It happened Monday night in at least two Iowa precincts where Clinton and Sen. “Letting chance decide, even in a small way, who becomes president sounds bizarre, but it didn’t just happen eight years ago. Tell us what you think in the comment section below. Cenk Uygur, host of the The Young Turks, breaks it down. Iowa caucuses are so crazy that they flip a coin when things get too close. The Democrats are stuck with what they’ve got.Ah, the coin flip controversy. The window for a Democratic savior - if one ever existed - slammed shut Monday night. After that, her best hope is to grind out a victory over many months, antagonizing Sanders’ supporters, who are disproportionately made up of exactly the kind of young activists Clinton desperately needs to win in November. She will almost surely go on to lose in New Hampshire. But there was some slim possibility that someone else would get in and beat her and Sanders. Like Richard Gere in “An Officer and a Gentleman,” she’s got nowhere else to go. There was never any question in my mind that Clinton will never drop out. Even so, numerous observers raised the possibility that if Clinton suffered a devastating loss in both Iowa and New Hampshire, it might be enough to entice Vice President Biden, Al Gore, Michael Bloomberg or someone else into the race to save the party from the prospect of a socialist nominee or a fatally flawed Clinton candidacy. These are different times, and Clinton isn’t an incumbent president. But the mere fact that he got 42% of the vote against the sitting president was enough to ultimately knock Johnson out of the race and entice Robert F. McCarthy actually lost by a significant margin. In 1968, the left-wing senator from Minnesota challenged President Johnson in the New Hampshire primary. The ghost of Eugene McCarthy has hovered over the Democratic race for a year.
Also, any bragging from the Clinton camp will further antagonize Sanders’ supporters, many of whom are already quite hostile to Clinton.īut the real loser in all this is the Democratic Party. Already, her supporters are fanning out across cable news overselling the win and reinforcing the sense that Team Clinton is disconnected from reality.
Every time she tries, it will, by the very nature of that victory, seem like spin.
According to The New York Times, her “advisers said they did not know if a significant staff shakeup was at hand, but they said that the Clintons were disappointed with Monday night’s result and wanted to ensure that her organization, political messaging and communications strategy were in better shape for the contests to come.” That’s not exactly William Wallace in “Braveheart” shouting of victory.Ĭlinton simply can’t go around talking about her “win” in Iowa without seeming ungracious and grasping. But saying so requires lawyerly qualifications and caveats.Įveryone knows this “win” was nothing to brag about. Maybe she’d even cry again, like she did in Portsmouth, N.H., in ’08, earning the sympathy vote. If she lost decisively, as she did in Iowa in 2008, she’d have the option of playing the victim. In fact, the nature of this victory will probably bring out the worst in Clinton. Sanders’ supporters won’t even make that concession, bitterly complaining about irregularities and, again, coins that seemed to be in Clinton’s pocket, figuratively speaking.Ī crushing defeat would have been worse for Clinton, of course. ReutersĬlinton raced to the podium to declare victory, but the news media will continue to describe it as a tie, probably forever. Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton laughs as she celebrates with her husband, former President Bill Clinton at her caucus night rally in Des Moines, Iowa February 1, 2016.
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