Two national news headlines defined the state of play in the first weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign:
“After Chaos of Iowa, Democratic Unity Threatened by Circular Firing Squad in New Hampshire” (CNN)
“Trump’s ‘Dream Scenario’ Unfolds: Dem Disarray Ahead of 2020” (Politico)
In a perfect storm of awfulness for Team Blue, Donald Trump launched his reelection campaign with an audacious State of the Union address pitched to his rabid political base, then promptly won acquittal in a Senate Republican impeachment show trial as a new set of propitious polls invigorated him, his strategists, and supporters.
During the same days, Iowa Democrats inflicted vast damage on their party’s national brand by bungling the basic arithmetical process of counting votes before finally coughing up results of their silly caucuses that allowed two candidates, neither viewed as viable in a general election by vast swatches of the Dem electorate, as the winner.