The Des Moines Register endorses Romney.

"Our discussion repeatedly circled back to the nation’s single most important challenge:"

pulling the economy out of the doldrums, getting more Americans back in the workforce in meaningful jobs with promising futures, and getting the federal government on a track to balance the budget in a bipartisan manner that the country demands.

Which candidate could forge the compromises in Congress to achieve these goals? When the question is framed in those terms, Mitt Romney emerges the stronger candidate.

Obama and the "cowpie of distortion."

Thanks for calling attention to that, Drudge.

Now, why did Obama say that? He was in Iowa, talking about a speech Romney had just given in Iowa, and I'm picturing Obama's speech-writing team brainstorming about how to insult Romney appropriately:

Speechwriter #1: Romney's speech was bullshit.

Speechwriter #2: Yeah, it would be great if Obama could just say: Bullshit!

Speechwriter #3: Here we are out in farm country. Just a lot of farmers. They know bullshit. There's bullshit, cowshit everywhere on farms. So I've heard. Cowpies everywhere. This state is wall-to-wall cowpie. Get me outta here.

Speechwriter #2: Romney's speech was a big cowpie. A cowpie of...

Speechwriter #1: Distortion! Cowpie of distortion!

All: Ha ha ha ha.

Speechwriter #2: Seriously, he should just say that.

Speechwriter #1: Yeah, because Iowans love all the endless visits from politicians who try to suck up to them with Iowa-related humor and can never think of one damned thing except that Iowa is farms, farms, farms.

Speechwriter #3: And are these really even cattle farms? Dairy farms, whatever? I thought Iowa was more: corn.

Speechwriter #2: Shut up. Cowpie of distortion. It's hilarious. The college kids will love it. He said bullshit, but he didn't say bullshit. Grandma and college dork alike will titter.

Speechwriter #3: They'll titter their udders off. But could you please just Google to see if cows are an Iowa thing, because I'm afraid cows are more Wisconsin, and, you know, cattle, like steers and shit, they're more Nebraska. You've got Iowa right there in the middle...

Speechwriter #1: You win the National Geography Bee, now shut up.

Speechwriter #3: Iowa right there in the middle, but with the corn. Corn, so....

Speechwriter #1: Corn is too obvious. They hear corn all the time. It lacks subtlety.

Speechwriter #2: Subtlety?! What the fuck are you talking about? We're in Iowa. There's no subtlety. Subtlety is a nonissue. Focus on the topic at hand. We need an Iowa-appropriate joke, and the joke on the table is "cowpie of distortion."

Speechwriter #1: The cowpie is on the table. Now, get out your knife and fork and dissect this thing. Dig in!

Speechwriter #2: I say cowpie of distortion is the perfect joke for these fucking farmers, and kids and grandmas all over the country are gonna laugh their asses off if it's the last thing I do for our very cool POTUS.

Speechwriter #3: Cowpie of distortion isn't cool. Who talks like that? Cowpie of distortion? It's like Ball of Confusion.  [Sings:] Evolution, revolution, gun control, sound of soul, shooting rockets to the moon, kids growing up too soon, politicians say more taxes will solve everything.... Ball of confusion!

Speechwriter #1: Ha ha. You Googled those lyrics.

Speechwriter #2: Yes, and by the way, more taxes will solve everything.

Speechwriter #3: Ha ha. Now, could you please Google and make sure they have cows — in addition to corn — in Iowa? Because the joke on the table is cowpie of confusion... I mean, distortion.

Suddenly, Santorum is the winner of the Iowa caucuses.

Ah! What could have been!

What could have been?

Did you watch the TV coverage of the Iowa Caucuses all the way to the end?

I didn't, but Chris (my son) did. Here's our IM dialogue (with me in italics):

i went to bed early

was extremely long

were some amusing parts though

what?

like this http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2012/01/04/bts-iowa-caucus-edith-carolyn-highlights.cnn

I heard them say "It's too close to call" about 100 times, then I lost my mind, then I went to bed



some stuff on cnn... they sort of figured out the results before it was announced by talking to a precinct captain

there was a point where someone kept trying to "flick" a graphic back to the original tv and did it three or four times before it worked, and anderson cooper said something like "have we just given up?" (on reporting)

LOL [at the "Edith and Carolyn" video]

"whadya mean the numbers don't match"

yeah

what time of night was that?

i think around 1 am central

and it was after the point where they seemed like the news anchors couldn't take it anymore

anderson cooper in particular kept just insulting the graphics and stuff

LOL

there was a point when cooper said something like "if you miss any of this you can catch it all later on the daily show when he ruthlessly makes fun of you

if they had all the clips of everything that happened they could make it seem really funny but the problem is it was over the course of like 6-7 hours

Yeah, that's why I went to bed.

ADDED: You can watch the flickfail here.

"This is not a joke" = the subject line of email from Barack Obama's campaign manager...

... received just after the email from Rick Santorum, blogged in the previous post. Where Santorum addressed me "Patriot," Obama's guy (Jim Messina) addresses me "Friend." (How much does that say about the difference between conservatives and liberals?) Excerpts:

The extremist Tea Party agenda won a clear victory [in Iowa]. No matter who the Republicans nominate, we'll be running against someone who has embraced that agenda in order to win -- vowing to let Wall Street write its own rules, end Medicare as we know it, roll back gay rights, leave the troops in Iraq indefinitely, restrict a woman's right to choose, and gut Social Security to pay for more tax cuts for millionaires and corporations....

Vowing all these things? The Democrats' campaign — or perhaps only its scheme to extract money from those who might yield money — is to scare us about how terribly right-wing the Republican candidate is.

[T]he path ahead for Romney -- or whichever of the Republican candidates is going to emerge from this process -- is sadly and starkly very clear: to run even further to the extreme right, and make even more dangerous promises that threaten not only the progress we've made but the fundamental fabric of American society.

Extreme! Extreme! Dangerous!!!

Watching the circus on TV, it's tempting to think it's almost funny -- but this is not a joke.

Funny? Who writes this stuff? I'm picturing clowns — they're familiar with the circus — who really have a lot of ironic distance and have the instinct to laugh at Republicans. Think of Alan Colmes, who thought he could be funny mocking Rick Santorum for "playing" with his dead baby. I imagine that Colmes mostly talks with smart, cheeky guys whose natural habitat is distanced observation and edgy humor, and he just didn't realize that ordinary people are more closely interwoven with what some ironist trying to get serious might call the fundamental fabric of American society.

These distanced observers, who see the world in terms of humor and tell ordinary people to get serious... how do they push us to seriousness? Not with rational arguments and accurate information, but by making extreme overstatements about extremism and urging us to feel afraid. And yet they call me "Friend."

Friend... before you came, Barack Obama, I was all alone...



The full text of the email...

These Republican candidates spent in some cases more than a year -- in Mitt Romney's case seven years -- campaigning in Iowa to be the next president.

But tonight, GOP voters there couldn't decisively get behind anyone.

Who exactly leads the Republican race going forward isn't clear, but we do know two things:

1) The extremist Tea Party agenda won a clear victory. No matter who the Republicans nominate, we'll be running against someone who has embraced that agenda in order to win -- vowing to let Wall Street write its own rules, end Medicare as we know it, roll back gay rights, leave the troops in Iraq indefinitely, restrict a woman's right to choose, and gut Social Security to pay for more tax cuts for millionaires and corporations.

2) We'll be facing an onslaught of unprecedented spending from outside groups funded by corporations and anonymous donors. In Iowa alone, so-called "super PACs" spent $12.9 million on almost exclusively negative ads. These groups will turn their fire even more directly on us in the weeks ahead to prove that their candidate is the most anti-Obama.

This race is officially on -- and if we want to win, the only way is to out-organize them on the ground.

Sign up to volunteer your time now, and one of our organizers in your community will give you a call by the end of next week to talk about how you can help.

Many observers still think Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee. If he is, we will be prepared. But it's curious that no one can really explain how, when or why the 70-plus percent of Republicans saying in polls and in Iowa that Mitt Romney's not their candidate will suddenly come around.

So the path ahead for Romney -- or whichever of the Republican candidates is going to emerge from this process -- is sadly and starkly very clear: to run even further to the extreme right, and make even more dangerous promises that threaten not only the progress we've made but the fundamental fabric of American society.

We also know that candidates who take these extreme positions can, in the right circumstances, win not only a primary but also a general election in just about any state.

Just ask the Tea Party senators from Pennsylvania and Kentucky, and the Tea Party governors in Florida and Wisconsin.

Watching the circus on TV, it's tempting to think it's almost funny -- but this is not a joke.

We've got to be ready.

What you decide to do next will determine which kind of politics wins this election:

http://my.barackobama.com/After-Iowa

More soon.

Messina

Jim Messina
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

At the Iowa Caucuses.

Photo sent in from a reader in Waukee, Iowa.

ADDED: My Waukee reader says: "Here is the line to register in Waukee Iowa (point of grace church) at 714pm. That's 14 mins after the doors closed. Rick Perry is here. No way we start before 745."



And a few minutes later: "Perry's talking. Says he'll take a 'Sharpie pen' to Obama care. Obviously well received. Romney's wife is talking now. Praising his exec abilities..."

"Study of Fish Suggests the Value of Uninformed Voters."

Scientists trained some golden shiners to associate a blue target with food and a smaller group of shiners to associate food with a yellow target, yellow being the color shiners "more naturally prefer."

When all these trained fish were put together, "most fish pursued yellow targets, suggesting the smaller group’s more intense desire for yellow overwhelmed the larger group’s numerical advantage... But as fish without any training were added, the group increasingly favored the blue target..." said Iain D. Couzin, a Princeton professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

The research team theorized that "A strongly opinionated minority can dictate group choice... But the presence of uninformed individuals spontaneously inhibits this process, returning control to the numerical majority."

The behavior of golden shiners demonstrates “the role of uninformed individuals in achieving democratic consensus amid internal group conflict and informational constraints...”

And thus: “ignorance can promote democracy.” Or so these biology experts observe. Obviously, fish aren't people, and the color target training isn't much the same as learning about the world and then forming judgments on political issues and candidates.

Human civilization, said Larry J. Sabato, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, “is better off when more of its members are well informed and think carefully about the choices facing the society.”

Sure, we're better off educated and thinking consciously and carefully, but most of our political judgments are made reflexively in response to largely unexamined emotional responses, and it's possible that the uninformed masses are doing something valuable in correcting for the intense opinions of radical individuals.

Anyway... the Iowa caucuses take place today. Caucuses — more than primaries — resemble fish tanks. Individuals see what the others are doing and decide which way they want to swim.

ADDED: Here's another problem relating that study of fish to human beings. Let's say that among those who've gotten educated about an issue 60% choose X and 40% choose Y, but the informed citizens are themselves only a small minority of the people, only 20%. Why is this 20% getting super-informed about an issue that 80% of the people are ignoring? These are unusual people. We shouldn't assume that the majority within that small percentage would be the majority if everyone were informed. The uninformed 80%, we're told, would tend to go along with the 60% of the 20%, but that doesn't necessarily correspond to what would be the true preference of the majority if all were informed. Of course, it doesn't make sense to posit a true preference for the majority on this hypothetical issue that only 20% of the people were willing to get educated about, since the people are defined by their lack of interest in that issue, and if they were to be transformed into people who are engaged and educated, they'd be different people, with different preferences.

The last Iowa poll before the caucuses...

... puts Romney on top, at 24%. Ron Paul's in second place, with 22%, and Santorum's in third, with 15%. That's a 4-day poll, but:

If the final two days of polling are considered separately, Santorum rises to second place, with 21%, pushing Paul to third, at 18%. Romney remains the same, at 24%.

Iowa professor expatiates on why Iowa's not fit to play such a big part in deciding who gets to be President.

Here's Stephen Bloom's long article in The Atlantic. It's clever and funny.

And now here come the earnest, humorless boosters of the state, such as University of Iowa president Sally Mason: "As president of the University, I have the opportunity to travel far and wide across this great state frequently, and the Iowa I see is one of strong, hard-working and creative people."

And as I have the opportunity to read far and wide across the blatherings of Iowans reacting to Bloom frequently, the Iowa I see is one of earnest, boring people.

"Sobriety, wisdom and judgment."

The Des Moines Register endorses Romney.

New Rasmussen poll shows Gingrich down to 19% in Iowa.

Romney's at 23%.

Romney's always at 23%, isn't he? He's the embodiment of 23-percentageness, as far as I can tell. But, consistency! Above all: consistency! If there's one thing I think of when I think of Mitt Romney, it's consistency. He's consistently at 23%.

Iowa poll: Cain 23, Romney 22, Paul 12... Perry 7.

Fascinating.

What's the most interesting thing about this new poll?
	Cain's on top.
	Romney's doing so well when he's eschewed campaigning in Iowa.
	Paul in the double digits.
	Perry's tanking.
	Whatever happened to Bachmann, who won the Iowa straw poll?
pollcode.com free polls

"I will buy a pink Segway before I spend a nickle on any goddamn government car.."

"... Including a ZR-1. U.S. OUT OF DETROIT."

I had to Google ZR-1. Then, I screamed.

But I've got to say: If the Segway hadn't already been made, the Obama administration would have funneled hundreds of millions of public money into developing it. And it would still only be ridden by that one guy, and as he scoots by, everybody who sees him thinks: No way!

Enthusing over the new Sarah Palin video.

"Regardless of whether you support her or not, for President or not, no one does inspirational political (campaign?) videos better than Palin."

You be the judge. Me? I love the fisheye lens!

Obama's 3-day midwest bus tour — to Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois: Why not Wisconsin?

Is he avoiding us?

With poll numbers falling for both Obama and Congress after a nasty political fight over raising the country's borrowing limit and spending cuts, Americans are in a bad humor...

The president will get a chance to absorb the public's anger and do his best to give optimistic answers as he motors between town hall stops.

In Iowa, Republican candidates for president just squared off for a high-stakes debate and straw poll. The president will also visit Illinois as part of his bus tour, his first since the 2008 campaign.

Obama was unlikely to engage any of his potential Republican rivals by name, aides said, but he's already indicated plans to draw sharp contrasts between his ideas on the economy and the Republican approach, which the president recently dismissed to little more than slashing spending on vital programs like education and Medicare, the program that provides health care for the poor....

The bus tour itinerary takes Obama through three states he won in 2008 but where he now needs to shore up his standing....

Obama made a similar outing last year, traveling the Midwest in a two-day, three-state tour in April 2010 that took him to Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. There was no bus, but the president's motorcade made hours-long drives through rural areas, passing school children waving American flags and seniors sitting on lawn chairs.

I'm going to say he's not avoiding Wisconsin. First, he combined the same 3 states in a trip last year. Second, his trip relates to the GOP candidates for President, which makes Iowa obvious and Minnesota semi-obvious, with 2 Minnesota candidates in the race at the time the trip was planned. And Illinois is his home state. Third, there are 2 recall elections in Wisconsin tomorrow, and I think it's good etiquette not to step into the middle of that. And it might not even help. I remember when he came to Madison in September 2010 and promoted Russ Feingold. Now, Obama has been criticized for not personally participating in the Wisconsin protests. From last March:

President Obama has no current plans to visit Wisconsin despite pledging as a presidential candidate to “walk on that picket line” should workers be denied bargaining rights.

He's kept his distance from the Wisconsin protest crowd. So maybe he is specifically avoiding us on this midwest bus tour, but I think the focus on the presidential campaign and the mirror-image trip last fall explain the omission. Still, I can certainly see why he doesn't want to entangle himself in the Wisconsin mess. Scott Walker is not his current opponent, his connections to the public unions is best played down, and there's too much extremism and anger around here.

Still, at some point, he's going to need us.

ADDED: John Nichols criticizes Obama from the left for his failure to come to Wisconsin.

The Ames straw poll: "strategists here are increasingly buzzing about" Ron Paul as the possible winner.

Says Politico. I find all the Ron Paul buzz tiresome. I liked what Rush Limbaugh had to say on this:

I'm sorry, but this Ron Paul is gonna destroy this party if they keep him in there. This is nuts on parade.  The media loves this guy 'cause he's nuts on parade. They want the whole Republican Party to be identified with the kookiness of Ron Paul.

Bachmann leads Romney in Iowa.

"Bachmann received support from 25 percent of likely Iowa caucus goers in the poll, while Romney is backed by 21 percent."

Interestingly:

[T[here are virtually no gender differences on the head-to-head question. Specifically, women are no more or less likely to vote for a female candidate than men are.

Yes, but Romney's pretty.

Mitt Romney is considered to be the candidate best versed in business and the economy, yet his expertise in those areas is not currently giving him an advantage....

The one candidate who does substantially better on a certain issue set is Bachmann, who scores well with people who mention border security as a top concern....

Bachmann is currently enjoying the most widespread support in the state. She garners the most support in all of Iowa’s media markets except for Sioux City, where Romney leads. She performed the best in the Davenport media market, which is interesting because she has not campaigned there much, but neither has anyone else. The Davenport area was a Romney stronghold four years ago....

With Romney not participating in the straw poll, Bachmann’s lead over the rest of the field is substantial as she is ahead of Pawlenty and Cain by 16 points....

Romney and Huntsman — the 2 Mormons in the Republican race — are avoiding the Iowa straw poll.

As NYT presents it, they don't see the advantage in exposing themselves to the judgment of evangelical Christians:

But there are signs that [Iowa's] influence on the nominating process could be ebbing and that the nature of the voters who tend to turn out for the Republican caucuses — a heavy concentration of evangelical Christians and ideological conservatives overlaid with parochial interests — is discouraging some candidates from competing there....

[L]ike Mr. Romney, Mr. Huntsman is a Mormon, a religion viewed with wariness by some conservative Christians....

Mr. Romney’s decision, in particular, suggests that candidates who are viewed suspiciously by the state’s religious conservatives may stand little chance there....

It's distressing to see this conflation of conservatism and prejudice. It's one thing if Iowan Republicans tend to go for someone with a stronger message of social conservatism, quite another if they are hostile to Mormons. Plenty of Mormons are social conservatives, and it just happens that the 2 Mormons in the race are not social conservatives. Can we get some serious research on this point? It's a dangerous thing to allow insinuations of religious bigotry to seep into the public consciousness. I can't tell if the Times is really against bigotry or not. If you portray Iowan religious conservatives as anti-Mormon, in one way, it seems anti-bigotry. But it's also inviting us to feel hostility toward the Iowan evangelicals.

At the Overlook Café...

... you don't have to pay attention to anything you don't want.



(Pictures taken yesterday in Wyalusing State Park, in Wisconsin, from cliffs above the Mississippi River. That's Iowa on the other side.)

Palin is thinking about Iowa.

And you know what that means.