DELAY OF GAME

The Democratic Party in Iowa was totally humiliated last night. Every network was fully staffed to break the big story. None of them could get any information at all. Normally, there would be at least some information. It might be limited to exit polls or limited result from some locations, but in this case there was absolutely nothing. The theory is that this was all caused by some $60,000 smart phone application. But, that theory doesn’t hold water. There was clearly something else going on. I suspect that a least some people in the DNC headquarters were getting reports. They actually admitted that, but said they were holding off reporting until they performed data integrity. I don’t believe them. This was too humiliating for Democrats and too helpful for Donald Trump. They had to know that. Yet, they considered this a better alternative than reporting the actual results. I believe that what really happened was that Joe Biden was coming in 4th or lower. If all the news outlets had reported Biden coming in 4th or lower last night, it would have ended his campaign. I think the DNC called an audible and decided that a delay of game was necessary to keep Biden from total collapse.

The results are finally starting to come in and Biden is in distance 4th, barely ahead of Klobuchar. But, the delay of game strategy means that Biden can just disregard Iowa and try to hang on until South Carolina. The theory is that the black vote in South Carolina may keep Biden in the race, at least for a while. I don’t think anyone really thinks Biden has a real chance, but at a minimum they need him to slow down Bernie until after Super Tuesday. Otherwise, it will be Bernie against nobody and for all his faults, Bernie is somebody. You can’t beat somebody with nobody.

This is hard to predict, but right now Bernie is the only candidate with even a potential path to the nomination. I suspect Democrats are just desperately trying to prevent Bernie from becoming inevitable, so they can broker something at the DNC convention. Odds are that will work about as well as the DNC counted votes last night in Iowa.

TDM