Finally, the voting has begun. The media's coronation of one candidate or another has finally given way to the Vox Populi. Voting has a remarkable impact on the outcome, doesn't it...
1. Hillary Clinton is a Terrible Candidate.
For the second time in Hillary Clinton's political career, Iowa has humbled her. In 2008, her inevitability campaign was shattered by a little known first term Senator named Barack Hussein Obama. Senator Obama had no meaningful experience of any kind, very little money, and the unfortunate distinction of sharing his middle name with a Middle Eastern dictator we had just spent several trillion dollars deposing.
Fast forward eight years, she is tied with a self-proclaimed socialist who wants to dismantle the signature legislation of the Obama administration. Senator Sanders favors a single-payer universal healthcare system, higher taxes, free college for all, and nearly 5 trillion dollars in new spending on social programs. He is polling somewhere around 37% nationally. Now, to be fair to Sanders, he has a double digit lead over Clinton in New Hampshire and actually beats Donald Trump in several national head to head polls. The difference between Clinton and Sanders, however, is that Clinton is a terrible candidate and Sanders is not. Democrats have to be worried about Clinton in a general election. She has an uncanny ability to take inevitability and squander it, and it's not like she's gaffe prone. She simply does not connect with voters. She actually loses votes when she campaigns which, when facing a popular Republican like Marco Rubio, would be devastating.
2. The Republican Establishment is Dead.
The key number from last night is not how close Trump, Cruz and Rubio were. It is how poorly the "mainstream" establishment candidates performed. Santorum, Christie, Huckabee, Kasich, and Bush earned a whopping 9.3% of the vote. Marco Rubio, who won his Senate seat by defying the Republican establishment, had the best night. He exceeded expectations in an election in which more votes were cast than in any other Republican caucus in history.
The worst night belonged to Jeb Bush. It is difficult to see a path to the nomination for him, even if Trump and Cruz were to collapse. He garnered 2.8% of the vote. To put that into perspective, Bush earned two thirds fewer votes than Ben Carson. Even if the other preferred establishment candidates dropped out, Bush would still struggle to stay in the race. He is running fourth in New Hampshire at just 10%, and it seems likely after last night that Marco Rubio will be taking votes away from him going forward. The establishment fantasy of a Bush III Presidency has now been crushed.
Voters have rejected establishment politics on both sides of the aisle. To the Republican establishment, the message is unequivocal: go away.
3. Organization Beats Enthusiasm and Celebrity.
One of the obvious themes of the night was that you can't win elections without getting out the vote, and getting out the vote requires a huge number of volunteers. To date, Donald Trump has been getting by on celebrity and free press. He's spent far less than every other candidate, but now it is starting to show. Were he anyone else, a second place finish with as little organization as he has would be considered an extraordinary victory. The problem for Trump is, he could have easily won had be been better organized. That gives primary voters something to think about. Will Trump lose a general election in the same fashion? Will he lose a close race to Clinton because he failed to understand the basics of political organization?
Ted Cruz won because he spent almost all of his time in Iowa, he is not competing in New Hampshire, and he had the best ground game. Marco Rubio came in a close third even though he campaigned far less. That is because, like Cruz, he has a sophisticated campaign. Trump, on the other hand, seriously hurt his own inevitability campaign by losing Iowa and nearly losing to Marco Rubio.
Trump is 20 points ahead of the field in New Hampshire and South Carolina, but those numbers will change. Now that the votes are being counted, organization is king, and Trump has no organization. As a result, he is no longer inevitable.
4. There is an Enthusiasm Gap Between Democrats and Republicans.
Republicans had a record night as far as participation was concerned. Democrats did not. Bernie Sanders, while interesting to Democrats, performed far below what Senator Obama did in 2008. The lack of enthusiasm stems from the perceived coronation of Hillary Clinton, who has so far failed to articulate any new vision for the country. This is a change election for both parties. Whereas the Republican voters have successfully passed the torch from the establishment, the Democrats are still arguing for the status quo.
The Republican equivalent of this election would be if Jeb Bush was running a coronation campaign with someone like Rand Paul acting as his foil. There is no enthusiasm for another hereditary politician, on either side. That will also be the case in the general election, which seriously damages any Democratic nominee.
