So a lot has been made of coin tossgate in Iowa last night. Let me weigh in with my two cents. The unlikeliness of the coin toss outcomes is irrelevant, so let’s stop focusing in on how dubious that whole thing was. The “it was rigged” talk is pointless. We’ve known that the democratic apparatchik has had their thumb on the scales of this primary for a while now. There’s no point in crying over milk that hasn’t even been spilled.
Why do I say that? Because there were six coin tosses involved in the process of electing a presidential nominee. Let’s leave the absurdity of the coin toss procedure aside for now. Bernie Sanders, who we’ve been told for months has no chance of ever getting the nomination necessitated six coin tosses against the unbeatable establishment candidate, who we’ve all been told is a foregone conclusion to be the democratic nominee for president. Every single time a coin had to be tossed, Bernie emerged victorious by demonstrating that narrative about his having no chance completely wrong.
The outcome of the coin toss was completely irrelevant, and focusing on on who “won” Iowa in terms of delegates gained is the wrong way to look at it. Bernie won a big victory for people-powered politics. I would go as far as to say that Bernie won a big victory for democracy. The idea of having an unchallenged primary should be repugnant to anyone who believes in democracy. We don’t have coronations in America, we have elections.
The fact that a dark horse candidate who put himself at a massive disadvantage by not superPACing himself through an American election, tied in a primary race should make everyone happy, regardless of who they support. This is what democracy is supposed to look like.
So Bernie supporters, calm down. You won. The cloud under which Hillary was declared the victor is enough to make that victory irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. There’s no reason to dwell on the declared winner. The fact that most of the headlines said that Hillary “eked out a victory” isn’t really a win for her. I actually think that it’s hurt her. I also think that the cloud under which she was pronounced the victor will energize more people onto team Bernie.
Speaking of being energized, I want to say one thing; the vitriol between Hillary supporters and Bernie supporters is ridiculous and unproductive. Approaching politics emotionally is precisely the wrong way to approach politics. I have heard liberals say the most ludicrous things in support of their candidate of choice over the past few months. At the end of the day, either Bernie or Hillary is far more preferable to any republican candidate running for president. Please don’t lose sight of that. Your emotional investment in your primary candidate needs to end when the primaries do. We have a minimum of two likely Supreme Court nominations on the table for the next president. Don’t let your emotions get in the way of doing what needs to be done on election day because that would be an incredibly foolish mistake.
So let’s please table the “Hillary is corrupt” or the “Bernie can’t get anything done” talk after Super Tuesday, when you all need to shake it off. If you don’t get over it, you will regret it deeply when a 42 year old version of Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia are appointed to the Supreme Court.
As an aside, I think that Rubio was the big winner on the republican side last night. He’s the establishment candidate who did pretty well. I promise you that Jeb! has been on the phone with the big donors all day, getting his marching papers. I don’t know why he would stay in the race until New Hampshire, but I promise he won’t see anymore superPAC money coming in. Cruz is universally despised by both the republican and the democratic establishment, so his path to the nomination is going to be hard if the establishment band together around one candidate. The only possible candidate left for them is Rubio.
Yes Trump can still pull it off but I do suspect that he’s going to continue to be the outlier in the polls because I don’t believe that a lot of his supporters aren’t likely voters. I think that if there’s another upset in New Hampshire, he’s basically done (even though he will push through to super Tuesday).
