for the last 40 years. I don't mind paying for that.
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Democrats ran a poor campaign in 2016 also. That's one of the reasons we now have a psycho sitting in the White house.
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@Seabrook
Really? HRC got lost to 3 million more votes than Trump. We also now know that the Russians interfered with the 2016 election and is doing the same again. Don't get me started on Facebook and its role in spreading disinformation and the gullibility of people to believe this information.
@Seabrook
The 2016 campaign was marked by foreign interference, voter suppression, the effects of Republican gerrymandering, the relentless propaganda run through Fox and the rightist media shops, the inertia of major media outlets, the spinelessness of the few honest politicians left in the GOP, and the Republican candidate’s brazen slander and general dishonesty, among a host of long-term institutional weaknesses of our system. Even so, the Democrats and their poor campaign won the popular vote, which says to me that most voters could see what Trump had on offer and didn’t want it. Trump is in office now because the Republican Party embraced him, threw their institutional power and money behind him, and used every electoral trick in their arsenal to support his candidacy. The Electoral College took care of the rest, and considering the tiny margins that gave Trump the win, who knows if those totals were trustworthy.
@Maggie Mae I agree,the Electoral College is archaic and should be done away with. Voters who basis their decision to vote on Face Book and/or any social media are a lost cause anyway. In my opinion Fox "News?" is a oxymoron
This is a very important, if not the most important Presidential election in our nation's history. But it isn't starting well for Democrats.
Right out of the gate we have no clear winner in Iowa, the Sanders camp already is alienated, Warren is looking foolish for not doing the math on what her social programs would cost and Biden is knee capped by Trump's Ukraine lies.
Who predicted this mess?
Mike Bloomberg.
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@Scott B Yep let Bloomberg buy the election.
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@Scott B : no, Bloomberg didn't predict this mess. This mess is entirely the Iowa Democratic Party's fault for having a very poor process in place with, frankly, questionable intent.
The app was and built by ex-Clinton people (who nobody trusts anymore because they're clearly not neutral) and funded in part by Pete's campaign. The app was of very poor quality and no-one knows what manipulation of results would have happened (at the behest of the centrists controlling it) under the hood. There were far too few staffers available to man the phone lines as a backup comms channel. The data could have been uploaded securely in many different ways (google sheets, dropbox etc) without needing a special app.
Mike Bloomberg was just given a free pass because of his money. Yet another way for the DNC to rig the system: they changed the rules to allow him to skip Iowa completely but didn't offer that option to anyone else.
Although I have great respect for Mike as a businessman and potential leader, how his money allowed him to cheat and push his way to the head of the line is absolutely unacceptable (boo DNC). We don't accept such behavior in the kindergarten lunch line and we absolutely cannot stand for it here.
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@Scott B Democrats are allowed to have close elections. It's one state - with an archaic system. 49 more states with better, more inclusive systems will decide the nominee.
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