Iowa Caucus: The 2016 Presidential Cycle Begins!

How to Think About Iowa

In 9 months, the polls will open to elect a President who’ll hopefully take the country in a new direction. The damage done to the American people over the last decade—lower incomes, diminished economic prospects, and a far more dangerous world, make this year’s voting the most important in decades.

As I wrote previously in my #blog post, “Primary Election” November 1, 2015, the first few primaries promise to be both surprising and populist; but picking a winner in Iowa feels like trying to peg the price of oil. Who knows what the future holds?

In the final debate before Feb. 1^st held by #FoxNews, the man who will not be named was absent; even though he’s emerged as the single most influential force in this upcoming primary season. Could a wave of first-time Republican voters propel him to victory in Iowa?

Was it a good or bad idea to miss this debate? Was a narcissistic political move more about the Donald than political strategy? After almost a year since CPAC last March, it all kicks off on Monday night, but I still don’t know which candidate to support in Iowa? 

Aspects of each candidate appeal to me; and at the same time Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn’t seem as inevitable as she did 4-6 months ago. This is a strange election...

Is this Caucus really about Establishment versus Outsider, young versus old, intervention versus isolation, conservative versus campaigner-conservative, political correctness versus practical politics, capitalist versus socialist, Bush versus Clinton, Christian versus Libertarian, digital versus analog? 

Striations of Republicanism vary like layered geologic formations hydraulically fractured. History will record this election field as one of the most diverse in the past 25 years. What follows is a phrase describing my thoughts on the eve of the Iowa Caucuses (minus Donald):

Candidate	Makes me think…
¡Jeb!	Great resume, but Bush vs. Clinton?
Ted Cruz	Campaigning hard, pervasive negatives
John Kasich	Fiscal genius, probably my favorite
Carly Fiorina	The woman to watch, powerful message
Dr. Ben Carson	The meek shall inherit the earth
Mike Huckabee	At least he's having fun!
Marco Rubio	Aspirational, serious contender
Chris Christie	A bigger version of John McCain
Rand Paul	Great debater, but not the right fit for the GOP
Rick Santorum	Do well in Iowa, get off the "undercard"
Jim Gilmore	I need more information, who is that?
Bernie Sanders	Not sure he can get elected
Hillary Clinton	Lack of focus, energy, momentum
Martin O'Malley	Looks more like a Mayor than President

Dinesh D'Souza - CPAC 2012 speech - It launched a Movie: 2016

Dinesh D'Souza - CPAC 2012 speech - YouTube: "http://youtu.be/Z6QOscKvUjU"

'via Blog this'

This Speech has been made into a Movie, by Dinesh D'Souza (YouTube video above)

Why wouldn’t this country’s media dig deeply into a relatively unknown candidate? Why did the pleasure of overcoming an historical barrier override the typical journalistic effort applied to a major candidate?

Did they review carefully the life of Barack Obama as they did candidates like George W. Bush or John Kerry?

Who were the most influential people in the life of Barack Obama, considering he never knew his father? So many facts about Barack Obama are left unexplained.

How does Obama’s history of leftist, radical, socialist/anti-colonial politics match with the accommodating image of a moderate, post-partisan candidate portrayed in the 2008 campaign? What happens after Obama does not have to campaign anymore? The movie suggests what the country will look like in 2016.

Why did Bill Ayers, Frank Marshall Davis, Jeremiah Wright, and so many of Obama's mentors get pushed aside during the campaign? If the American people knew who Obama was they would see he is not an ordinary Democrat. He's not just a Chicago-style influence peddler/community organizer, he has a global vision unlike any other president in our history.

Frank Marshall Davis

I came to these conclusions about the next term of an Obama presidency:

1. What can relieve some of the pressure on the government to bring in more revenue? More taxes. The CBO estimates the new tax burden will be 3% of GDP.
2. Has the power and prestige of US foreign policy increased or decreased during this presidency? It has been a twisted and confusing foreign policy and ultimately islamic power in the middle east has risen and our standing and the standing of Israel has decreased. (Iran, Libya, Syria, Egypt... do they seem consistent?)
3. The movie sets forth a dichotomy between two worldviews that anyone watching the movie has to decide between?  Oil drilling, NASA, radical Islam issues: Libya versus Syria, Iran versus Egypt, bigger government, healthcare, re-aligning American foreign policy away from Israel, there are so many parts of the Obama story that puzzle me.
4. Even if one supports Obama, but has not read his books, it is worth to see how the scholar and political writer Dinesh D'Souza peels back Obama's own words in the books that many of us did not actually read?! Even if you think you know a lot about the president, there is stuff in here which is surprising, and it comes right out of Obama's mouth.
5. Much of the movie is taken with drilling into the words of Obama's story as previously written, and interdicting the his story with more factual research. This is the kind of work that America's media aristocracy chose not to do. For some reason he just got a pass. Maybe that will not continue in a second Obama term.

I learned many things from this work and highly recommend that anyone interested in politics, history, presidential power, or current events, take time to go see this movie as it tries to interpret what Obama will do with a second term. It opens all over the country on July 27, 2012.

©Mark H. Pillsbury