DES MOINES, IA –
The Democratic Party had four years to prepare for the Iowa caucuses, and they once again squandered an opportunity.
The first-in-the-nation vote for the 2020 election was supposed to be a show of force for the Democrats, energizing at least half of the electorate and possibly captivating many more segments of the population.
But instead, they realized in the early hours of Tuesday that the special app that was designed to streamline the process had essentially stopped working and turned their big moment into a big farce.
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The Democratic officials say the glitches have not compromised the results, insisting that they are only dealing with "inconsistencies" in the digital tabulation of the outcomes of the 1,600 odd caucuses.
So they are now going to go back to the paper recordings for each and every caucus, but that may be too late to generate any meaningful outcome. Iowa is now history, and everyone is on to New Hampshire, and even if the new count does show a clear winner in the Hawkeye State, people will have their doubts as to the veracity of the official results.
The Republicans had a field day with the Democratic electoral fiasco.
"Democrat party meltdown. They can't even run a caucus and they want to run the government. No thank you," Donald Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted.
So now it's official, the 2020 race is on, even if the people's voice has been muffled by glitches.
For all the mishaps, the Iowa caucuses are a celebration of democracy. It's good to know that the people are sovereign again, in light of the ongoing drama in Trump's impeachment trial and the Democratic lawmakers' efforts to unseat the only federal officeholder who is elected by voters in the 50 states.
In fact, apart from hurting our democracy, the trial has also hurt the very party that wants Trump removed from office: Four Democratic senators had to skip the campaign trail for two days this week because they were on jury duty on this trial, which is like any other trial but politicized.
I am so glad this ordeal will finally be over on Wednesday, when the Senate finally renders a non-guilty verdict and the country will be able to move on. Today Trump is expected to deliver the State of the Union address to the very Congress that has indicted him. So the Democrats will have a few hours to shine in the spotlight, despite missing every opportunity to do so, but the media will then shift gears and focus on Washington.
The media airwaves are full of speculation regarding former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's electoral prospects. Bloomberg is banking on voters uniting behind him after the four divisive votes in February: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.
Trump said that he would like to have Bloomberg as the Democratic nominee. Bloomberg has been rising in the national polls, but this doesn't mean anything in the American electoral system, because of the Electoral College.
Trump has called the Democratic apparent frontrunner Bernie Sanders "Crazy Bernie" and a communist, even though Sanders will likely be an easier general election candidate to beat.
Perhaps Trump thinks Sanders can create a movement, very much like what the Republican nominee did in 2016, which led him all the way to the White House.
In fact, both former Vice President Joe Biden and Bloomberg would be very competitive against Trump in purple states that will decide the election in November.
But both have so far failed to generate enthusiasm among the passionate Democratic voters who go to the caucuses and create the much-needed momentum in the early states.
Bloomberg hopes he can succeed where Rudy Giuliani failed: He wants to lie low until Super Tuesday, when more than 1300 delegates will be allocated in a whole slew of key states.
The race could very well be decided that day, but for Bloomberg that is a very big gamble. That said, the infighting among the candidates could result in him being the compromise candidate. We will find out in March.
I saw two candidates do their stump speech in Iowa this week. Pete Buttigieg wowed the crowd in his rally. I could feel the energy in the air. Biden, on the other hand, barely said a world that got more than polite applause.
And then there is Sanders. I wanted to see him up close, so I went to a Super Bowl party that he hosted at a local bar in Des Moines, only to discover that he had left before the game even started.
No wonder Trump calls him "Crazy Bernie." One of the most talked-about metrics for the electability of candidates is whether voters would like to have beer with them. Bernie flunked that test by refusing to have a good time with his own supporters.
"I don't know if the Iowa results will make things clearer; we will only get more questions," Sean, a Democrat who said he would caucus for Sanders, told me. "I think Sanders will at least take care of workers and people who are not wealthy in America. But we do not have a candidate who is a shoo-in for victory in November."
Michael, a sociology major at the University of Iowa, told me that the fact that Trump's impeachment trial is wrapping up will only help the president. "It's amazing how divided we are," he lamented.
We are indeed living in a split-screen reality. The trial resumed on Monday, with both sides presenting their closing arguments. Trump will deliver his address today, a day before lawmakers decide his fate, while his predecessor's vice president is trying to oust him, and with Americans, by and large, tuning out and preferring the Super Bowl. It looks like everyone is in their own little enclave.
Once the votes are fully in, we might get a sense of the message Democratic voters wanted to convey to party bosses. They may have sent the message that they want a candidate with passion and ideological fervor, or alternatively, that they want someone who could actually bring them back to power.
Regardless of who will become the Democratic nominee in the summer, the 2020 general election will be a child's play compared to the major mudslinging that will unfold in the fall of 2020.
The turbulence will be like four years ago, and then some, with Trump dominating the headlines.
In fact, the general election is already in full swing, because apart from various caucuses and primaries, the press is already transfixed with Trump, Trump and more Trump.
In fact, it appears that the 11 Democratic presidential hopefuls prefer to focus on Trump than offer a real platform for voters to rally around. All they have done so far is put forth general and confusing plans.
They are so luck they have Trump to keep them busy and unite them.
