So yesterday we had the Iowa Caucus, which is a big deal because for the first time in almost four years, people care about Iowa again.  I’m still not sure why.  I’ve looked up the definition of “caucus”, which sounds a lot like a word for poop, and found this:

(noun): a meeting of the members of a legislative body who are members of a particular political party, to select candidates or decide policy.

The only difference between this and a primary, in which we go vote for our favorite (or least hated) candidate in our party of choice (or last resort), is that there’s a lot of people partying at the caucus, at least until they find out the results.  Then stuff like this happens:

Awww. (photo from theguardian.com)

That’s right!  Trumpy came in second by a wide margain.  Yay!?  Uh, so who came in first?  Teddy Cruz.  I forgot who he was for a moment, until I saw his face.  Oh yeah.

Future Republican presidential candidate?

Marco (Polo) Rubio of these boots are made for walkin’ fame, came in a close third to Trumpy.  So, according to the Guardian, we could have two “Cuban Americans” fighting over the Republican nomination.  I giggled a little at that.  Because they are totes Cuban.  Must be why they are so insistent on keeping out immigrants.  Goodness knows we never get Cuban ones, just ask Florida.

Jeb finished in a dismal sixth place after a libertarian of all things, and brain donor Ben Carson.  Not a good sign.  Still, I hope he hangs on because I really like his ad campaign.  It’s hilariously awful.  Huckabee officially bowed out of the campaign, which I thought he’d done months ago, leaving only like 30 Republicans in the race.  I think.

As far as the Democrats go, it’s officially still too close to call, which means Hillary is like, oh wow thank goodness I won as evidenced by CNN supporting my campaign!  Her numbers were higher than Sanders – by .03 percentage points.  Meanwhile Sanders had his own victory speech because he nearly beat her, in spite of purposely ticking off Wall Street and corporations (or because of?), and in spite of both the media and the Democratic party thinking his ramshackle campaign could never win.  Sometimes, guys, it helps if you actually cast a vote.  I know, it sounds stupid, but sometimes it does.  At the very least, you can cancel out someone’s vote.  So just do it.

Everybody join me in song! Nanner, nanner, boo boo!

Now these wins don’t necessarily mean that Clinton and Cruz are going to be our candidates.  There are actually states besides Iowa.  But it does give you an idea.  Sanders is still in the race, and Trump Dump’s incredible charm did not let him win this one.  He even managed to spit out that he was “honored to be in second place” and that he “congratulated Cruz”.  If I were Cruz, I’d hire a few bodyguards.

Trump being sincere. Totally.

So one state down, only 49 to go!  Isn’t this exciting?  I’m just so excited I think I could barf.  Maybe the definition of caucus should be the one first proposed by Lewis Carroll in that book I kind of like:

“What is a Caucus-race?” said Alice; not that she much wanted to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.

“Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.” (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle (“the exact shape doesn’t matter,” it said), and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there.

There was no “One, two, three, and away!” but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out “The race is over!” and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, “But who has won?”

-“Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll

Every political race ever.

Your guess is as good as mine.

Alice