Photos courtesy of:
Bernie Sanders-VA, 7.30.2013. Michael Bloomberg-DOD, 11.11.2012. Elizabeth Warren-CFPB, 4.13.2011.
Joe Biden-LBJ Library, 10.3.2017.
The Democrats cannot afford another week like the one they just had. Should Donald Trump win the White House, it will be traceable to the first week in February, writes Peggy Noonan in the WSJ.
The Unserious Party
Iowa made them look the one way a great party cannot afford to look: unserious.
The lack of professionalism, the incompetence is the kind of thing that not only shocks a party but shadows it. They can’t run a tiny caucus in a tiny state but they want us to believe they can reinvent American health care?
Monday night when the returns were supposed to be coming in, it was like the debut of ObamaCare when the website went down.
Iowa: The candidates were denied their victory moment.
The Speaker of the House:
Nancy Pelosi shattered tradition, making faces, muttering, shaking her head as the president delivered his State of the Union address. At the end she famously stood, tore the speech up and threw down the pieces.
The Speech:
Shrewd, its political targeting astute.
This was an aligning of the GOP, in persons and symbols, with “outsiders”—with those without officially sanctioned cultural cachet, with the minority, the regular, the working class.
It was plain people versus fancy people—that is, versus snooty liberals and progressives who talk a good game about the little guy but don’t seem to like him much; who in their anger and sarcasm, in their constant censoriousness and characterological lack of courtesy, have managed to both punch above their political weight and make a poor impression on the national mind.
Iowa caucus turnout numbers, reportedly, were mediocre at best. According to an NBC News entrance poll, there was a big dip in first-time attendees compared with 2016. Is there any wonder why?
Read more from Noonan here.
