04 February 2016
Not What We Ordered
by J.R.Thomas
After the unexpected victory of the Conservative Party in Britain’s general election last May, the opinion pollsters entered into a rending of garments and agony of self-examination as to why they got it so wrong. (We did explain in these pages that it was their failure to extrapolate their poll results to the British constituency system and how that affects minority parties that messed up their forecasting, but still they agonise over methodology and polling systems.) One conclusion they reached is that right leaning voters don’t tell the truth, at least to opinion pollsters. Your correspondent has never been polled by the clipboard bearers, but whether leaning left or right, he must admit he would probably be amused by fibbing to mess up their predictions, so they might have a point.
That Theory of Rightist Dishonesty must have been reinforced in the pollster’s offices as the Iowa Presidential primary results came in on Monday night. The opinion polls said: “Major Victory for Trump”. Reality revealed; “Convincing Win for Cruz”. Even more non-forecast, Marco Rubio polled almost as well as The Donald. To put it into percentages, 28% for Ted Cruz, 24% for Donald Trump; 23% for Marco Rubio. That, our mathematics correspondent advises, is three quarters of the vote for the three outsiders and the other nine split the rest. The falling oaks include Chris Christie (2%); Jeb Bush (3%); Carly Fiorina (2%). Ben Carson is fading fast – from front runner in Iowa last October, he came in at 9%.
It is not the end for Mr Trump, far from it. He is still clear front runner in New Hampshire. The folks of the north east are less religious than those in Iowa, more independently minded and free thinking, and the Trump approach seems to go down well there (as does the Sanders style). But the main attention for a while is going to be on the fight between the two Cubans, Cruz and Rubio, and how quickly the rest of the field will fold.
The GOP leadership would like the field to fold fast, to stop all this infighting and get a strong candidate motoring ahead. So they are tiptoeing towards Mr Rubio, and Mr Rubio is shuffling towards them. The men in grey suits in Washington have never really thought that Trump could win, although there was some holding of breath going on a couple of weeks ago. This result suggests they may be right; especially with Super Tuesday not having been great territory for him, being so focused on the South. Ted Cruz seems to be fighting the Republican establishment almost as much as Trump, so the wagons have to be circled around Rubio. But in an age of anti-establishmentarianism among the voters, is it wise to for Rubio to allow the grey suits to wrap him in the official Republican banner?
A bit more hope to cheer Mr Trump. One of Cruz’s great strengths is being able to connect with voters on a local scale. The caucus system, of selection by discussion in local meetings, is ideal for him, and for his organisation. But most primaries are now by election – as is New Hampshire – and Trump’s mass publicity works better for that. Caucus night was very cold in Iowa, with a snow storm rolling in, and you have to be a committed voter to turn out on a night like that. Cruz’s supporters are more politically committed than Trump’s, it seems, so Cruz will be hoping for bad weather on the east coast next week. The weather though may oblige Trump.
Trump’s organisation in Iowa was weak; it is stronger in New Hampshire. Cruz worked very hard on Iowa, but spent little time in New Hampshire, and his back up and voter delivery is weak. His strategy was to get a ball rolling in Iowa, but the question is, will it roll as far as New Hampshire?
And Trump looked very gracious in defeat on Monday night, conceding elegantly to Cruz. That will have done his image as much good as a myriad of TV advertisements.
The other face the cameras lingered on thoughtfully on Monday night was that of Mrs Clinton; on a huge relieved grin. The relief in that grin, in spite of a win by just five votes – 700 to 695 (the vote is per meeting, not individual voters, in case you are thinking it must have been a very cold night) – suggests that she expected the margin to be the other way round. That gives her 22 delegates to the national convention this summer and Bernie Sanders 21. Bernie will, we predict, win New Hampshire next Tuesday. So by this time next week it will be a clear Sanders lead. Then conventional wisdom says, his lead will not just disappear but be utterly vanquished as the Clinton strongholds in the South overwhelm him in both number of states voting for the lady and delegates won from those big populations. Of course, conventional wisdom does tend to be right. And Sanders has problems – he just does not have the party infrastructure on the ground to get the votes out on the night on that scale.
The Iowa results are subject to detailed exit polls, and maybe those polls are no more reliable than any other. But even if they are half right they are quite startling. 85% of voters under age 29 voted for Bernie; and 58% of those aged 30 to 44. Only the over 50’s start to pile up the votes for Hillary. With more young voters in the Southern states that might mean not such an easy run for Mrs C. Maybe those young dreamers will organise to get the votes out for Bernie. And a heavy loss for Hillary in New Hampshire might make her look like a loser.
There’s another problem as well. Hillary’s emails are getting very annoying publicity in the press now. To refresh, Mrs Clinton admits using her personal not-so-secure email server for state business whilst Secretary of State. Against the rules, but, said Hillary, nothing significant passed across them and she did not trust the official system. The State Department carried out a detailed investigation and have just released copies of them. Most were reminding Bill to take the dog for a walk and that sort of thing, but a significant number were redacted because of items of security concern in them. Worse still, twenty two were withheld entirely because they were classified “Top Secret”. Mrs Clinton says that this is all political, the withheld emails have nothing special in them, they are been used to stoke up trouble against her Presidential run. This may turn out to be a good line because if they are that sensitive and secret they cannot be released to prove that she did really break the rules.
But it is all good for Bernie. He does not have to say or do anything. He just smiles that kindly smile and talks about wicked corporations and the need to make America kinder and more honest.
Now everybody has gone to New Hampshire, Iowa sinks back into its usual peaceful way of life. Citizens can go about their business unimpeded by clipboards, TV cameras, and over friendly politicians. Actually, not quite everybody has headed east. Mick Huckabee has suspended his campaign, and on the Democrat side Martin O’Malley, the only other candidate, has pulled out, having scored less than 1% in Iowa. O’Malley was thought to be an alternative to Hillary if she got really damaged in the campaign and if the national party began to worry about having an independent socialist as their Presidental candidate. We may think the Republican leadership does not sleep easy at night; but it’s a fair bet the Democrat bigwigs aren’t resting too well either. And the opinion pollsters are once again wide awake, polishing their modelling formats.
