The Ethanol Belt

Given the addiction to the dopamine thrill of horserace-style election coverage, I guess this is where we're supposed to wonder VERY LOUDLY about the implications of one non-election in a state that has a million fewer people in it than the city of Los Angeles. Not the metropolitan area, just the city proper. Like, yes Boyle Heights and Porter Ranch, but not Manhattan Beach or Alhambra. Hell, we could even give Iowa Manhattan Beach and Alhambra and it still doesn't equal LA. Not sure we'd be OK with sending anything in Iowa's direction though as they'd probably insist on a trade and I'm not sure what we'd do with the population of Fort Dodge or Waterloo. Rob them, probably.

But look, the Iowa caucuses are stupid, for a lot of reasons. First of all, you can't take seriously an civic activity that has a name that makes high school boys snigger. "Caucus," really? It's like they're not even trying. Second, any electoral process that has written into its procedure as a matter of course in the second instance immediately following the direct vote* the flip of a goddamned coin has automatically qualified to receive any ridicule that may be hurled at it, including the most damning ridicule of all, the potential to be won by Donald Trump.

I know too much has been made about how many votes swung to the Clinton camp as a result of the coin-toss rules, but none of us who have been of voting age in the post Bush v. Gore era can possibly accept as legitimate or reliable a system that leaves the outcome of an extremely tight vote to something as capricious as chance. No, we understand that you resolve these things the old fashioned way, by stacking the highest available relevant court with ideologically friendly appointees and then instructing them to vote in your favor. That's how real bootstrap American-ing gets done. Coin flips are for socialists.

Unless you're a socialist named Bernie, I guess in this case, when the coin flips aren't for you at all. No, all you get is a second place actual finish, which in Iowa is a VICTORY THAT RESOUNDS THROUGH ALL EPOCHS! A triumph of finishing not-in-first in a way that is slightly less terribly crushing than was hoped last time anyone bothered to check.

But this was only slightly less impressive than the way Marco Rubio swept to triumph by securing a less-than-disqualifying margin in third place. It certainly wasn't a win worthy of the weirdly upbeat victory speech he gave, but it was at least illuminating to see how desperate the media is to find a way out of the Cruz-Trump jungle, where all the clinging vines are made from strands of shredded human dignity matted together with way too much hair product.

Sure, Ted Cruz was the only clear "winner" in Iowa. But it means exactly what it meant when Rick Santorum won the last one. And when Mike Huckabee won the one before that: Iowans are poor decision-makers. If you need more proof of this, consider: 100% of them have chosen to live in Iowa.

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*And it's not even a real vote, with paper and ballots and such. It's a weird-ass hodgepodge of hand-raising or crowd grouping or, in one case in Osceola, an ole fashion hog hollerin'.