Iowa Caucus – quick thoughts (updated)

February 2016
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Iowa Caucus – quick thoughts (updated)

02 February 2016

George Rebane

The clear winners were Bernie Sanders and Marco Rubio. Neither were projected to make much of a showing against the self-adorned leaders of their parties. Ted Cruz’s nominal victory is going to have a tough time running a successful race on its evangelical legs. Things became more clarified for The Donald as he experienced the bracing embrace of reality delivered by the real Iowa voters.

The more interesting contest was between Bernie and Hillary. In my lifetime I have never heard a serious candidate, actually make that two serious candidates, for the American presidency sound like throwbacks from the depression era halcyon days of communism. The Democrat voters are in a schism – the older ones giving a gimlet eye to Bernie the ‘political revolutionary’, and the younger millennials lapping up everything the old firebrand can deliver and asking for more. That schism is not surprising since the millennials are found to be the most ignorant generation – especially in economics and finance - to date since the Great Society took over our schools. These are the know-nothings to whom Sanders' socialist economics looks so appealing. I reported the PriceWaterhouse study on this in the 25jan16 Ruminations.

[update] There is some question on sample size in the comment stream. Not to worry. The 140,000 plus Iowa Republicans contained more sample size than any of the ongoing daily polls. The only weakness of that sample is its evangelical skew, but that tilt will be repeated in most Republican leaning voting cohorts in the coming months. Those same arguments will also be welcome on the receptive ears of many religious Hispanics and blacks. The only Dems that will turn their tin ears to the message of liberty and personal responsibility will be the secular humanist white progressives. The Dems’ ace in the hole will remain the dumbth of the large millennial horde; Hillary and Bernie and Liz and Joe have got to keep convincing these people that what they learned in school really works in the real world.

Posted in Current Affairs, Happenings, Our Country

51 responses to “Iowa Caucus – quick thoughts (updated)”

Russ Steele

02 February 2016

Oh My!
Some Bernie supporters charge fraud in Iowa caucuses, Bernie’s campaign won’t rule out a recount.
http://wqad.com/2016/02/02/close-caucus-results-lead-to-claims-of-fraud/
Sanders Campaign Says It Was Informed By Iowa Dem. Party That Results From 90 Precincts Are Missing. Were they wiped, like with a cloth?
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/02/02/sanders-campaign-says-it-was-informed-by-iowa-dem-party-that-results-from-90-precincts-are-missing/
Hillary Clinton Has The Most Statistically Improbable Coin-Toss Luck Ever.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/02/02/hillary-clinton-has-the-most-statistically-improbable-coin-toss-luck-ever/
What I want kown is who provided the coin? Was it a Clinton coin? A two-headed coin?

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Todd Juvinall

02 February 2016

Wow! I guess we should be patting ourselves on the back. Last night showed we on the Republican side were telling the American people the truth about democrats. One half of the democrats in Iowa, this is their base too, voted for a avowed socialist! I have been saying this for years. In America! My goodness, the Bernie Sanders vote is really a very sad one for me and should be for any patriotic American.
Capitalism has been the engine that made America a great place. The most prosperous in the history of the planet. It has given rise to a incredible standard of living and allowed people to rise to their own “peter principle” level. So how could a man, heir to Mao and Stalin, an a heir to European socialism, gain half the vote of the democrat base? Because the democrats have gone so far left they think Sanders is middle of the road!
Obama and Hillary Clinton drove the democrat party into a far left and Sanders is taking it even farther. I watched Sanders speaking at a gathering last night and the room was full of young people. I assumed they were college kids. They cheered and applauded when Sanders said things like, he would do things clearly anti-business, anti individual rights and supporting policies like higher taxes and more regulation. Hell, he sounded like Obama on steroids! And those young people cheered loudly for all his finger in the air policy suggestions!
How can that be? These kids are the progeny of people that made their lives possible. Their parents supply the money for their education. The country they live in has for the most part, made their lives better. They were applauding a man who will be trying to swipe their money! My GOD how could this be? The answer is they are total ingrates to the sacrifices of their parents and those brave people that only one generation ago saved the planet from fascism and communism.. And how could that be?
Our liberal press and the liberal/socialist educators are to blame. They have brainwashed our kids! Day after day. The people that should have been pushing the freedoms they enjoy were telling these kids how terrible the successful are. How they needed to be roped into compliance to socialist policies of “FAIRNESS”! Whatever that means. Does that mean a slovenly lazy ass boy can sit back and receive the money earned by someone else? Apparently. How could we allow these educators to brainwash? Were we not paying attention? Were we afraid of not being PC? Afraid of standing up for the true values of America because the press would vilify? Probably all of those things.
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton will be the third term of Obama and that would spell the end to our freedoms in my view. Many of us have warned about these people gaining power. We have seen these policies before and they usually led to millions f deaths. Socialism/communism was a greater killer than the Nazi’s! Socialism will take your money and your stuff. It will circumvent the Constitution just as we have seen Obama do. You want equal opportunity or equal outcomes? The hard working people of America must not let Sanders or the Hillary Clinton candidacies gain America.

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Bill Tozer

02 February 2016

Great night for Republican party. Great turnout on the right. Trump did great, ready for Hillary. Cruz won where Huckleberry and Santorum won in previous elections, even after being the only one who talked about ending the corn ethanol subsidy!!! Unbeievable, never happened before. Gov of Iowa running around telling folks not to vote for The Donald along with everybody else and he finished great with no ground game. Again, unbelievable. On to NH and South Carolina. Rubio wins for the Party Establishment.

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Bill Tozer

02 February 2016

Mr. Steele: Always a silver lining. Last summer Hillary was the shoe in by a zillion miles. Had boots on the ground (paid, no less) since last year. Every county had a designated Hillary For Women in place for over a year (rabid volunteers). She’s been stumping in Iowa a million times for years.
Look, if Hillary had to throw everything and the kitchen at Iowa and move from “I am not Obama” to “I am Bernie but can get it done”, with fraud, lies, AND hugging Obama, who cares? How in the hell could Hillary go from The One to gartering squeezing out a coin toss.
Tells me she is facing headwinds. She only got 50% in a state where she is very popular???? Unbelievable.

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George Boardman

02 February 2016

Dr. R, I agree with your analysis of the Republican results. Like Huckabee and Santorum before him, Cruz will learn that the evangelicals have limited utility when it comes to securing the nomination. Watch the establishment rally around Rubio.
But I think the Democrats’ current infatuation with Sanders has more to do with a lack of enthusiasm for Hillary than anything else. It’s not too late for Biden yet!

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Gregory

02 February 2016

Don’t forget the magic coins that got tossed for Hillary six out of six.

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Gregory

02 February 2016

Rand Paul was 5th (behind #4 Carson) with 50% more votes than Bush, twice as many as Fiorina, Kacich, Huckabee, Christie, nearly five times as many as Santorum.

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Don Bessee

02 February 2016

So those racist white supremacy Republicans had a vote in Iowa and what happened? The top 4 vote getters included 2 Hispanics and a black man. The progressive dems had a grumpy old white liar liar pantsuits on fire against an old white communist with gout and they split the dem vote. So which party really reflects America?

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Todd Juvinall

02 February 2016

Yep DonB. And those demoncrats split the vote between two old white geriatrics. You just can’t make this stuff up.
The old broad is now claiming a victory with a .02 percent lead. Bernie the perv wants a recount! LOL! Actually he wants the raw votes released!

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Don Bessee

02 February 2016

The first Hispanic to ever win in a presidential primary and he is a Republican. 60% of Republicans voted for minorities in a big turnout last night. 😉

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jon smith

02 February 2016

Bessee-
To continue with your brand of “logic”, a mere 1.9% of the Republicans voted for a female while nearly half of all Democrats voted for one. I don’t think it means diddly squat in terms of gender preference, but If we’re going to play games with numbers, might as well follow it through to the end.

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Don Bessee

02 February 2016

‘nearly half voted..’ for madam liar liar pantsuit on fire against a self proclaimed socialist, wow what an accomplishment. She was only up 51 points a little bit ago. LOL 😉

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Todd Juvinall

02 February 2016

Also, if the demoncrats had as many people running there would be a similar split. So Smith’s premise is bogus.

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Don Bessee

02 February 2016

More pesky facts to disrupt the narrative and that rattles the ‘jons’ of the world. More votes for minority candidates in the R column than the D’s, that is the bottom line. 😉

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Bill Tozer

02 February 2016

Trump toast? His vote tally was the 2nd highest in the Hawkeye Caceye by a Republican in history. Tells me the Right is a wee bit motivated, but I could be mistaken.
Did you get a gander at those Bernard fans chanting “Liar!, Liar!” when my gal’s mug appeared on the screen at Col. Sander’s Central? Boy, what a rude, crude, and socially unacceptable lot, not to mention bitter, angry, and sexist.

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Don Bessee

02 February 2016

Hispanic wins with biggest votes ever, hispanic takes 3rd, black physician comes in 4th. What a bunch of racist tea baggers in the Iowa Republican party. 😉

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jon smith

02 February 2016

Todd- Please define premise. I know its a big word. I didn’t offer any “premise.”
Bessee – Which of the Dems was a “minority candidate?” The woman?
Bill- I totally agree with your assessment. Trump did remarkably well in a state where he should have had a less than stellar billing. How much did all the other players combined spend (on money taken from special interests) to upend him?

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Don Bessee

02 February 2016

Thaks the ‘jon’ for admitting that there was no minority candidate as a dem option. LOL

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Walt

02 February 2016

Drowning my loss last night in BBQ sauce. A nice day for pork ribs…..

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Todd Juvinall

02 February 2016

jon smith | 02 February 2016 at 03:11 PM
I don’t think you have the smarts so I’ll let you try and figure it out.

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George Boardman

02 February 2016

You guys are getting ahead of yourselves. About 124,000 people voted at the Republican caucuses, hardly a representative sample of the party. It’s a little early to be projecting.

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Russ Steele

02 February 2016

GeorgeB@04:14PM
According to the DesMoinesRegister.com Iowa’s 2016 caucus attendance was a doozy. Republicans counted more than 180,000 caucusgoers, topping their 2012 attendance record of 121,503 by an estimated 60,000 people.
Where did you get the 124,000 number?

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Don Bessee

02 February 2016

GB- That’s not the point its who they voted for. If it were a dem Hispanic that was the first to ever win a caucus the lead story would be the ‘first’ narrative. Well, the 6 for 6 coin toss and 90 lost precincts in the dem contest still are newsworthy, as well as where the 6 ties were. 😉

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Don Bessee

02 February 2016

Newsmax is reporting that madam liar liar pantsuits on fire’s 3 top aides have been noticed by the FBI that they will soon be giving sworn testimony in email gate. Huma and the gang have lawyered up as expected. Seems the FBI director does not share the white houses view on the situation.

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Todd Juvinall

02 February 2016

Iowa was a snippet. But I am interested in South Carolina.

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Bill Tozer

02 February 2016

Boardman is correct. Can’t tell much from NH either, being an independent state. We just gotta wait and see for another 7-8 months. Let’s see how someone like Trump, Cruz, or Rubio does in NH, South Carolina, and Nevada before taking another temperature of how the R’s are doing. Need a bigger picture.
Don, glad to see you are having so much fun. Reminds me of when the blue stained dress with Bubba’s DNA on it hit the news. Haley Barber, head of the RNC, called his DNC counterpart and offered assistance such as sending,a limo to pick him up and chaffeur him to the hearings, lol. Good to have a wee bit of fun. We are here to help in your hour of need.
Now, I am changing my tune. I figured that Hillary would have a mental and physical breakdown with a contested nomination. Now I am worried that Bill won’t make it much longer. Hillary’s “not so secret weapon” looks like he won’the make it till April. For heaven’s sake, Hillary, show some mercy and let Bill be. It’s like watching poor Jesse Owens racing horses at State Fairs later in life. Very sad. First time I ever felt Bill’s pain.

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Bill Tozer

02 February 2016

Gee
http://assets.patriotpost.us/images/2016-02-02-0b84c7df_large.jpg

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Hunter

02 February 2016

Curious what the gallery thinks of Gary Johnson……Gregory or anyone else ??

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Russ Steele

02 February 2016

Hunter@06:48PM
Gary Who?

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Todd Juvinall

02 February 2016

Johnson is not plausible.

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George Boardman

02 February 2016

Re Russ Steele’s 4:25:
I got 124,000 by adding up the votes for the candidates. I rounded off so the number is approximate, but accurate enough to make my point.
Even if the number was 180,000, it’s not enough to be a representative sample of Republican voters.

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hunter

02 February 2016

Russ @1858 He is the Libertarian candidate
TJ @1902 was more curious what you all thought of his positions/politics
Gregory, genuinely interested in your thoughts, and of course our host, GR…….?

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hunter

02 February 2016

Perhaps I should have been asked this in the sandbox, apologies.

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hunter

02 February 2016

please excuse obvious typos.

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fish

02 February 2016

A series of story links you would really prefer not to see if you’re ¡Jeb! Bush……

“REUTERS ROLLING: TRUMP 38.4%, CRUZ 16.2%, RUBIO 10.8%… MORE…
Rubio Dispatches Army and New Lines of Attack…
Carson accuses Cruz campaign of spreading false rumors…
JEB CALLS IN MOTHER…”

Oh ¡Jeb! you should spend some of that War Chest to bribe Matt Drudge not to run stories about you calling your mom!

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George Rebane

02 February 2016

hunter 648pm – Gary Johnson would be an excellent protest vote for those not wanting to support either major party. I would strongly recommend him to readers like Mr PaulE.
GeorgeB 414pm – Mr Boardman, unless you have a very unique definition of “representative sample”, the 140K number (which I addressed in the update to this post) should be more than enough to get a very precise snapshot of Republican sentiments when the evangelical skew is factored out. You might be interested in how small a random sample need be to provide some very tight bounds on population proportions derived from samples. For example, from the classic error banana curves, the maximum error from 1,000 sample size occurs at the observed (i.e. polled) proportion of 0.5. 95% of the time the actual population proportion will then lie between 0.465 and 0.535. When the observed proportion moves off 0.5 the error bounds contract markedly to give even more credence to the sample as being ‘representative’ of the population. Isn’t science wonderful?
The only problem we now have to deal with is the volatility of public opinion for that has a very large bandwidth which we can discuss at another time. Bottom line, measuring public opinion is a bitch.

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jon smith

02 February 2016

GR-
The 140K is nothing close to a random sample. These are people who, for whatever reason, were motivated to vote. The caucus system throws a huge monkey wrench in the “randomness” of the outcome. As other states enter the fray where caucus is not a factor, a number of other variables will come into play. The very outcome in Iowa will affect downstream elections. Randomness will continue to be skewed toward bias. Using the outcome of Iowa to predict an outcome in Nevada is comparing corn to to porn.

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Jon

02 February 2016

I think I saw something hilarious on this thread – “Newsmax is REPORTING” ….Reporting?….Newsmax… 🙂
Please don’t tell me this is a serious comment 🙂

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Don Bessee

02 February 2016

How sweet the ‘jons’ are in tandem. 😉

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George Rebane

02 February 2016

jons 1003pm – not sure you understood my 922pm. No one suggested using Iowa to predict anything – did you? But I do suggest that this Nov the election will also be determined by “people who, for whatever reason, were motivated to vote.”

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drivebyposter

03 February 2016

“The 140K is nothing close to a random sample. These are people who, for whatever reason, were motivated to vote.” JS
You can argue that counting people who are motivated to vote isn’t a bad way to estimate the number of people who will later be motivated to vote.
There is fairly well established practice to determine the accuracy of polling data vs. sample size, methinks you are just wildly making a guess here. 140k is a huge group to ask an opinion of.
Somewhere, somebody (or somebodies) has built models using Iowa voting data as one of the inputs and can show some sort of probability spread for national results. My own guess, perhaps wrong, is that the real wild card is the ongoing campaign’s zigs and zags plus the mechanics of winning a nomination.

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George Rebane

03 February 2016

drivebyposter 612am – did you disagree with my 922pm or just ignore it?

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jon smith

03 February 2016

GR- No disagreement. My comment, “The 140K is nothing close to a random sample. These are people who, for whatever reason, were motivated to vote.” Still stands.
It is a hugely biased sample. Iowa is a very homogenized, monocultural state when compared with the rest of the country. In Iowa church is a large part of most communities (even when people don’t list themselves as evangelicals). Busses are rented from surrounding states to fill the demand for church’s shuttling their flock into vote. That is a VERY different “motivation to vote” than in Alabama or California. We need votes from a variety of cultures (states) before declaring we have truly random sample.

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Todd Juvinall

03 February 2016

Primaries were created to allow a lot of people to chase an office if the want to. Then the trick is to get 50 percent plus one to make the final or the top two. Cruz got his people out. In Iowa we had numerous people trying to make the top tier. Who cares where they came from? They voted. Unless someone interviews each voter for their motivation the results are the results. The real test is who is left for November. The “jon’s” opinions are no better than anyone else but they do provide a good laugh for we who have been through the process a few times.

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George Rebane

03 February 2016

jons 850am – well enough, and I said as much in my 1034pm. However, your strong conclusion discounts decades (century plus?) of America’s political history and pragmatic practice. Were Iowa’s caucuses as information free and non-applicable to the rest of the country, then no one would give a big rat’s ass what happens in their caucuses. However, that has not been the case, therefore you seem to consign the political parties’ received importance of Iowa to mass hysteria and ignorance.

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drivebyposter

03 February 2016

gr-8:10
Ignored it in a sense. I responded before I read the rest of the entries. I was mostly just a bit outraged by the jon notion that 140k is a meaningless sample and felt the need to begin typing. I disagree in the sense that it’s likely that Iowa voting has some value in calling the results of a general election.
The follow on post that ‘it’s not a random sample, it’s people who vote’ speaks for itself as a kind of silly idea, although I don’t want to get into any kind of excrement flinging contest. Of course Iowa doesn’t vote precisely in the manner of the rest of the country, but someone who analyzes political contests professionally probably figured that out in ancient Athens, much less the modern US. Iowa appears to matter given the interest in it expressed by political pros (as GR mentions at 10:16).
A real model, with scads of data besides voting and polling data would be interesting to see. I bet I’d be surprised by the things that actually are predictive, especially considering that the main point of the exercise is winning a handful of contested states.

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drivebyposter

03 February 2016

As a side note, we really are in the toddler stage of big data driven campaigning.
Imagine a country where, at election time, every single person has a tailor-made set of advertisements, search engine results, wording in headlines, newsfeeds, etc. all put together not to sell toothpaste, but to sell the candidate o’ the day.
Given the power of the incredibly crude mass media of the past, I can well imagine the ability that tech and media companies will have to get the lemmings to run one way or the other. Add in a (fairly obvious) political bias shown by the big players like Google or Apple, and the ability to largely drive an election becomes pretty obvious.
Iowa is simply some grist for the mill for the whole affair. It’s nothing as stupidly naive as claiming ‘the winner in Iowa became President 3 of the last 8 elections’, but is a much more subtle thing.

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George Rebane

03 February 2016

drivebyposter 1159am – It’s still not (technically) clear what the limits of crowd-sense predictions are given the volatility (noise bandwidth) of public opinion. In its finality it comes down to the inability to predict the timing and/or intensity of events/happenings that can be considered as the black swans of public opinion.

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Bill Tozer

03 February 2016

Just a quick thought. The youth of America stole the show
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/02/02/forget-cruz-forget-sanders-and-clinton-sticker-kid-won-iowa/79682726/

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Bill Tozer

03 February 2016

Quick thoughts: Hillary pulling a Howard Dean rallying the troops raising her voice into the mic is hard on the ears. “Fight for me and I will fight for you!” Ouch. She just can’t pull it off with her demeanor and lack of vocal abilities. Not her fault. Either you have it or you don’t. But, we all know the real reason why I think her shrill voice falls flat. It’s because she is a woman, duh.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/02/04/feminists_melt_down_over_unlikable_hillary_clinton_129550.html

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