Tuesday, February 04, 2020
IOWA Democrat Caucus -- living up to the name!
IOWA: Idiots Out Wandering Around. We at Unforeseen Contingencies have never thought much of the Iowa party caucuses, and have grumpily voiced our displeasure, e.g. here, here, and here. The Iowa caucuses are weird affairs in which Iowans assemble by party in high school gymnasiums and move around in sort of musical chairs fashion, going from one candidate group to another, keeping tally of how many are in each group. And when they eventually tire of this, they award convention delegates to presidential candidates according to arcane rules that include coin tosses. No one outside of Iowa has any idea of what is happening or why Iowa, of all places, should be the kickoff for the selection of party nominees. But Iowans have always seemed inordinately proud of their caucuses... until now. The Iowa Democrat Party has managed to make an utter shambles of their caucuses (the Republican ones seemed to go quite smoothly) and has very possibly ended the caucuses for good. Better yet, they've sown tremendous discord in the party.
The Iowa caucuses are a travesty, utterly ridiculous and non-serious. I served as an election judge in Montana. We were carefully trained to keep things honest and fair, required to take an oath to uphold the Constitution and the law, and, when we supervised voting in the primary, we maintained security with multiple checks and we oversaw each other. It was a careful process. I've voted in primaries here in Michigan and it's the same. It's serious business.
In Iowa, they move around from chair to chair, someone scrawls a count on a legal pad, if they decide to call it a tie someone flips a coin... That all sounds ridiculous, but then the Democrat plan was to send results in by means of a proprietary cell phone app. And if that didn't work, there was a backup plan to call a hotline with results. You're kidding. Unbelievable. Read my story about Montana and then compare to this Iowa joke.
As it turned out, neither the app nor the hotline worked. My favorite moment in the debacle came when CNN's Wolf Blitzer was interviewing a frustrated caucus leader who had been on hotline hold for an hour. In the midst of the interview, Democrat HQ suddenly answered his call...and promptly hung up before he could respond. What a beautiful thing to broadcast nationwide. Too bad no one watches CNN. Heh!
At present (8:03 PM EST, 4 Feb.) it appears Pete Buttgig and Comrade Sanders are effectively tied. Pocahontas Warren is third, frontrunner Joe Biden is in fourth, and Rosa Klebb is in fifth. Rumors abound that Hilliary Clinton and Mayor Pete helped finance the app that failed. Sanders and Biden appear to be crying foul; they were already upset over the obvious sabotage of their campaigns by the DNC's decision to change the rules and allow Mini Mike Bloomberg to enter the next debate (after ejecting Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard, Deval Patrick, et al. for insufficient popular support!)
Bernie Sanders and his supporters were clearly screwed over in 2016. It's happening again. Here's Michael Moore at a rally for comrade Bernie, absolutely livid at what the DNC is doing. Of course, Comrade Sanders isn't even a member of the Democrat Party, so it's understandable that this is happening. But this promises to make the 2020 Democrat campaign quite a show!
The Iowa caucuses are a travesty, utterly ridiculous and non-serious. I served as an election judge in Montana. We were carefully trained to keep things honest and fair, required to take an oath to uphold the Constitution and the law, and, when we supervised voting in the primary, we maintained security with multiple checks and we oversaw each other. It was a careful process. I've voted in primaries here in Michigan and it's the same. It's serious business.
In Iowa, they move around from chair to chair, someone scrawls a count on a legal pad, if they decide to call it a tie someone flips a coin... That all sounds ridiculous, but then the Democrat plan was to send results in by means of a proprietary cell phone app. And if that didn't work, there was a backup plan to call a hotline with results. You're kidding. Unbelievable. Read my story about Montana and then compare to this Iowa joke.
As it turned out, neither the app nor the hotline worked. My favorite moment in the debacle came when CNN's Wolf Blitzer was interviewing a frustrated caucus leader who had been on hotline hold for an hour. In the midst of the interview, Democrat HQ suddenly answered his call...and promptly hung up before he could respond. What a beautiful thing to broadcast nationwide. Too bad no one watches CNN. Heh!
At present (8:03 PM EST, 4 Feb.) it appears Pete Buttgig and Comrade Sanders are effectively tied. Pocahontas Warren is third, frontrunner Joe Biden is in fourth, and Rosa Klebb is in fifth. Rumors abound that Hilliary Clinton and Mayor Pete helped finance the app that failed. Sanders and Biden appear to be crying foul; they were already upset over the obvious sabotage of their campaigns by the DNC's decision to change the rules and allow Mini Mike Bloomberg to enter the next debate (after ejecting Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard, Deval Patrick, et al. for insufficient popular support!)
Bernie Sanders and his supporters were clearly screwed over in 2016. It's happening again. Here's Michael Moore at a rally for comrade Bernie, absolutely livid at what the DNC is doing. Of course, Comrade Sanders isn't even a member of the Democrat Party, so it's understandable that this is happening. But this promises to make the 2020 Democrat campaign quite a show!
