Right about now, the District of Columbia Republican Party…

…(yes, it exists) is coming to a realization: this go-round, they matter.  They have 19 delegates!  There are candidates who want those 19 delegates!  People are going to come up to them and say, “When are you posting your results?” with, hey, real interest in their voices!

I’m not even mocking them for it.  The rest of this campaign season may be an endless carnival of destruction, pain, and personal vendettas – but the smaller state/district/territorial parties must be having the time of their lives. Shoot, I should probably go over early Saturday and score an interview with these guys. Why not? It’s news.

Time for the traditional ‘So why were the polls wrong?’ posts.

Caveat: I got it wrong, too. I said that it was much more likely that Donald Trump would either win big, or lose big, than it would be for him to get into second or third place.  Guess what happened?

So I can’t really criticize the pollsters too badly.  Of the possible reasons listed here as to why the polls were off, I’m going to go with ‘organization.’ Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio had people who not only looked over what the Democrats did in 2008 and 2012; those people also took copious notes.  Donald Trump’s campaign… did not.  Which is one of the things that maybe Trump should be wanting to fix today.  And I mean literally today. It would take a crazy amount of money to set up a working GOTV/voter identification system by the weekend using off-the-shelf components, but the man’s a billionaire, right?

Moe Lane

PS: Actually, yeah, I’m being serious. What’s the point of having a billion dollars if you don’t use it to solve problems that only a billion dollars could solve?

Iowa Democrats mulling ensuring election fraud in 2016 primary caucuses.

Otherwise known as ‘voting over the Internet.’

Iowa Democrats are mulling a slate of ways to boost participation in their next presidential caucuses, including permitting Internet voting, a controversial method that would mark the first time in history the web is utilized to cast an official ballot preference for president.

I look forward with some interest to see how that experiment works out for them. And for the screams of horror and despair, of course.

Moe Lane

PS: I do not expect Mickey Mouse or [whatever Howard Stern suggests] to win the 2016 Democratic Iowa caucus.  I simply no longer think that such a thing can be ruled out.

Sen. Angus King (“I,” Maine) thinks that he can change his coat! …Erm. Well. Actually…

…that’s an interesting thought, huh?

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with the Democrats, will decide after the midterm elections whether to switch sides and join the Republicans.

He is leaving open the possibility of aligning himself with the GOP if control of the upper chamber changes hands.

Yes, I am fully aware that the reflexive answer here is going to be ‘no,’ not least because Senator King is being so remarkably mercenary about this (he publicly admits that he prefers to be on the majority side of any particular Congress). But there are two questions that pop into my head, here: What is his price? and Does Sen. Angus King stay bought? Because if the answers are ‘Not too high’ and ‘Yes, reasonably speaking’ then I’d be happy enough to hear his offer. Continue reading Sen. Angus King (“I,” Maine) thinks that he can change his coat! …Erm. Well. Actually…