Only in America and only in Iowa could you have four different people
making victory speeches when only two people won.
First was Marco Rubio
stealing every line possible from Trump and Cruz as he profusely thanked the Iowa voters for helping
him do the impossible against all odds.
Odd thing is he only finished third but he had a plane to catch to New Hampshire so he was
pressed for time.
Then it was the actual GOP
winner Ted Cruz and before he was halfway through the victory speech out came
Hillary Clinton and the networks cut to her while cutting off Cruz.
Hillary gave a fiery and
almost mad speech stealing every line possible from Bernie Sanders while
hugging Chelsea and Wild Bill before running off to catch her plane for New Hampshire as if she had enough of the Iowa voters. Since she was still in a dead heat at the
time and no news network predicted she would win, it seemed a bit audacious and
bizarre.
Bernie Sanders followed
Hillary, although he did not claim a voting victory, but certainly was
justified in claiming a great moral victory against the Clinton machine. By the time all four victory speeches were
done there was still just one winner and one dead heat.
What did we learn from the Iowa experience?
In terms of strategy, Cruz
was best with his 12,000 volunteers who got him the victory. Next best was Rubio who targeted just five of
the ninety-nine Iowa
counties and still managed to finish third breathing down the neck of The
Donald.
Trump stunned the news
media when he also spoke and gave a gracious and humble three-minute thank you
to the Iowa
voters, with nary a nasty word uttered.
As of the morning after there were still no nasty Tweets from Trump, an
eerie silence.
In the Iowa Caucus only one
winner since 1972 then won the presidency, Barack Obama in 2008, not much of a
record of success over a forty-four year period. It was the same with Republicans as just
George W. Bush in 2000 won since 1976.
As for the Republican
vote, it went like this.
Ted Cruz 51,666 28%
Donald Trump 45,427 24%
Marco Rubio 43,165 23%
Records Broken
The top three GOP
finishers all broke the record for the most votes in Iowa GOP caucus history,
quite a remarkable feat.
The total Republican vote
of 186,295 shattered the previous GOP record of 121,503 while 171,109 Democrats
voted, well below the 240,000 Obama drew in 2008. In fact, this may have been one of few times
more Republicans than Democrats voted in the Iowa primary, perhaps not so good
a sign for the Democrats in terms of new voter registration and turnout
potential this year.
Bernie Sanders won the
youth vote, age 17-29, by an astonishing 84% to 14% for Clinton , also a bad sign for the Democrat
frontrunner. Most notable in the GOP
race was a significant increase in the Evangelical voters, the Cruz base. It totaled about 64% of the GOP voters, but
Cruz, Trump, and Rubio split the vote evenly.
Cruz and his highly
proclaimed Iowa
organization delivered as did Rubio and his five-county strategy. As for Trump, he may need to beef up his
ground organization in future primaries but for his first election effort and
considering all the anti-Trump media for the past nine months, it was quite
respectable.
.