Tuesday, February 4, 2020

 Okay, so a little insight into my day-to-day life. I am, at heart, a night owl and the sunshine bores the daylights out of me. Usually, my evenings breakdown into finishing this mess, having supper, taking a little nap, and waking up around 10 p.m. to spend a couple hours working, reading or playing a game.

 Still looking for writing/editing work, by the way. I work cheap, y'all give me a call.



 Anyhow, as I laid down for my evening nap, the Iowa caucuses were coming to a close. I woke up around 10 p.m. and all hell broke loose. Seems the weird way the caucuses are done got even screwier due to a app designed to help count the delegates turned out to be complete dud and workers were improperly trained in its use. No one knew what the hell was going on.

 Of course, Leftist Twitter blew a gasket and demonstrated how little they knew about goddamn anything. Conspiracy theories abounded and asses were shown all over. Things got even sillier when it was made known that candidate Pete Buttigeig had invested in the company that made the aforementioned app last summer. By the way, it was called "Shadow" and just why in the hell you would trust a voting app with that name is beyond me. But they did and here we are.

 And the press really didn't help matters. I'm about convinced most of the people who make up the current political press have never actually paid attention to a presidential election in their lives. Of course, the Bernie Sanders fanboys will never believe that their guy isn't the victim of dark dealings by the Democratic National Committee since he's not been just given the nomination. And since you can only write "things got screwed up so we don't know anything" so many times and people gots to get paid. It got a little silly before it was all over with.

 Of course, the supposed beneficiary of the DNC's supposed dirty dealings - which, by the way, has absolutely nothing to do with the Iowa caucuses - was supposed to be Joe Biden. Oddly enough, when things were shown to have fallen into disrepair, Biden was the only one to kick up nasty about how things went south. For his part, Buttigieg gave a vague speech that most folks thought meant he'd said he won, and it might have. That boy's a good politician, I'll give him that. Not saying he'll be an effective administrator but he does know how to lay down the shuck.

 So, sometime around midnight, the folks running Iowa announced they'd figure it out when the morning came around, which meant today, of course. It was all pretty stupid and embarrassing. Trump and the GOP have been gut laughing about it all day, and even though it wasn't really that big a deal - the election still has a ways to go - they weren't wrong that it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the Democratic party leadership. Of course, they're not bothering to mention that quite a number of state GOP officials have closed out any competition for Trump, basically giving him the nomination right out. Granted, he's got them and the base by the balls, but they really got no room to get too snooty.

 It also seriously damaged the credibility of the app in question - Nevada has announced it will look elsewhere - but it's done the whole concept of caucuses no good whatsoever. It sort of crapped on the whole concept that Iowa has to be first and that it's That Important, as well. As we've noted, the election still has a ways to go and when it all washes out, this kerfuffle probably won't amount to a hill of beans.

 They're still trying to figure things out as of 6 p.m. From what I gathered, they've got enough to make work for the time being and the candidates can move on to next week's normal vote in New Hampshire. And it should be noted, this really isn't anything new and caucuses have often been a sticky wicket in the past. Arguably, it's time for them to dump it before the next time, but that's not an argument for right now.

 Anyhow, it looks right now that Mayor Pete was right, as he came in first with 27%, squeaking out Sanders' 25%. Elizabeth Warren - who spent her post-caucus speech bashing Trump and the GOP, because she apparently knows who the end game is - snagged third at 18%. And Biden who pitched that fit about the foul-up got fourth at 16%. Amy Klobuchar rounded out the Top Five with 13%. No one else got past 1%. Sorry, Yang Gang.

 Right now, this means Buttigieg and Sanders have 10 delegates each while Warren has four. The rest get a pat on the back. By the by, these numbers will probably change once they get closer to a final count. Don't get too excited if they do, it ain't my fault.

 So, where are we now? Well, the full impact of the Iowa Caucuses won't be known for a while yet and, unless something gets weird, it won't really matter much when rubber hits the road. New Hampshire will have a larger impact because of Iowa not producing a commanding victor, same as it did in 1992 with Bill Clinton. Sanders won urban areas while Buttigieg snagged a lot of the rural vote most folks thought would go to Biden. Most of Andrew Yang's support seems to be from internet randos and not much else.

 But there's still a long, long way to go. Iowa has been the point where the election shears off everyone who aren't in it for the long haul - like Martin O'Malley in 2016 - but I don't see anyone bowing out just yet. Michael Bloomberg, for example, put absolutely no time into Iowa and is concentrating on New Hampshire for his first big push.

 This also tells us that all voting technology past pencil-&-paper ballots should be suspicious, but we've known that for 20 years. We've only got ourselves to blame that something like Shadow can still monkey up the works and we keep letting it happen.

 In any event, we've got a week to digest all that went on in Iowa yesterday and, right now, I really don't think it's going to tell us much. Despite the passion of his supporters and his undeniable success in bringing a more progressive voice to American politics, Sanders still has a bit of an uphill climb. Buttigieg is a fresh-faced all-American boy type, and if he does win the nomination how ugly Trump and the GOP are going to be about him being gay will be something. Warren could be a spoiler, Klobuchar could angle for a vice-presidential nod and Biden may have overestimated his chances for the third time.

 We'll see. And that's enough. I do have more, but this is all fairly exhausting so I'll just give some links and trust you to do what's right. In order, the stories concern Mississippi's government getting weird about who can run for election, natives in Canada trying to protect the land from an potential oil spill getting shafted, shenanigans concern Trump's dealing with Deutsche Bank, and an out-right horror story that proves how much bullshit most of the gun fetishism in this country really is.

 And the day still ain't over.