Tag Archives: Iowa

national news, political news

Trump was the biggest loser

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Donald J. Trump doesn’t like to be called what he calls others.

Loser.

This morning, though, he is.

The real estate mogul/reality TV personality finished second last night to Ted Cruz in the Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa. Cruz the Carpet Bomber knocked Trump down to second place by 3 or so percentage points.

It might be that Trump’s larger embarrassment — if he’s capable of feeling it — is that third-place finisher Marco Rubio damn near caught him.

Two junior U.S. senators — Cruz from Texas and Rubio from Florida — put Trump into a kind of a political fecal sandwich, which ought to have taken some of the swagger out of Trump’s campaign strut.

Ought to, yes?

Well, time will tell us pretty quickly whether it did.

Trump is heading to New Hampshire to carry on his GOP primary campaign, right along with Cruz, who vanquished him in Iowa and Rubio, who almost did.

I still don’t believe Rubio should have sounded so, um, victorious last night as he crowed about his third-place finish. Cruz and Rubio still finished ahead of him.

However, there are ways to spin this in a way that should give Trump plenty of pause as he marches on.

I am not going to speculate on what might have caused Trump’s failure to finish first, which he all but guaranteed. His stiffing of the Fox News debate? His phony pandering to evangelicals? His continuing insults to just about anyone who disagrees with him? The absolute absence of a sophisticated policy — on anything?

It might be one of those things. Or all of them. Or, perhaps, none of them. There might have been just a visceral dislike for a guy whose glitzy New York style just doesn’t play well with the corn-fed Middle Americans who comprise Iowa’s voting  population.

The next chapter in in this saga is about to unfold.

On to New Hampshire!

political news

HRC really is going to 'hit the road'

I do not intend to comment on every little thing Hillary Rodham Clinton does as she launches her second bid for the presidency of the United States, but this development is rather intriguing.

She’s driving — actually riding — in a van to Iowa.

No fancy jet. No limo. A van.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/hillary-clinton-2016-hits-the-road-116911.html?hp=t2_r

This might be a sign of her attempt to connect with everyday Americans, folks who perhaps really and truly understand what it means to be “dead broke,” or those who struggle meet monthly financial obligations.

Clinton’s announcement Sunday that she’s running for president has been seen as wildly different from when she declared her candidacy for the 2008 Democratic nomination.

It was the absence of the letter “I,” as in the first-person pronoun that so many politicians are prone to use. Commentators noted today that she didn’t even mention herself until about halfway through her remarks. Might that, too, be a sign of newfound humility? OK, it well might be stagecraft, calculated to make observers like yours truly take note.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is fraught with some unique characteristics. Perhaps the most unique — as some have noted — is that she’ll have to put distance between herself and not just one president, but two: the current president, Barack Obama, and the man to whom she’s been married for nearly 40 years, Bill Clinton.

President Obama is now heading into the final turn of his time in office and he’s seeking to build his legacy. Former President Clinton remains arguably the nation’s most recognizable and political force of nature. It’s that relationship and its proximity to the Hillary Clinton’s campaign that presents the most potential trouble.

Hillary Clinton will have to demonstrate she’s her own woman, with her own ideas, world view and that she cannot  be overshadowed by the Democrats’ Big Dog.

But hey, first things first.

She’s going to climb into that van and ride through the Midwest to Iowa. It’s time to connect with folks out here in Flyover Country.

 

national news, political news

Iowa in January awaits ex-Gov. Perry

Ah, yes. Nothing says “vacation” quite like Iowa in the middle of winter.

That’s where the former governor of Texas is headed days after leaving the office he’s held longer than anyone in the history of the state.

Rick Perry is going to Iowa not for a little sight-seeing or some R&R, but to take part in a rally among conservative politicians — of which he is one.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2014/12/perry-slates-iowa-trip-after-leaving-office/

He’ll be attending the Iowa Freedom Summit. Its host is fiery conservative U.S. Rep. Steve King, the guy who once said that illegal immigrants with “calves the size of cantaloupes” are smuggling drugs into the United States. That, folks, appears to be one of the leaders of the conservative Republican movement these days.

Gov. Perry is going to be there, too. I guess he’s continuing to explore whether to run for president — again — in two years. Iowa, remember, is the first-in-the-nation state that holds those nominating caucuses that begins selecting the parties’ nominees for president.

He won’t be alone at this dog-and-pony show. Several other would-be candidates for president will be there as well: Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and ex-Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. The most interesting attendee of the bunch will be retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson — whose name I’ve seen on a couple of presidential campaign bumper stickers here in Amarillo.

I’ll hand it to Perry. He’s not going to slow down even after leaving office. I’d recommend, though, he take a vacation. Rest up. Then get ready to go one more time, governor.