http://www.steynonline.com/7440/second-degree-bernSecond-Degree Bern
by Mark Steyn
Steyn on America
February 1, 2016
Thank God that's over. You don't have to be an Amtrak conductor to want to punch the next guy who says, "There are three tickets out of Iowa." In the end, Ted Cruz won eight delegates and Donald Trump seven. Which doesn't sound so bad for Trump. Except that Marco Rubio also won seven delegates. Had the caucus been held 24 hours later, Rubementum might have pushed Trump to third place.
There's no point pretending it wasn't a setback for the billionaire party-crasher. Who knows why it happened? Perhaps he should have taken his own advice and shot a guy on Fifth Avenue: That's gotta be worth a couple of points in Polk County. For over six months, each supposedly fatal misstep - from McCain to Muslims - only made him stronger. Now the first actual votes of this interminable process have made him weaker. For a candidate running on the platform that he's a winner and the other guys are losers, the aura of invincibility depended on the perception of invincibility. So it's not helpful to let five thousand hayseeds shuck Trump Tower like a corncob. Doing without consultants, doing without ads, doing without Fox News, doing without National Review, doing without debates ...great, great, love it. But doing without voters is a trickier proposition. This week the Trump campaign sent my 15-year-old kid, who lives in New Hampshire, a reminder to make sure he caucuses in Iowa.
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