This has to dent Clinton's claim of inevitability. We will have to see if her campaign even continues to push that line. She once had a commanding lead in Iowa and had vowed not to let Iowa set back her campaign again. To that end she devoted a lot of funds, aids and prestige - to come in virtually tied with Sanders, whose chances the Mainstream Media pundits have been vigorously denigrating. In a week Sanders could well beat her in New Hampshire by double digits. Interesting times.

And, finally, we get to see Donald's claimed 'winner' status take a hit at the waterline. It remains to be seen to what extent he and his braggadocio continue to dominate coverage. The longer he is in it the better it will be for the Democrats. Meanwhile the Republican Establishment has Cruz to contend with. I have to smile.  

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Donald Trump Campaign Sued Gender Discrimination

A former paid organizer for the Donald Trump campaign has filed a lawsuit claiming that she and other women faced discrimination.

The lawsuit was filed by 26-year-old Elizabeth Mae Davidson, who worked for the campaign in Davenport, IA, according to The New York Times. Davidson was fired last month.

In the complaint, Davidson alleges that men and women were paid unequally despite holding the same job titles and responsibilities. She claims that she was paid $2,000 a month and classified as part-time because of her other job as a paralegal. According to The Times' analysis of public filings, several men with the same title of "district representative" made $3,500 to $4,000 a month.

Raise your hand if you're surprised.

According to HuPo final Democratic Caucus results from Iowa are:

Candidate     SDEs     Delegates
Clinton        701            28            ​​​​​​​​​​​̴ 3;​​​​​​​​
Sanders     697           21 ​​​​​​​​​​​​R 03;​​​​​​​​
O'Malley         8              0

As we do not know the ultimate decisions of O'Malley's SDEs, we do not know who 'won' for the Democrats. For now, Iowa is a draw for the Democrats. Even last night it was reported that, in a few precincts, the deadlocked caucus goers decided to allot by coin toss, all of which went in Clinton's favor. The closeness of the race could outweigh the fact that Clinton, at this time, has seven more delegates than Sanders.

The 2016 Nevada Democratic caucus will be held on Saturday, February 20th, 2016 and the South Carolina primary is on Feb. 27, a Saturday, this year. Las Vegas is a union town and may support Sanders while Clinton should have the advantage in South Carolina. Today is February 2, Ground Hog Day, and the sun shines brightly in Arkansas after an overnight rain. Yet I doubt we will have another six weeks of winter, and though our last freeze is often during the third week in April, El Nino may yet rescue me from six more weeks of winter. (Bold on Sanders and the end of line artifacts courtesy of Scoop and my frustration with it.)

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Bernie Sanders' Ancestral Hometown in Poland Cheers Presidential Run

Residents of the Polish town where Bernie Sanders' father was born are watching the Jewish candidate's presidential run with pride.

Many citizens of Slopnice, in southern Poland, viewed the results of the Democratic caucus in Iowa with interest on Tuesday, according to Agence France Press, the day after Sanders narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton.

"There's quite a bit of excitement in the air here -- we're proud of Senator Sanders and we wish our `homeboy' even greater success!" Mayor Adam Soltys told AFP.

Soltys met Sanders, 74, and his brother in 2013 when the two visited the town of 6,500 while retracing the footsteps of their father, Eli. The mayor helped the brothers find the house where Eli Sanders lived before emigrating in 1921 at age 17.

Many of Eli Sanders' relatives were killed in the Holocaust.

Bernie Sanders "even speaks a few words of Polish," Soltys said, describing the candidate as "very sympathetic, warmhearted and friendly."

The Democrats Effectively Tied in Iowa, But Sanders Won the Future  New York Magazine

In 2008, voters under 30 propelled Barack Obama to victory, choosing the Illinois senator over Hillary Clinton by a 43-point margin. In 2016, those younger voters single-handedly lifted America's favorite democratic socialist to a virtual tie: Sanders outperformed Clinton among voters 18 to 29 by 70 points, according to CNN's entrance poll.

Unfortunately, 'the future' might start AFTER 2016. Quoting Slate's  Jamelle Bouie:

Sanders is already a historic candidate--the first socialist in a century to build a genuine mass movement in American party politics. And whatever the Democratic Party is in the next 20 or 30 years, it will owe a great deal to Sanders and all the people--young or otherwise--who felt the Bern.

 

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

do the elevated numbers of republican voters suggest that there might be problems with democratic turnout in November?

keep to the Fen Causeway

Donald Trump accuses Ted Cruz of stealing Iowa -- and demands new caucuses - The Washington Post

The unexpected sense of generosity that marked Donald Trump's concession speech in Iowa on Monday night began to fray during his speech in New Hampshire on Tuesday -- and appears to have evaporated completely, given what Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. By the end of his tirade against Ted Cruz's Iowa win, Trump suggested that new voting should be held.

Trump's initial tweet read:

Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa, he illegally stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong any why he got more votes than anticipated. Bad!

Could Jeb-mentum be real?: The GOP's "low-energy" candidate veers left -- and New Hampshire loves it

It was a distinctly different demographic from the audiences that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz get here, conspicuously middle-class to affluent and with a general mood closer to bafflement than anger. They came to see a guy who has been repeatedly mocked and belittled by the Republican frontrunner and the media since the beginning of this electoral season, the scion of a political dynasty who has spent tens of millions of dollars with no discernible results and who barely registered in the Iowa caucuses. They came to see the son and brother of former presidents argue for a return to what he calls "regular-order democracy," and they ate it up [...]

After repeatedly being confounded by the more-conservative-than-thou politics of the Republican race, Bush has made the counterintuitive decision (at least for now) to run to the left of his entire party, with the possible exception of Kasich. That's a highly relative term in 2016, to be sure. But in terms of the policy positions I heard him talk about on Sunday morning, the differences between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton on a broad range of issues are more a matter of tone than substance. He said he was done badmouthing Barack Obama, and that Republicans could never win unless they convince voters they care about the poor and the disadvantaged. "I don't think liberals are bad people," he said, a sentiment you will not hear from Donald Trump or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio.

More extraordinary still, Bush agreed with a questioner that climate change was a genuine threat to human society and said that "man has to have some influence" in that process. (That got a heartfelt round of applause.)