MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 2017

What a Difference a Year Makes

Think of how much things have changed in Ohio Politics since January 30, 2016. In our “Time To Get Raucous” E-dition, we wished everybody a “Happy Iowa Caucus Day,” because Iowa’s First-in-the-Nation Presidential Primary had finally arrived, and Whistleblower Hawkeye Bureau Chief Jan Michelson wondered about some of the questions that would be answered that night.

Would Trump crush his competition, or would he lose to Cruz and risk being branded a loser?

Would Hillary feel the Bern from Iowa again, or was the Sanders phenomena just sound and fury, signifying nothing?

Would the celebrity-centric television coverage of this race trump the traditional fundamentals of an on-the-ground organizational advantage?

Would the media overplay the importance of “three tickets out of Iowa?”

Would a logistics or results snafu happen, and how bad would it be?

If the DemocRAT results were close, would someone play the “popular vote should win” card?

Did endorsements — or de-endorsements — matter?

Would Elizabeth Warren, the progressive Massachusetts U.S. senator, be the real Iowa loser?

Which candidate would go before the microphones first to speak about the results on caucus night?

And for whom would the bell toll? Would there be a new day for Huckabee, Santorum, Carson, and former tech company CEO Carly Fiorina? They all had had their moment — two were past caucus winners, one was the Iowa Poll leader in October, and one was a September debate champ, said GOP activist Wes Enos, a City Council member in Bondurant who backed Rubio.

Others on the brink: O’Malley and Paul. Would any of them finish strongly enough to justify continuing, or would they just end their campaigns and start endorsing? And who would they endorse? [Read More Here] 

 It surely sounded like a lot of questions to be answered for a couple of crappy delegates where Delusional Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich got a whopping 1.9% of the Republican votes.