The Right Resistance: Iowa’s caucuses don’t always determine a winner, but highlight losers

It’s all over but the shoutin’, the “it” being the lead-up to the Republican presidential caucuses and primaries that will definitively determine who will carry the GOP’s torch

forward in this year’s general election and optimistically, if things go the way conservatives hope they do, the direction of the country for the foreseeable future.

Tonight’s Iowa caucuses (7 p.m. CST) could very well lead to more talk about the GOP race itself being over even though there are still 49 states to go and only a tiny fraction of the necessary convention delegates would have been awarded in the next few days. With race frontrunner former president Donald Trump so far out in front (according to polls), if the virtual incumbent cracks 50 percent of the total caucus votes, many observers may reexamine the remainder of the primary calendar and ponder, “What are we doing this for?”

Of course, there are those, especially in second-to-vote New Hampshire, who would disagree with the “it’s over” sentiment so early in the process. Former Trump U.N. ambassador and 2024’s last-survivor Republican establishment candidate Nikki Haley has been edging closer to Trump in the Granite State, near enough for the already panicked bluebloods there and everywhere to beseech anti-Trumper blowhard Chris Christie to leave the race so Haley could supposedly inherit his voters, which the New Jerseyan did last Wednesday.

The forces hoping to stop Trump have banked all their marbles on the first-in-the-nation primary state (New Hampshire), reasoning that independent voters and the locale’s mushy-moderate Republicans will turn en-masse against Trump, who still leads in polls by double-digits way up north. You have to be a Republican to take part in Iowa’s caucuses, which is too high of an ideological threshold for Never Trumpers to have confidence that Haley would prevail in the Midwest, where conservatism and liberty are the order.

Some would say tonight’s caucuses should contain very little drama, since Trump still enjoys the undying love and backing of roughly half of the caucus goers heading into the balloting. As I’ve spent the past year or so explaining, attempting to dislodge a Trump loyalist from their man is kind of like trying to scrape gum off a sidewalk without a putty knife. I suppose it can be done, but if a multi-accomplished man like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wasn’t able to do it, one wonders if anyone can.

It's common knowledge that Trump himself didn’t partake in much “retail” politicking in Iowa this cycle. Unlike DeSantis, who performed the “Full Grassley” by visiting and speaking in all 99 of the state’s counties, Trump didn’t camp out there -- but the two-time defending Republican presidential nominee did commit serious resources to his campaign’s ground game, and, of course, conducted a number of his signature rallies throughout the state. It’s not as though Trump arrogantly overlooked Iowa’s importance; he simply figured the Trump/MAGA brand would carry the day there.

We’ll find out tonight if Trump’s save-it-for-another-day strategy paid off.

One way or another, if things go as predicted, tonight will be the practical end of 38-year-old wealthy entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy’s 2024 candidacy. The young Ohioan deserves much credit for putting his personal fortune on the line to try and steer the campaign discussion towards things that matter, but he had to realize from the beginning that 2024 wasn’t going to be his year.

Despite his likely low finish tonight, Ramaswamy corralled more than his share of news headlines and controversy along the way, the media (both establishment and conservative) appearing to be fascinated by the width and depth of his idea platforms, his willingness to name names – and for his relative support of Donald Trump, should he himself not be the one to win it all.

Ramaswamy made the rounds in Iowa, but couldn’t compete for the top spot with such heavyweight figures as Trump and DeSantis in front of him vying for conservatives’ favor – and Nikki Haley locking up establishment backing that would never go to someone like Ramaswamy anyway.

Chris Christie never hoped to compete in Iowa. Would he have gotten any votes?

And with incumbent bumbler president senile Joe Biden in the White House, Iowa Democrats opted to hold their own caucuses via mail-in ballot this year rather than hope that Hawkeye liberals would bother to turnout in the deep freeze to support a candidate that didn’t do very well there four years ago. It’s hard to recall now, since so much has happened in the Democrat universe since that time, but senile Joe finished fourth behind gay upstart former mayor of a mid-sized midwestern city, Pete Buttigieg (who allegedly captured 26.2 percent of the vote), kook fringe old coot nutcase Bernie Sanders (who the national party suppressed down to 26.1 percent, which defies logic), and loony faux Native American Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren (18 percent, the ultra-radical feminist favorite) – and then Biden himself.

Democrats figured that Iowa would be a challenge for the party establishment favorite, Obama’s sidekick and errand boy garnering a mere 15.8 percent to edge out Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar by a little over three percent.

All of this allegedly happened, because the biggest controversy to emerge from Iowa four years ago (at least on the Democrat side) was the Democrat state party’s inability to count its own ballots, the results being delayed and dragged out over several days with challenges a-plenty from the top finishers.

Gee, Democrats might’ve cooked their own results? Who would’ve ever saw that coming?

This time, the Democrat powers-that-be are giving themselves a couple months to count the votes, reshuffle them to favor Biden to make him look strong and then come out with the “official” results on SUPER TUESDAY, March 5th. That’s right. Democrats won’t name an Iowa winner until after senile Joe’s crooked campaign apparatus has had ample opportunity to ensure their guy doesn’t somehow lose a race where he’s the only “real” candidate. As often hinted, there just aren’t enough Biden-backing African-American voters in pasty white Iowa to have it assured.

Now that’s confidence in the winning qualities of their party figurehead. Who knows, it could be that the Biden honks are worried about a significant number of Iowa Democrats writing in Michelle Obama’s name and they hadn’t yet acquired enough trash cans to dump the evidence.

With little in terms of official machinery to alter the predestined outcome in the Democrat party, they’re apparently depending on pathetic and embarrassing vice president cackling Kamala Harris to do the heavy lifting. In an article titled “Kamala Harris hits campaign trail amid questions about Democratic bench”, Haisten Willis reported recently at the Washington Examiner:

“Vice President Kamala Harris is hitting the campaign trail as her party seeks to keep the White House for the next four years. The question is which other Democrats can help her out.

“Harris is seen as an important surrogate for President Joe Biden in reaching black, Latino, and younger voters. She made an appearance last week before a group of union members and will launch a nationwide abortion rights tour on Jan. 22, the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision...

“Speaking to the party’s base is a traditional role for vice presidents, one that Harris may be especially attuned to given her status as the first female and minority vice president. But Harris is stumping for the 81-year-old Biden, who ran four years ago promising to be a bridge to the next generation of Democratic politicians. The fact that he still commands the spotlight today may speak to the weakness of the party’s younger would-be candidates.”

Yes, it does, but does sending cackling Kamala out to pander to traditional Democrat constituencies exude an air of confidence? Willis’s piece pointed out that Harris’ approval rating is even lower than senile Joe’s, so what good is she as a cheerleader? Here’s thinking the vice president won’t get anywhere near any locations where there aren’t hordes of identity-politics consumed empty brain rubberstamp Democrat voters.

Add the fact that Biden’s handlers practically destroyed any Democrat who let it be known that they could be interested in mounting a primary challenge this year, and something smells a little funny in Democrat-land. Bernie Sanders entered the fray in 2016 against Hillary Clinton and came within a few whiskers of upsetting the party establishment favorite back then. Sanders did so again in 2020, motivating the Democrat powers-that-be to strong-arm South Carolina’s James Clyburn to rescue Biden’s career after being badly embarrassed in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Now, Clyburn is complaining that Biden isn’t doing enough to assure black voters that he’ll protect their vaunted place in the party. How things erode over time!

With senile Joe’s head-to-head matchup (with Trump and other Republicans) poll figures continuing to drop, the clamor for a new Democrat nominee will only intensify. I’m not a Democrat voter and don’t really know that many, but here’s guessing they’re dissatisfied with being automatically locked out of a primary race, particularly since Democrat legacy candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. left the party to mount an independent bid months ago.

Biden insists on touting his economic record as, again, polls reveal the public’s thorough unhappiness with “Bidenflation”, high interest rates and taxpayer alienating expensive climate policies and mandates that take away consumer choice and freedom. He can gripe all he wants about “democracy”, but how will this inspire well-informed voters to choose senile Joe again?

Depending on Democrats turning out because they hate Donald Trump won’t be enough in 2024.

Tonight’s Iowa caucuses provide a welcome shift in the 2024 campaign. Instead of nonstop finger pointing, boasting, empty promises and pontificating (from certain candidates), after today we’ll have actual results to haggle over. Iowa rarely reveals who the presidential winner will be, but it speaks volumes as to who it won’t be. Republicans will need to agree on what the next steps will be, especially if Trump is a winner going away.

• Joe Biden economy

• inflation

• Biden cognitive decline

• gas prices,

• Nancy Pelosi

• Biden senile

• January 6 Committee

• Liz Cheney

• Build Back Better

• Joe Manchin

• RINOs

• Marjorie Taylor Green

• Kevin McCarthy

• Mitch McConnell

• 2022 elections

• Donald Trump

• 2024 presidential election