SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 2016

It Will Officially Begin Monday in Iowa

With only two more days until the Iowa Caucuses, Hawkeye Bureau Chief Jan Michelson says everybody still can’t get over how Donald Trump kept his promise not to appear at Thursday night’s Fox News Ambush, but, if anyone could’ve pulled off such a stunt and still come out on top, you knew it would be Trump, because he’s been breaking all the usual political rules this election cycle.

“Candidates would do anything on that stage,” Michelson explained. “The ones at the early loser debate were dying to be on the main debate. For any candidate to walk away from that is crazy — but crazy like a fox.”

But Trump set up a “Special Event to Benefit Veterans Organizations” at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, at the same time, daring viewers to watch on competing networks against the Fox News debate.

And after devoting nearly ten minutes of air time to Donald Trump’s boycott of the Republican debate on Thursday’s evening network newscasts (rather than preview the debate itself), on Friday morning, the three broadcast networks offered over 21 minutes of political coverage continuing to hype Trump’s absence while only managing seven minutes for the GOP contenders who participated in the event.

It was a maneuver that could’ve only worked for someone like Trump — who can command media attention at will and stir reporters into a frenzy with a single tweet. And it’s one that would only work in a 24-hour news cycle, social media saturated environment. The perfect storm.

Over at The Hill, Alexander Bolton says, the Republican establishment is bracing for Trump’s Iowa result.

Republican senators, the pillars of the party establishment, will finally see if Donald Trump is the real deal or simply a media-hyped mirage. GOP strategists expect between 150,000 and 185,000 voters will turn out, according to one senator who reviewed campaign projections. A big turnout would bode well for Trump who is expected to perform strongly among first-time voters.

Only a few months ago these same so-called Republicans in Congress were predicting Trump would fade away, but with the first actually contest of the presidential primary in a little more than two days, these RINOs might finally be forced to admit Donald Trump has a good pretty good chance to win the nomination.