Yes, the Iowa precinct caucuses for the 2016 presidential election are still some 30 months
away — January 2016.
But the zaniness of the caucus process and zealotry of the religious/political right in Iowa is in full flower — with all the quirks and folly that made the 2012 caucuses such a farce.
Despite one’s efforts to repress it, the 2012 process in Iowa was a time U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann was hailed as a front runner for the GOP presidential nomination, a time when Mitt Romney won the Iowa caucuses and two weeks later Rick Santorum won, a time when U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley said Herman Cain, Bachmann and anyone else willing to fork over thousands of dollars to the Iowa GOP was fit to be President of the United States, a time when — well, why not repress the rest of the folly.
May as well, because we have a jump start on the GOP follies for 2016, all in the name of Iowans proudly contemplating the months when Iowa is the “center of the political universe.” That’s the notion, even though most rational people — the press excluded, of course — think giving Iowa such status is either nonsense or alarming or both.
And for good reason.
Consider:
• As a preview of coming attractions, David Young, a former Grassley aide, is seeking the Iowa GOP nomination to run for the U.S. Senate in 2014, given the retirement of Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin. Young says being a U.S. senator gives him still another forum to share “the good news of Jesus Christ.” One person he wants to share the news with, he says, is U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D, NY), presumably because Schumer is Jewish. Perhaps back-pedaling on that, the Young camp says what he meant was sharing the “good news of Jesus Christ” as a way to develop friendship and collegiality in the Senate, which lord knows, or the Lord knows, we need. The Young “good news” candidacy is right up the alley of David Lane, an evangelical operative who wants to march an army behind Christian conservative candidates.
• Cue the organist for “Onward Christian Soldiers” because Lane says he is rallying millions of true believers to put their votes where their faith is to “re-establish a Christian culture” across the nation. The Des Moines Register reported he has been trying to rally the folks in Iowa for about six years, mostly behind the scenes, but now has come out of the closet to be even more effective.
• Meantime, Senator Grassley — sticking to his 2012 theme of anyone can be president — says there is no front runner for the 2016 nomination, although Santorum might have an edge in the caucuses, dominated as they are by the religious right. And the line-up is taking shape of would-be GOP candidates to bow and scrape below those folks for the next couple of years.
• Iowa Governor Terry Branstad contributes to the nonsense with his own version of the biblical chariot of fire, not having yet learned that trying to cover up mistakes usually creates more of a fuss than the mistake in the first place. Branstad’s SUV was clocked at well over 80 miles an hour on a state highway, with him and his dutiful lieutenant governor along for the ride. A law enforcement officer alerted the state patrol to an SUV doing “a hard 90” on a state highway. But the vehicle wasn’t stopped or encouraged to slow down because it was learned the guv was in it. The public safety person who alerted the state patrol has since been fired — for other reasons of course. Branstad and his minions say the guv did nothing wrong, that he doesn’t micro-manage his drivers and that he and the lieutenant guv had no idea the car was going fast. No apologies or contrite expressions at all.
Branstad likely will be run for re-election again in 2014. (He served as governor from 1983-1999 and ran and won again in 2010.) If he wins, he’ll be on hand to assure that visiting candidates curry favor from the religious right and won’t be held accountable for reckless driving or reckless rhetoric — remember how Rick Perry just about likened President Obama to the Anti-Christ?
No need to dig out such repressed memories, a harvest of folly awaits.
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