(1) Marco Rubio came on the air to make the first speech of any candidate in contention — even though the tabulation showed him finishing third (albeit a close third) after Donald Trump in the Republican race. He made a strong speech, attacking Hillary Clinton and in effect auditioning as a possible Republican nominee. And he reminded me of how in 1992 Bill Clinton went on the air and proclaimed himself “the comeback kid” after finishing second in the New Hampshire primary.
I suspect, but am not certain, that Rubio set himself up in New Hampshire as the chief alternative to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, and in the process swept aside the hopes of John Kasich, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush.
(2) Donald Trump gave a gracious concession speech in Iowa and promised to campaign on. Nice.
(3) Republican caucus turnout seems to have risen from about 120,000 in 2008 and 2012 to about 180,000 this year. That’s impressive, but it’s still lower than the 210,000 or so who turned out for the Democratic caucuses in 2008. As I write I don’t have figures for the Democratic turnout tonight.
(4) Neither Bernie Sanders nor Hillary Clinton, locked in an incredibly tight race, had appeared on television when I started writing this around 11 p.m. That’s not a help to the Democratic Party. It appears as an afterthought, or not a political movement that has a good story to tell the broader voting public. After Cruz was going on for some minutes, Clinton started talking to her group, but wasn’t picked up live on Fox or C-SPAN (perhaps she was on other outlets). At the moment, it looks like Clinton beat Sanders, 50 to 49 percent, which is to say that neither Democratic candidate got the result she or he wanted.
(5) Ted Cruz gave a hard-edged and perhaps too lengthy victory speech, with a touch of humility and also some moving personal testimonials, but also a certain aggressiveness which some may not find entirely attractive. “Crawling under broken glass with knives in their teeth,” as he described some of his campaign’s leaders, may not be an entirely attractive image to voters not as strongly committed to Cruz’s issue positions as the people cheering him on in Iowa.
