Disaster Aisle Iowa

Technical Disaster:  Two weeks ago the New York Road Runners Club had an epic failure, the new technology platform they used for sign-up for this year’s Brooklyn Half marathon crashed when tens of thousands of runners all tried to get into the wildly popular race all at once. The club’s system remained out of operation for hours, leaving a lot of wannabee runners fuming and an egg on its face club scurrying to come up with a few added slots to accommodate at least some of the runners who couldn’t hang by their computers for the hours in took for the system to be put back into operation.  Last night, Iowa’s Democratic party experienced a similar crisis, only their failure is far more consequential because while leaving a few thousand frustrated runners without starting bibs isn’t a good thing, screwing up the first vote of what is expected to be a highly contentious and extraordinarily important  2020  election is a disaster that feeds the worst fears of an already distrustful electorate still smarting from the 2016 catastrophe.  The Iowa Democratic Party blamed their mega SNAFU on a system failure that caused reporting inconsistencies, whatever that means, rather than any nefarious election interference. As a result of the massive screw up, instead of relying on their newfangled APP which was so faulty that it proved unloadable onto precinct captain cell phones, party officials are now processing back-up paper ballots, with results from individual precincts being phoned into an understaffed central location. The final results are supposed to be released later this morning and though no one knows what they’ll say, it looks likely that Bernie Sanders will come out on top, at least that’s what his supporters are saying.  Pete Buttigieg also claims to have outperformed, in the middle of the night he delivered a victory speech that made it sound like he hadn’t just won Iowa but that he had been anointed president.  Amy Klobuchar isn’t claiming victory, but is reporting that she did better than Joe Biden in some precincts.  Maintaining her usual upbeat demeanor, Elizabeth Warren said that she’s confident that she is now on her way to winning the nomination and a less enthusiastic Joe Biden said that he was sure that he will ultimately be awarded a few delegates.  His legal team appears even more concerned, they’ve already lobbed a letter to Iowa’s Democratic Party saying that they want a head’s up before any results are officially released.  Of course, Trump who is gearing up for tonight’s “optimistic” State of the Union Address is enjoying the mess, late last night  his campaign manager Brad Pascale gleefully tweeted out “Democratic Party meltdown.  They can’t even run a caucus, and they want to run the government.”  He has a point.  Mike Bloomberg who opted out of Iowa is probably feeling awfully cocky too, but at least, so far, neither he nor his supporters are saying anything.  Next up – New Hampshire, not a caucus, but a run of the mill primary, scheduled for February 11, assuming no more catastrophes before then.

Impeaching to the End:  The almost over impeachment trial is still in process.  Yesterday both sides’ legal teams provided their conclusionary speeches.  Trump’s team stuck to its usual themes, providing variations of the argument that “he did nothing wrong, it’s all a hoax and no one really believes that impeachment is actually part of the Constitution.”  Though no Republicans appear to care, the Democrats’ team warned that leaving Trump in place will only embolden him further, that he’ll continue to do what he’s been doing, encouraging and threatening foreign governments to interfere in the upcoming election.  In what might go down as a historically significant speech, referring to a recidivist Trump, Adam Schiff said “he has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again. He has compromised our elections, and he will do so again.  You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is.”  He then tried to appeal to the Republican crowd’s better angels by saying that “Truth matters to you. Right matters to you. You are decent. He is not who you are.”  Unfortunately, they’re not, although a few Republican Senators are now admitting that Trump did do wrong things, they just don’t appear to want to do anything about it because maintaining their seats and positions in their party is far more important.  To that end Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski justified her decision to vote against admitting any additional evidence or calling witnesses by saying that doing so would have just been more divisive, a variation on Lamar Alexander’s assertion that convicting Trump would “pour gasoline on cultural fires.”  She also confirmed that she’ll be voting against impeachment even though she called Trump’s behavior “shameful and wrong.” As to that wrongful behavior, moderate Democrat Joe Manchin floated the idea of censuring Trump instead of voting for his removal and though a number of Republicans know in their hearts that they should sign on to his idea, it doesn’t appear that any of them will and it’s still possible that Manchin, and his Democratic colleagues Arizona’s  Sinema and Alabama’s Jones will vote against convicting Trump on one or both of the charges.  As to Trump, Vanity Fair reports that he’s preparing a hit list, one that includes Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, John Bolton and Mitt Romney. Of course he is.