All the markers pointed to Donald Trump winning the Republican caucuses in Iowa. So when he didn’t, it puts him in a pickle. Not one to be content with second place, how does he bow out without looking like a loser? Or could he really be in this for the long haul?
The real surprise was that despite all the ways Trump insulted Iowans — “They’re clueless,” “Sore losers,” “Looks like too much corn affects the brain,” — he was not run out on a rail. That’s Midwest nice for you.
That Ted Cruz won did not come as a surprise for us Midwesterners.
Iowans, much like Kansans, are tailor-made for Cruz: Ultra-conservative, predominately white, who carry a penchant for puritanical tirades, if only as a means of self-flagellation.
And Marco Rubio’s equally strong showing came as a welcome relief.
In Iowa, at least, the outcome was a three-man race. Cruz secured eight delegates, Trump and Rubio, seven apiece.
AS FOR the Democrats, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton finished neck-and-neck, with Clinton eking out the win by less than 1 percent.
The candidacies of all three — Cruz, Trump and Sanders — can be credited for bringing the voters out of the woodwork. More than 180,000 Iowans participated in the caucuses, a 50-percent jump from 2012.
By taking extreme positions, these three are attracting the disaffected.
Sanders wants to tackle the huge disparities between the wealthy and the rest of us by promising Wall Street, if not already, will be his arch enemy.
Trump, meanwhile, taps into those same insecurities by saying he’ll build a “beautiful wall” to keep out immigrants, who he claims are taking our jobs.
And when Cruz shut down the government in 2013 in protest of the Affordable Care Act, he colored himself as a renegade.
All tactics are simplistic, and hence, effective messages that feed off a sense of class warfare.
Are their income disparities and do they need to be addressed? Of course. But rather than promising a socialist revolution, Sanders is more effective by sticking to his tax plan.
And for those who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, job training programs seem a more productive path than by walling off immigrants, who include, after all, children and grandparents, not to mention scientists, physicians, and others whose skills would be a credit to any country.
OUTSIDERS say we’ve lost our marbles.
Compared to other industrialized nations the United States is faring far better by evidence that unemployment is at a 15-year low, violent crime is down, more U.S. citizens have health insurance than ever before; interest rates remain low; and our economy has regained its prominence among its global peers.
But good news doesn’t stoke the fires.
On to New Hampshire.
— Susan Lynn
