Wednesday, February 03, 2016

Cruz won Iowa with a superb organization

Donald Trump learned a big lesson in Iowa, i.e. it takes an organization or lots of people on the ground!

Senator Ted Cruz had a first class team on the ground, from volunteers calling on his behalf to others knocking on doors.     

It works in Iowa, as The Des Moines Register wrote today:


In the final week of the campaign, he visited more than two dozen cities, shaking hands, answering voters’ questions and making his case that he should be the next president of the United States.
The Cruzin’ to Caucus bus hit Maquoketa, Manchester, Independence, Osceola, Albia, Centerville, Bloomfield, Ottumwa, Fairfield, Keosauqua. … When the bus got stuck in the mud at the Johnson County fairgrounds Sunday, Cruz hopped into a car with an aide and raced to the next stop on his schedule.
As Monday night’s caucus results showed, Cruz’s strategy, which included at least one visit to each of Iowa’s 99 counties, paid off. He slogged his way across Iowa by car and by bus, stopping in small-town cafes and gymnasiums, while his biggest threat, Donald Trump, traveled by personal jet and by helicopter to large-scale rallies

This is how they do it in Iowa, as Mr Huckabee (2008), Mr Santorum (2012), Rev Robertson (1988) and Governor Jimmy Carter in 1976 showed us in previous years.

Did skipping the debate hurt Mr Trump?   My guess is yes.   However, Trump's lack of an organization had more to do with it.

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.


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Polls and Clinton sweeps The Coin Flip Bowl


Thank God we finally have voters to talk about.  
Once again, we have polls that did not see the results coming.  
To be fair, it is more complicated to do a poll in a caucus state than a primary or general election. I get that!
So why don’t these pollsters report a larger margin of error? Or simply admit that they don’t really know?
Or why doesn’t the media drop the polls and send human beings to the events? None of the pollsters saw the Rubio surge. Yet, people on the ground were saying that something was going on at his rallies.
Iowa also proves that a ground game is necessary. Trump did not have a ground game and Cruz did. It showed on the results!
In the end, Iowa always surprises us. Is this fascinating or what? This is from the Des Moines Register:
In a handful of Democratic caucus precincts Monday, a delegate was awarded with a coin toss.
It happened in precinct 2-4 in Ames, where supporters of candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton disputed the results after 60 caucus participants apparently disappeared from the proceedings.
As a result of the coin toss, Clinton was awarded an additional delegate, meaning she took five of the precinct’s eight, while Sanders received three.
Similar situations played out at various precincts across the state, but had an extremely small effect on the overall outcome, in which Clinton won 49.9 percent of statewide delegate equivalents, while Sanders won 49.5 percent. The delegates that were decided by coin flips were delegates to the party’s county conventions, of which there are thousands selected across the state from 1,681 separate precincts. They were not the statewide delegate equivalents that are reported in the final results.
Maybe the coin flips did not change the results but deciding results on a coin flip is crazy.  
First, how do “60 caucus participants” disappear? Where did they go? Was there an Iowa basketball game on the TV? Were they afraid of the snow?
Second, how did the Clinton win so many flips? Is that possible?
The Democrats need to look at their caucus proceedings. You don’t decide elections with coin flips!
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.


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Iowa vote the day after with Barry Casselman, The Prairie Editor






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