CAUCUS

[Samurai]

I'm pretty sure if we used this word in the UK, we'd pronounce it more like CORcəs.

[Rip]

Past Iowa Caucus Winners (Republicans):

2008 - President Mike Huckabee
2000 & 2004 - NONE DARE OPPOSE THE MIGHTY BUUSH
1996 - President Bob Dole barely squeaks by President Pat Goddamn Buchanan
1992 - NONE DARE OPPOSE THE MIGHTY BUUSH
1988 - President Bob Dole totally destroys everyone, makes Former President Buush and President Pat Robertson fight for his sloughed-off scraps
1984 - NONE DARE OPPOSE THAT WHICH IS REAGAN
1980 - Buush barely squeaks by That Which Is Reagan, sealing his presidency over Iowa eight years early. President Bob Dole, incidentally, loses to candidate "No Preference" by .2%

On the Democrats side, the only time it mattered is 1992 when President Tom Harkin absolutely devoured 76.4% of all of Iowa's Democrats while Former President Bill Clinton sat and cried in a pool of his own 2.8%. Doubtless this crushing defeat is what kept him from occupying the White House for the next eight years, and now Buddy the Dog never existed.

I guess what I'm saying is that I wish everyone would stop pretending Iowa matters to anyone at all. Oh, and Ted Cruz can choke on a moose antler, please.

[Despanan]

I'd say Iowa mattered in the sense that it proved Sanders has a chance against Clinton, which disproves Hillary's primary "ABANDON ALL HOPE, I WILL BE PRESIDENT AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME SO JUST GET USED TO IT" campaign message.

Hillary 2016: Because you literally have no choice, so just resign yourself to it.

[dexeron]

Pretty much that. If it helps mobilize other Sanders supporters off of their asses (because OMG, you mean it's not completely hopeless?) then that would be nice.

Still don't think Sanders has a whelk's chance in a supernova. Still voting for him in the primary regardless. Still hoping that a strong enough show of Sanders support will force the DNC to realize just who their constituency is, and stop tracking quite so far to the right.

[Rip]

I guess it's not for me to understand how you guys went from "Rip proves the Iowa Caucus means nothing and always has" to "The Iowa Caucus definitely meant something this time".

Bernie and Hillary have always been pretty much tied, which is a problem for us Dems, because it shows our establishment candidate can't even beat the freaky outlier in her own party. No es bueno when going up against the flock of freaky outliers we have to contend with since the Republishers have decided that Jeb Bush isn't crazy enough for them this year. They tied Iowa, he'll win Hampshire, she'll take South Caroline, and we all get closer to proving neither of them can win a general election.

Trump is likely going to be the Repub nominee, and if he's not, he'll run anyway. I'm not saying it's a political certainty, and I get that Hillary is just hilariously mistrusted because she's shockingly a politician, but I don't think Bernie has the presence to beat Trump in a national election, I just don't. You're trusting the Fire and Brimstone that will empower a fully united Republican party behind a creature that is literally made of Career Ending Political Gaffes to be defeated by an ancient socialist. It's like insisting that The Human Torch can defeat The Hulk. Sure, there's a lot of hot tricks up that sleeve, but the fucker is impervious to the type of damage you're able to do.

Basically, I've outed myself as a Hillary supporter, because I'm a pragmatist. America is and has always been a Center-Right country that is slowly, SLOWLY being dragged into the tolerant utopia it always claimed to be. But getting overconfident is how you lose Jeb Bush.

But then, I'm not one of those whackos who says Obama was too conservative for me; instead I recognize that I'm a minority that is set to rule over a loud and entrenched majority. As a wise ruler once said, "Let the fools have their...'tar tar sauce'." True, they hate Hillary with a passion, but it's harder to politically counter her besides saying, "Oh she lied a couple times and she has too much White House insider experience", which describes 80% of Washington. All they have to say about Bernie is "SOCIALISM IS EVIL" or if they try slightly harder, "Socialism barely works in the homogenous tiny nations of Scandinavia, and this is America, with American values. God bless apple pie." Fuck, even Hillary led with this haymaker in the first debate.

Bottom line: you all wanted Ralph Nader to be president in 2000 and look what you did.

[Despanan]

I dunno. I think I might prefer Pres. Trump to Pres. Hillary Clinton. Same thing with Pres. Cruz or anyone else on the GOP ticket.

It would be terrible, but at least it would make sure that the democratic party abandons it's strategy of "let's just be sane republicans and our base will be too terrified of the insane republicans to not elect another democrat who's really a republican."

I could take four years of terrifying bullshit, just so I don't have to deal with god knows how long it'll take for the democrats to actually be a liberal or dare I say it, progressive party again.

Plus, I think even Trump is less likely to involve us in another war than Hillary, and avoiding war is probably my #1 issue going into this election.

[Despanan]

I also don't think that trump will get the nomination, and I think he'll most likely run 3rd party, split the republican vote and hand the election to whomever wins the primaries, which I hope will be Sanders because as I said all things considered with the possible exception of Supreme Court nominations (and I'm not sure I'd like a supreme court justice appointed by Hillary) Hillary is just the worst. Like the literal worst.

[Samurai]

I am in the process of seeing my country's public services eviscerated by our most right-wing government for 100 years, because the current Prime Minister is perceived to be more of a leader by the electorate than the guy who'd actually have been quite good, but was too far off what floating voters would support to win*, even though the polls all suggested he would**.

So I agree with Rip. Platitudes and policies are great, but if you're not in power, you can't do anything with them. And getting into power means making some compromises and being pragmatic, because we both have representative democracies where a lot of the people being represented are more swayed by image and rhetoric than logic and experience. I would rather see Bernie Sanders as president than Hilary Clinton, but I'd far rather see either of them than Trump, and Hilary stands the better chance of beating him, because she's not pegged as the Devil Incarnate (i.e. socialist).

__
* Brilliantly, his party then decided to replace him with someone even more unelectable because they were so butthurt over the election result; rarely has Dick Tuck's infamous quote been so appropriate

** Two reasons: one, it turned out polling methodology was skewed towards younger, more engaged voters who trend left-wing, and more importantly in my view, people lied to pollsters because they didn't want to admit, even to themselves, they were voting for a worse option because it seemed more credible

[dexeron]

I can't get behind the idea of "Well, if Bernie loses, then it's better if a Republican wins, because that will sure show the Democrats to stop running moderates!"

It didn't work for the GOP. They keep running extremists, and when they lose, they just say: "we obviously were not extreme ENOUGH!" You really think the Democratic party is going to look at a Clinton loss in the general and think "the answer is to move more to the left?" Really? No, they're going to try to capture more of the mysterious "center" that they think abandoned them.

(Still voting for Bernie in the primary, to send a message, and hey, hope he does win, because I'd like his ideas given more of a center stage. It's stuff a hell of a lot of people want. But yeah, he's kind of terrible at being a political candidate. He should have, from day one, been saying: "This shit isn't socialism, it's awesomesauce" instead of being, "Yeah, I'm proud to be a socialist" because only a moron fails to recognize the 60 years of baggage attached to that word in the hearts of people who grew up being (falsely) told that socialism was something only our evil enemies did. It's not easy for people to let go of that, and I'm sorry, but politics is the realm of what's possible and real, and you have to deal with what people actually think, and not think "Hey, I'm gonna reclaim the word socialism!" We're not there, not yet.

And seriously, Hillary Clinton isn't the worst. She's not even particularly bad. And I hate seeing people let perfect be the enemy of good.

[Despanan]