Surviving Sodom, by Anthony Esolen
February 4, 2020False Shepherd, Part V: Common Denominator, by Joseph M. Hanneman
February 4, 2020
The Democratic Party looks incompetent, and public trust in election integrity has been further eroded.
By Charles Lipson, Spectator, February 4, 2020
Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he founded the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security.
The Monday night caucuses were the biggest moment in four years for Iowa Democratic Party. They screwed it up beyond belief. They had one task: to produce timely, accurate, and reliable vote totals, and they failed completely. TV anchors sat around filling time, waiting for Godot to show up with election returns. None appeared. The candidates themselves began flying off to New Hampshire for next week’s primary.
It was a fiasco, a huge embarrassment not only for state officials but for the national party. It denied the winners their big moment before the TV cameras on election night—and the fundraising bonus that goes with it. It left the losers wondering if they’ve been robbed. It left Iowans questioning whether they will ever hold caucuses again or keep their prime spot as first-in-the-nation. The bitterness over this mess will linger, and the Republicans will exploit it.
To begin with, this failure makes the Democratic Party look ridiculous. The damage is compounded because they are the “party of government.” That’s their brand, and it been since Franklin Roosevelt proposed the New Deal. Democratic policies almost always call for more government, run from Washington. When people point to social or economic problems, Democrats reflexively respond with laws, regulations, and bureaucracies to tackle them (and taxes to pay for them). That prospect looks a lot less appealing when you can’t count the votes in a high school gym. It doesn’t encourage people to say, “These are just the people to handle my healthcare.” …