From the “how do you like me now?” files
by digby
So, you’ve probably heard that there was a little “glitch” in the vote count in Iowa, right?:
Caucus night was chaotic in many places, with hundreds of voters, candidates showing up and the throngs of media who followed. The world’s eyes were on Iowa. But in the quiet town of Moulton, Appanoose County, a caucus of 53 people may just blow up the results.
Edward True, 28, of Moulton, said he helped count the votes and jotted the results down on a piece of paper to post to his Facebook page. He said when he checked to make sure the Republican Party of Iowa got the count right, he said he was shocked to find they hadn’t.
“When Mitt Romney won Iowa by eight votes and I’ve got a 20-vote discrepancy here, that right there says Rick Santorum won Iowa,” True said. “Not Mitt Romney.”
Well hell. But is this really a surprise? After all, ever since 2000, when the Supreme Court declared that it would do “irreparable harm” to George W. Bush if Al Gore ever even temporarily took the lead in the vote count, we’ve known that the winner in a close race must always be the Republican who is declared the winner by the media, regardless of the actual vote count. I’m guessing that GOP politicians never dreamed that little gambit would be used on themselves. Guess who’s feeling the hurt now?
“This is politics,” Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared Dec. 21, dismissing calls for him to condemn ads attacking former House Speaker Newt Gingrich that were run by an independent group supporting Romney’s candidacy.
The ads were part of an unprecedented $3.3 million negative campaign of television spots and direct mail by Restore Our Future, an independent expenditure-only committee or super PAC, which blunted Gingrich’s rise and may very well be the main ingredient in an Iowa victory for Romney next Tuesday.
Never before have the Iowa caucuses seen such a campaign by any group other than a candidate committee. And with days to go before Iowans cast their votes, the new political landscape is coming into sharper focus.
Fully aware of the bazooka he had in his back pocket, Romney on Friday jetted off to New Hampshire to campaign for the primary election there, casually planning a return to the Hawkeye State on Saturday afternoon. Calm and assured that his campaign would keep on going past Iowa, he put an op-ed in the State newspaper in South Carolina and spent the morning taking shots at President Barack Obama in a variety of interviews. Opponents were left grappling for third place in Tuesday night’s vote.
I’m sure they’ll all be passionately defending the God given Constitutional right of anonymous billionaires to destroy Democrats in a few months. But for right now the Republicans are reaping what they’ve sowed. I hope they like the idea of groveling to the wealthy elite for the privilege of being the single anointed GOP candidate in the future because that’s how the presidential candidates will be chosen going forward. It’s not that it’s ever been completely open, but the huge gusher of money in this year’s primary to clear the field for Mittens shows that there’s probably no chance of an underdog ever again actually winning the thing. They’ll just destroy whoever stands in their way with ads and if the people get uppity and vote for the wrong person anyway they’ll take care of it the Florida Way.
.