Showing posts with label evangelicals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evangelicals. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

The Iowa Caucus - What did we learn?

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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%


Carson at 9% and Paul at 5% rounded out the top five of the twelve GOP candidates.  No other candidate received more than 3% of the vote.  It is interesting to note that Rand Paul beat all four GOP candidates who were former governors, while two former winners of the Iowa caucus, Huckabee and Santorum, got just 2% and 1% respectively.

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.

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Friday, August 15, 2008

McCain Ad Says Obama the Anti-Christ - Blows Biblical Revelations Prophecy


Just when you thought the political advertising in this years presidential slash and bash campaign could sink no lower McCain comes out with a stunner that even the Evangelical voters find a bit too much to stomach.

The whiz geezers (they sure aren't whiz kids doing this stuff) in the McCain camp released a new spot identifying Obama as "the One", which in Biblicalese means the Anti-Christ, as a warning to Americans that I guess we are falling into the lure of Satan.

After watching our financial institutions and government leaders the past few years I figured long ago we fell under Satan's influence and I am glad McCain clarified what God really meant with that whole revelations thing.

Of course in Revelations the Anti-Christ seduces the people into following him as he sets out to clean up the world and the people have no idea their Savior is really the Anti-Christ. So if McCain is right about Obama, then McCain screwed up the whole Revelations prophecy by telling us ahead of time. How could we be unsuspectingly seduced by the Anti-Christ when we already know the dude?

People have been waiting a few thousand years for the End Times to get it on and now that McCain has ruined the prophecy does that mean we have to wait a few thousand more years before our next window of opportunity? Come on man, why spoil all the fun of the End Times like that?

McCain people say he was just kidding with the ad, they didn't really mean to alarm all those righteous Christians that don't like McCain and might vote for Obama. Now, if there is a "race" card in this campaign is there also a "religious" card to be played? So many cards have already been played this election from gender bender to old geezer cards that I'm about to start a deck burning campaign to rid the nation of politically correct crap cards.


So was McCain also kidding when he wrecked five Navy planes, a key element in his "experience" to be commander in chief? Actually he only wrecked three, two others were shot down.

There was the plane crash in Corpus Christi Bay practicing landings. The crash into the power lines in the Mediterranean flying too low. He said he was over the Iberian Peninsula, which really means Spain. Then he crashed a jet returning from an Army-Navy football game.

Finally, there was the first time he was shot down when he was waiting on the deck of the USS Forrestal aircraft carrier to take off and a rocket was accidentally fired and hit his plane causing an explosion that tragically killed 134 sailors, destroyed 20 aircraft and nearly sank one of the largest ships in the world. All this before the surface to air missile shot him down over Hanoi.

So that means McCain's commander in chief experience which resulted in 28 medals came from 23 combat missions in Vietnam, a total of 20 hours of flying over enemy territory. Now that is a heavy metal experience but tens of thousands of Vietnam vets spent thousands of hours in enemy territory and instead of a trophy case full of medals they got Agent Orange.


So if the Obama Anti-Christ ad was just "kidding around" and the slew of wrecked jets was just kidding around along with the commander in chief war record credentials is there any reason in the world to take McCain serious? I hope so because he's made a lot of promises that we know about not to mention all the promises he may have made we don't know about.

Now, as for the End Times, McCain should stop meddling in Revelations and start telling us what makes him different from the Anti-Christ. He should stand in the pulpit of truth and stop telling jokes if they were really jokes and not merely provocative, subliminal, hate-baiting ads selling lies.

Will November ever come?