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Gene Collier: An Iowa caucus veteran explains what it all means

Charlie Neibergall/AP

Gene Collier: An Iowa caucus veteran explains what it all means

There’s never been a shortage of alleged news stories that we in the media will cover doggedly and ritually and habitually despite considerable evidence that we’re wasting our time. As a devout time waster myself, the two biggest examples of this depressing phenomenon in my experience are the NFL Draft and the Iowa Caucuses.

For all of its exhaustive coverage, all that anyone needs to know about the Draft is that Tom Brady, who’d become the greatest player of all time, was selected 199th when the most enlightened, sophisticated, analytic football minds available convened in the year 2000 to shepherd the best college players toward their NFL destiny. One hundred and ninety-ninth.

 A greased pig contest

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A couple of months prior to that, I was in Iowa to cover the Caucuses, for reasons that seemed journalistically self-evident but were even then highly dubious. Still, if the Draft was merely a crap shoot, the Caucuses, the first step in choosing a president as opposed to a quarterback, were a full-on greased pig contest.

Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, center, reaches into a crowd gathered on the Van Ryswyk farm to launch his campaign at Des Moines, Ia., Aug. 24, 1976.
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David Shribman: The Carter dream began in Iowa

I remember George W. Bush, a smiley Texan in a wool trench coat, rattling off his Republican vision of the new American century with a confidence that was real but still tentative — like, “See? I can do this.” I remember the most compelling character to be Bill Bradley, the former basketball star and New Jersey Senator, who sat for thoughtful interviews and finished second on the Democratic side to Vice President Al Gore. But the things I remember most were that it was cold, and that it was dumb.

Monday night in Iowa, six presidential election cycles later, it was even colder, and it was even dumber.

This is no primary election, run by state officials and overseen by uniform election laws. These are caucuses, essentially party meetings, where sufficiently animated Iowans go out into the cold, drive to a church or a school gym or a town hall, listen to a speech or two, perhaps have a discussion, then write down their preferences.

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This time, about 15% of the state’s 720,000 registered Republicans did just about exactly that, and 52% of that 15% voted for Donald J. Trump, meaning nearly half of them didn’t, and today I’m reading about an “overwhelming” victory or a “historic” victory for the MAGA menace.

Please.

Trump could win the presidency in November, believe it or not, but that will have as much to do with Iowa as with the NFL Draft.

Trump won

But there is no doubt that Trump won on Monday. You can tell from the silence in the auditory space where fraud, hoax, rigged, steal, witch hunt, and election interference used to ring, and ring, and ring. You can tell because there was no need to re-launch Jan. 6 on Jan. 16.

Trump reportedly won in every Iowa County, except Johnson County, according to one dispatch, where he lost by a single vote. “Hello, Johnson County? Look, I just need to find two votes. I mean fellas, gimme a break.”

The national media, tipped off by entrance polling that suggested 65% of voters have swallowed Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, called Trump the Iowa winner as soon as 31 minutes after the Caucuses started. What a surprise.

Within hours, non-Iowans coast to coast were bombarded with breathless interpretations of this little event: Five takeaways from Iowa. Seven numbers that were key in Iowa. Beyond the seven numbers that were key in Iowa.

This might be a prudent spot for a quick review of previous Iowa results and what those meant, right?

Feb. 2, 2016 – Ted Cruz wins Iowa Caucuses. Meaning: Nothing.

Jan. 4, 2012 – Rick Santorum wins Iowa Caucuses. You heard right: Rick Santorum. Meaning: Nothing.

Jan. 4, 2008 – Mike Huckabee wins Iowa Caucuses. Meaning: Who?

Not since Bush in 2000 has the Republican who won in Iowa gained the nomination later that year, but as usual, the result is perhaps best understood for the immediate 2024 implications for the runners up.

Iowa’s result means that New Hampshire will be the last political stand of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, unless she does monstrously better than the roughly 21% of the vote she pulled in Iowa. Same predicament now for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who bet the farm on Iowa farmers and got about only 23% of ‘em to conclude he’s better than Trump. Pretty harsh.

What the Iowa vote means

The most useful interpretation from Iowa was only the confirmation that the MAGA base continues to believe everything Trump says, which is, as ever, everything and anything that seems useful to him at the time. Their professed No. 1 issue right now: Immigration.

Immigration. In Iowa.

Thankfully, unlike the NFL Draft, the Iowa Caucuses only last one day, and only come around every four years. Now we can get on to our regularly scheduled election hyper coverage, including the real No. 1 issue of 2024:

Future elections: yea or nay?

Gene Collier is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: gcollier@post-gazette.com and @genecollier. His previous column was “MLK holiday still about hope in the future of mankind.”

First Published: January 16, 2024, 11:00 p.m.

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