Iowa Democrats: Hillary Won! . . . We Think . . . Maybe . . . If Our Math Was Right
Oh, come on, Iowa. You've got 49 other states envying your prime spot in picking presidential candidates, and now this again? It's Iowa's nightmare scenario revisited: An extraordinarily close count in the Iowa caucuses -- and reports of chaos in precincts and computer glitches -- are raising questions about accuracy of the count and winner. This time it's the Democrats, not the Republicans. Even as Hillary Clinton trumpeted her Iowa win in New Hampshire on Tuesday, aides for Bernie Sanders said the eyelash-thin margin raised questions and called for a review. The chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party rejected that notion, saying the results are final. The situation echoes the events on the Republican side in the 2012 caucuses, when one winner (Mitt Romney, by eight votes) was named on caucus night, but a closer examination of the paperwork that reflected the head counts showed someone else pulled in more votes (Rick Santorum, by 34 votes). But some precincts were still missing entirely. Bernie Sanders and his supporters may have struck you as the kind of people who would instinctively blame any loss on cheating, a conspiracy, or shenanigans. But for now, they're not alleging a conspiracy, just mistakes: Sanders campaign aides told the Register they've found some discrepancies between tallies at the precinct level and numbers that were reported to the state party. The Iowa Democratic Party determines its winner based not on a head count, like in the Republican caucuses, but on state delegate equivalents, tied to a math formula. And there was enough confusion, and untrained volunteers on Monday night, that errors may have been made. "We feel like that there's a very, very good chance that there is," said Rania Batrice, a Sanders spokeswoman. "It's not that we think anybody did anything intentionally, but human error happens." This is one of the most obsessively covered events in American politics -- how are there still giant unresolved questions about what happened caucus night? In an unknown number of Iowa Democratic caucus precincts Monday, a county delegate was awarded after the flip of a coin. Why is the number unknown? Because officials who reported county delegate totals without using the party's smartphone app weren't required to signify if the win was the result of a coin toss, said Sam Lau, a spokesman for the Iowa Democratic Party. Lau said seven coin flips were reported statewide, and Bernie Sanders won six of them. The Des Moines Register has identified six coin flips through social media and one in an interview with a caucus participant. Of those seven, Clinton was the apparent winner of six. It's unknown if there is any overlap between the coin flips identified by the Register and the coin flips the state party confirmed. Does anyone else find it bizarre -- and perhaps a wee bit suspicious -- that Democrats don't release vote totals? Skepticism 101: Don't Believe a Candidate's Claim that His Rival Is About to Quit Does this taint Ted Cruz's victory in Iowa? Or just leave a bad taste in the mouth? Cruz said in a statement Tuesday that his campaign staff saw a CNN report that Carson was dropping out, although CNN had not characterized Carson's actions that way. "Last night when our political team saw the CNN post saying that Dr. Carson was not carrying on to New Hampshire and South Carolina, our campaign updated grassroots leaders just as we would with any breaking news story," Cruz said in a statement first shared with CNN. "That's fair game. What the team then should have done was send around the follow-up statement from the Carson campaign clarifying that he was indeed staying in the race when that came out." Carson said Tuesday he accepted the apology, but questioned whether there was a deeper "cultural issue" with Cruz's campaign. "As a Christian I will accept the apology but it doesn't correct the problem," Carson told CNN. "This is a cultural issue when people in your campaign feel that it's ok to distort the issues to their political advantage and to tell absolute lies. And the question really is will there be any consequences for that." Matthew Sheffield shows one of the messages sent out by the Cruz campaign on caucus night: 
One argument in Cruz's favor: Here's the percentage of the vote that Ben Carson had in the final seven polls of Iowa Republicans before the caucus: 8, 7, 9, 10, 8, 9, 3. That averages out to 7.7 percent. He finished with 9.3 percent. Sending out a report that implies Carson is quitting the race is the wrong thing to do, but there's not evidence that it significantly impacted Carson's level of support in the race. Ah, the Old 'I Chose Strategically Not to Participate in Iowa' Excuse It was quite satisfying to write this piece. It seems like every cycle, we get a bigger crop of former candidates, gadflies, retreads and other folks making a vanity campaign, running around insisting that their campaign is about to catch fire any day now, that the polls are undercounting their support, and that the only poll that counts is on Election Day. And then they flame out, and offer every excuse in the book except that, "I was never that appealing a candidate, and there was never significant appetite among the voters that I run." Jim, Tuesday morning: "At what point does [Jim] Gilmore's effort stop being a lovable long-shot bid and start becoming an uncomfortable public exhibition by a man in deep psychological denial?" Jim Gilmore, Tuesday afternoon: "We're talking figuratively here. I obviously understand what 12 votes means in Iowa. Don't think I don't understand that," Gilmore said. "Here's the point: What I was trying to communicate, and I'm gonna communicate it you again, was that I chose strategically not to participate in Iowa." "I'm not surprised it was 12," he continued. "We did not recruit any representatives. We did not go out in the community. We did not ask for the vote. To the contrary, in the debate I actually made it clear to everybody in America that I was not participating in Iowa. So I don't feel bad getting 12 votes because I wasn't trying to get 12 votes." Hey wasn't trying? See, traditionally, trying to get people to vote for you is… pretty much the whole point and purpose of a campaign. Suddenly I feel like Herm Edwards. 
Good news, though. Gilmore said he is trying to win votes in New Hampshire. ADDENDA: You get a lot of "well, who are YOU supporting?!" responses at this time of year. A couple of notes . . . 1. I don't have a say in who National Review endorses. That decision is up to the editor-in-chief and the senior editors. Yes, I know my title is "senior political correspondent" but that doesn't count, and I'm not particularly eager to have a hand in any official endorsement. It would just lead to more people complaining to me anyway. 2. No, I don't know if the editors will endorse a candidate or more than one candidate this year. Nobody ever tells me anything. 3. NR editors are free to personally endorse, separate from the magazine. Jay Nordlinger is helping out the Cruz campaign. Andy McCarthy endorsed Cruz. 4. I live in Virginia and plan to vote in the primary March 1. I'll probably announce whom I voted for in the Jolt that morning. Why wait until then? Because you never know what late-breaking bit of information could end up altering your calculus. A candidate could look terrific and then they could either have some key meltdown or some bit of opposition research could drop, and suddenly you're the guy who endorsed the candidate right before the pictures of him in the Satanic rituals surfaced. 5. I make no claims to infallibility in political judgment. I thought voting for Bob McDonnell was a good idea. In fact, that might explain my concern about late-breaking sudden revelations of long-hidden scandals.  | 
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