WASHINGTON – By now you’re sick to death — and who wouldn’t be — of hearing about the results of the Iowa caucuses. Rather than offer a respite to all the political talk, this column will follow its usual practice of piling on.
It comes at a semi-momentous moment – Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, the commonwealth’s favorite son, threw in the towel on his own presidential aspirations on Wednesday, not that anyone noticed. So below is an interview I conducted with, well, myself.
BILL I: So, let’s first address the elephant who no longer is in the room – Sen. Rand Paul. You heard he’s abandoning his presidential campaign?
BILL II: Yes and I’m so mad I could spit. The nerve of that guy, quitting just before I was going to write my column, wasting all the surefire one-liners I had saved up, like wondering if he was remaining in the race so he could finish ahead of Harold Stassen next time. How rude. Oh well, it’s a frustrating trade sometime.
BILL I: Well, sorry for your loss, but what do you think?
BILL II: It was inevitable, in fact it should have happened sooner to keep him from wasting people’s time and money, something he complains about the federal government doing all the time.
Looking back, Paul had a very narrow window despite his early front-runner status and praise that he was the most interesting man in politics, which is like being the prettiest man in the Willie Robertson family. Libertarianism, despite his efforts and the efforts of his father, Ron Paul, remains a boutique viewpoint, particularly the way he practices it, mixed in with good ole social conservatism so that it’s hardly recognizable. He couldn’t raise the necessary dough and he more than anyone else was plowed under by the Donald Trump juggernaut.
Basically, folks were willing to give him a listen at the outset but left unimpressed. There’s nothing he really did wrong, he just got lost in the crowd and couldn’t find the Rosetta stone that would allow him to break out. People were curious, took a gander and decided he wasn’t presidential timbre, which is pretty damning when you consider these same people took a look at Trump and decided they could see him in the Oval Office, God save us.
BILL I: You brought up Trump, who was favored in the Iowa caucuses but finished a disappointing second, behind Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, with Sen. Marco Rubio nipping at his heels. He’s done for?
BILL II: Everyone – voters, pundits, reporters, everyone – tends to overrate the impact of the Iowa caucuses, I think. Iowa is the first step but it’s the first step in a process that takes in all the states, the District of Columbia and even the territories. In order to capture the GOP presidential nomination a candidate must win the support of 1,237 delegates at the Cleveland convention. Cruz has eight. Trump has seven and it’s very possible he will run off three in a row now – New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada – giving him the opportunity to assert that reports of his demise were premature.
What Iowa does, frankly, is really begin the weening process. Mike Huckabee dropped out before the votes were tallied. Paul dawdled but he was gone two days later. New Hampshire will offer the coup de grace for others like Carly Fiorina – yeah, she’s still out there for some reason – and Rick Santorum – although operating a worthless presidential campaign has become something of a family business for him. Iowa gets the field down to a manageable number but that’s about all.
BILL I: So what happened to Trump?
BILL II: Poor organization, poor ground game. Say what you want about Cruz, he had the best operation pure and simple. Iowa is all about showing up – the caucus system can be a pain in the neck and a lot of people just skip it. Cruz had the best get-out-the-vote effort – something many candidates ignore at their peril – and had the thing wired better than anyone else. It’s speculation, but if Iowa had a primary instead of a caucus, Trump could have come out ahead.
It’s fair to say, however, that Iowa exposed chinks in Trump’s armor. He basically has no professional political infrastructure. It’s just him out there blubbering and drooling and waving his arms around and people are reacting to the moment. When time comes he has no system to get those embracing his message to the polls.
At the same time, national polls show Trump leading the field by about 10 points, meaning he’ll likely pick up a fair share of delegates somewhere along the line. But he should be concerned that poor organization will be a further impediment, and he may have hit the ceiling attracting supporters endorsing his brand of foolishness.
BILL I: Trump still has a lot of competition. Rubio appears to be on the rise.
BILL II: I’m frankly fascinated by those pushing the Rubio narrative. All the polls heading into the Iowa caucuses had him coming in third place behind Trump and Cruz. You know where he finished? Third place behind Trump and Cruz. Somehow, the pundits have twisted this around to make Rubio the big winner of the night, number one with a bullet.
Rube Goldberg couldn’t have twisted facts around any better. Yes, his percentage of the vote was higher than anticipated but he still finished third and has a long way to go.
Look at it this way. The three candidates you might consider anti-establishment on the GOP side – Cruz, Trump and Dr. Ben Carson – grabbed 61.2 percent of the vote. Give Rubio, the establishment candidate, all the rest of the voters and he still only gets 38.8 percent. Hell, give him Carson’s totals and it’s still under 50 percent.
Rubio entered the contest as the top contender among the Republican establishment candidates. He solidified that position in Iowa and picked up seven delegates. He’ll certainly pick up some of the 1,230 delegates he needs for the nomination but where are the rest going to come from in the nation’s anti-establishment mood? He’s the pretty boy in the field but he’s got math problems.
BILL I: So that leaves us with Cruz?
BILL II: Yes and no. Look at the map and Cruz is probably best positioned. On March 1, Super Tuesday, 15 states, most of them below the Mason-Dixon line, select their delegates. Would anyone be surprised if Cruz won Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia and – the big kahuna – his home state of Texas that day? And he’d have a halfway decent shot at Alaska, North Dakota and Wyoming.
At this juncture, there’s no reason to believe Trump, Cruz or Rubio won’t stick around until the bitter end. Cruz, Kasich and others will pick up a handful along the way. I just don’t see a way one of these guys get the 50 percent plus one of the delegates needed to grab the nomination.
That would be quite a haul. But here’s where things get complicated. Under GOP rules, all those Super Tuesday delegates will be awarded on a proportional basis. So Cruz could get, say, 50 percent of the vote in Texas but he’ll only get half of the state’s 155 delegates. The other guys still playing – Trump, Rubio, maybe Carson, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Florida Gov. JEB! Bush and whoever else might be hanging around, will divvy up the rest according to their votes totals.
In other words, Cruz looks to be in the best position. But I don’t see him hitting the 1,237 magic number.
BILL I: So you’re suggesting a brokered convention?
BILL II: I’m doing more than suggesting it. I’m citing it as the most likely outcome. Consider this in addition to everything else: Kasich has spent a lot of time in New Hampshire and is expected to do well. He’s currently running around third with Trump holding a commanding lead. Say he decides to stay in the race until March 15 – the Ohio primary – and picks up a hefty portion of the 66 available delegates. That leaves even fewer available for the big three.
At this juncture, there’s no reason to believe Trump, Cruz or Rubio won’t stick around until the bitter end. Cruz, Kasich and others will pick up a handful along the way. I just don’t see a way one of these guys get the 50 percent plus one of the delegates needed to grab the nomination. The three top dogs all have their own substantial niche. Too substantial for a clear outcome.
BILL I: So who gets the nomination?
BILL II: Heck if I know. I doubt it will be Trump. The GOP regulars will try to throw it toward Rubio, but what if Trump responds by throwing his delegates to Cruz? Or what if they settle on a compromise candidate?
It could be a political reporter’s dream.
BILL I: We haven’t even mentioned the Democrats, who also appear in disarray. Can you say President Bernie Sanders?
BILL II: I honestly don’t believe it’s going to come to that. Sanders has done a remarkable job generating excitement for his candidacy. He essentially tied with Hillary Clinton in Iowa and he may wipe the floor with her in New Hampshire. But then the nomination process opens up and it’s hard to come up with a scenario that upsets the Clinton apple cart. He would have to do something like win California, an unlikely prospect, and even that might not be enough.
I don’t believe Clinton is in as tenuous a position as the soothsayers maintain. She should win South Carolina big and perform well on Super Tuesday. Regardless, Sanders has accomplished what he set out to do – promote his agenda and move the party at least a bit to the left.
The Sanders candidacy also has exposed a possible Achilles hell for Clinton – young voters are ignoring her like the plague. A Democrat needs those voters in a general election and she’ll have to do some shoring up between now and November.
I just wanted to take one more moment of your time to express my sincere regrets over the passing of a great Kentuckian, former Sen. Georgia Davis Powers, who went to her reward over the weekend at age 92.
There are very, very few figures more important or distinguished in the commonwealth’s history than Georgie Davis Powers. The word great was invented for the likes of her, a true leader, champion for the cause of civil rights and justice and the betterment of all.
Powers was, most of all, a brave woman who gave more than she ever received. This commonwealth, and this nation, aren’t liable to witness the likes of her again.
Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. He currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.
I’m with you Bill on a Republican brokered convention. The Republican establishment and big donors will not allow Trump, Cruz or Carson to be nominated through whatever means necessary. In my opinion they will choose from the trio of Rubio, Bush and Kasich. Rubio’s experience and abilities are a mile wide and an inch deep, Bush is “low energy”, and Kasich has no charisma but he would be my choice. The influential Republicans will see a brokered convention as necessary for survival of the party.