Dirty Tricks, Temper Tantrums, Upsets, and Drop-outs: The Presidential Nomination Battle Goes On

February 5th, 2016

Awake Goy

The good, the bad, the ugly, the end: Caucusers in Iowa have voted.

The Iowa caucuses brought out telling aspects of the candidates’ personalities and caused four of them to suspend their campaigns.

Billionaire Donald Trump, who was the Iowa front-runner in the Republican race by most polls, ended the caucus-evening in second place to Ted Cruz, who amassed 28% of the vote to Trumps’ 24%. A subdued Trump gave a polite concession speech, but later attacked Cruz for improprieties during the voting process. Trump tweeted: “Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it.” He called Cruz “a nasty guy”. On a Boston radio program, he said: “What he [Cruz] did is unthinkable. It’s a total voter fraud when you think of it…Actually, I came in probably first, if you think about it.”

Trump was incensed because the Cruz campaign: Released a statement claiming that Ben Carson was quitting the race, and that Carson’s supporters should give their support to Cruz; communicated to Iowa voters that Trump was strongly in favor of “ObamaCare” and was “pro-choice” in the issue of women productive rights although the opposite is true; mailed to thousands of voters bogus “Voter Violation” certificates in which the voter was given a grade of “F” and told to clear it up by voting for Cruz. (The Secretary of the State of Iowa has strongly criticized the “Voter Violation” deception perpetrated by the Cruz campaign.)

Trump tweeted: “Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.”

Cruz said he had apologized and made amends with Ben Carson prior to Trump’s tweets. However, Carson said that someone on Cruz’s staff should be fired for the matter. Carson in effect told Fox News that If Cruz did nothing about the dirty trick, his inaction would indicate that Cruz agrees with the tactic. Cruz’s response was that he does not plan to “scapegoat” anyone on his staff about the Carson incident.

In response to Trump’s tweets Cruz said, “We need a commander in chief, not a tweeter in chief”. He called Trump’s angry reaction to the controversy a tantrum, saying, Trump was “throwing a temper tantrum, or rather a Trumpertantrum.”

On the other side of the aisle, the reactions and events of the evening were much more low-key, with the big news being the closeness of the outcome of the caucus for Democrats. Most political observers called it a virtual tie. The focus of the discussion going into the New Hampshire primary was which candidate is most progressive, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton.

The candidates to suspend their campaigns as a consequence of their weak showing in Iowa were Democrat Martin O’Malley and Republicans Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. Santorum said he will support Marco Rubio.