{"id":12730,"date":"2016-02-02T13:52:23","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T13:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12730"},"modified":"2016-02-02T13:52:23","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T13:52:23","slug":"nice-seeing-you-iowa-on-to-new-hampshire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12730","title":{"rendered":"Nice seeing you, Iowa; on to New Hampshire!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"iowa_caucus\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve just shaken the dust loose from a night’s sleep and discovered the results of last night’s Iowa caucuses.<\/p>\n

Two things jump out at me.<\/p>\n

First, Ted Cruz’s<\/strong> victory well might be a hollow one for the Republican Party.<\/p>\n

Second, Hillary Clinton<\/strong> didn’t win a thing last night.<\/p>\n

Cruz thumped Donald J. Trump — yes, thumped<\/em> — with a pretty convincing victory in the Republican caucus. Sure, a 4-point win isn’t yuuuge<\/em> in conventional terms, but this ain’t a conventional election season.<\/p>\n

Trump has boasted all those glowing poll numbers and all but guaranteed — a la Broadway Joe — a victory. His two-minute concession speech last night spoke volumes, though, about what happened.<\/p>\n

The evangelical vote turned out for Cruz. They came “home” to Cruz, who’s really one of them, unlike Trump, who pretended<\/em> to be one of ’em.<\/p>\n

Why might a Cruz win in Iowa portend trouble for the GOP? He is a patently unlikable man, according to those who work with him in the U.S. Senate. He seems like a dedicated family guy; he might even be someone you’d want to talk to informally.<\/p>\n

However, he talks a bit too brazenly about “carpet bombing” the Islamic State and putting “boots on the ground” in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

OK, he makes me uncomfortable. That’s clear. It’s my own bias, which I admit to readily.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton’s victory declaration was hollow.<\/a><\/p>\n

Clinton declared victory. Is that right? How can she do that? She was tied with Bernie Sanders in the Democratic caucus.<\/p>\n

If anyone can declare a “moral victory,” it would be Sanders, the indy\/Democrat from Vermont who once trailed Clinton by a zillion percent in the polls. Yet he finished with nearly as many votes and delegates as she did.<\/p>\n

Sanders now takes his “big mo” to New Hampshire, which is next door to Vermont. He’ll win\u00a0there. Then the road show heads for South Carolina.<\/p>\n

Clinton had better hope she keeps Sanders within sight as they move into the Deep South. She’ll need the African-American vote to put her over the top as the campaign then moves into some serious regional primary contests, which include Texas, in early March.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I was hoping some of the other Republicans would do better. I am pulling for John Kasich to snap out of it; I once had hope that Jeb Bush might get ‘er goin’.<\/p>\n

Oh yes, Marco Rubio? He declared victory, too, on the GOP side. He finished third. But that was good enough in young Marco’s mind to declare that he’s the man to beat.<\/p>\n

Memo to Marco: You have to get more votes and delegates than anyone else to make that claim.<\/p>\n

One final thought: All this analysis of Iowa might not matter.<\/p>\n

If the Iowa caucuses are supposed to gauge the mood of the country, then we would have had President Huckabee or President Santorum watching all of this from the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

It’s a marathon, folks. The candidates have just made the first turn.<\/p>\n\n

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I’ve just shaken the dust loose from a night’s sleep and discovered the results of last night’s Iowa caucuses. Two things jump out at me. First, Ted Cruz’s victory well might be a hollow one for the Republican Party. Second, Hillary Clinton didn’t win a thing last night. Cruz thumped Donald J. Trump — yes, … Continue reading Nice seeing you, Iowa; on to New Hampshire!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[597,1424,2139,5347,2892,3261,5924,4537],"class_list":["post-12730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-bernie-sanders","tag-donald-trump","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-iowa-caucuses","tag-marco-rubio","tag-new-hampshire-primary","tag-south-carolina-primary","tag-ted-cruz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12730"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12734,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12730\/revisions\/12734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}