Trail Mix

Iowa’s biggest newspaper, despite endorsing Hillary Clinton, has a serious problem with how the state party went about declaring her the winner, and today called for an immediate audit of the vote totals that party officials refuse to release (suspicions are rising that Sanders might have actually won the most votes).

Des Moines Register headline: “Editorial: Something smells in the Democratic Party.”

And on it goes: “What happened Monday night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period. Democracy, particularly at the local party level, can be slow, messy and obscure. But the refusal to undergo scrutiny or allow for an appeal reeks of autocracy. … Too many accounts have arisen of inconsistent counts, untrained and overwhelmed volunteers, confused voters, cramped precinct locations, a lack of voter registration forms and other problems. Too many of us, including members of the Register editorial board who were observing caucuses, saw opportunities for error amid Monday night’s chaos.” Read More

This would seem to be something worth talking about at tonight’s Democratic debate.

Things are getting a bit ugly between Bernie and Hillary. And we should not let that spill over here, endangering the civil discourse we have always prided ourselves on. I will be the first to admit letting my issues with Hillary spark the flame lately. I hereby vow to keep that in check, although I might fall off the wagon here and there. When you examine delegate allocation in the party voting going forward it is clear that this rivalry is going to last a few more months. So I am going to do my level best to keep our little corner of the Internets from turning into the ugly mess that we experienced in 2008.

Jim Webb writes:

We can leave no doubt that the United States will support our allies. China’s claim of “indisputable sovereignty” in the Senkaku, Paracel, and Spratly Islands must be disputed at every opportunity. China is wrongly laying claim to almost all of the South China Sea — an area larger than the land mass of the Philippines, Japan and Vietnam combined. Failing to stand up to these claims threatens the entire stability of the Asia-Pacific region. — Read More

By Cathleen Decker, Los Angeles Times:

Among Republicans, the race shifts onto ground dominated by more secular New Englanders after weeks of appeals to Iowa’s evangelical voters. A New Hampshire race that days ago appeared destined to define which of a quartet of establishment Republicans would rise to challenge Donald Trump will offer instead a battle between two young senators, Iowa winner Ted Cruz and third-place finisher Marco Rubio, for that mantle.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton only barely escaped a second straight embarrassment at the hands of an upstart movement candidate by effectively tying with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Now she must fight him on his home turf of New England.

That is dangerous territory for Clinton politically, raising the specter that she will emerge from the first two contests with no clear victory. But Clinton will also reinhabit the underdog role that she used to great effect in her come-from-behind primary win here over Barack Obama in 2008.

Hillary Clinton must now trash Bernie Sanders and risk losing his voters in November. Good luck with that.