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In Iowa, Candidates Claim Participation Credit
If no one wins, everyone wins. Wait, what?
In lieu of actual timely caucus results in Iowa, many top Democrat presidential candidates claimed credit for their performance without knowing what it actually was. Mayor Pete: “By all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.” Amy Klobuchar “We are punching above our weight.” Bernie Sanders: “when those results are announced, I have a good feeling we’re going to be doing very, very well here in Iowa.”
Major Garrett on CBS News Live pointed out the incredible failure of the Iowa Democrat Party to count votes and communicate the tally to the public: “This is political malpractice.” Flummoxed, Garrett envisioned a Republican attack ad where Republicans would say: Democrats can’t even count votes in Iowa, why would you trust them with your healthcare?
Garrett’s most searing criticism cut to arguably the largest cultural difference between Trump and the Democrats, the idea of the participation trophy. Garrett repeatedly accused the Democrat candidates of claiming participation trophies before leaving Iowa behind. Garrett asked what the Iowa Caucuses gave us. And the answer? Nothing. Just like a participation trophy, a symbolic victory is not a real victory no matter how presented.
Maybe the New York Times double endorsement was prescient. Democrats, apoplectic about Trump, appear leaderless, inept, and Utopian. So far, a former Republican gives them one of their best chances at recapturing the presidency. If Democrat candidates’ arguments to replace Trump sound most strongly in notions of superior competence, then the Iowa Democrat Party’s bungling of the caucuses undermines their candidates’ credibility. This is a true Will Rogers moment for Democrats.
If no one wins, but every Democrat thinks they won, then Trump can more easily defeat a divided Democrat party.
Published in General
Boomer rube.
You’re right, but the whole truth is stupider still. Bernie offered his surrender in advance, when he announced on the debate stage that he was tired of hearing about the “damned emails.”
Some will figure it out, but others will double down and join a communist or socialist party.