February 2, 2016 6:39 AM
Morning Reads for Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Good morning! The Iowa Caucuses are over, and it’s Groundhog Day. Watch out for that first step – it’s a doozy!
- Amtrak’s Sunset Limited returns to south Georgia for the first time since Katrina – but only for one day, and only for VIPs.
- HB 865 – the Building Educational Success Together Act, or “The BEST Act,” drives disagreement among Georgia’s Student Scholarship Organizations (SSOs).
- Conflict in Clayton! Graduation day – May 24 – is also Primary day, resulting in accusations of voter suppression (rather then exhortations to utilize Early Voting).
- Georgia lawmakers consider consumer protection bills.
- The Economist explains the primary and caucus system: it’s about delegates, not votes.
- Zombie bees – “ZomBees” – exist. Georgia’s not infected… yet.
- Citylab makes the case against historic preservation districts.
- Should the results in Iowa matter?
- It turns out that a small painting stored at a museum in Kansas City, MO, is actually a Bosch. What tipped them off – was it the fish with feet or the lil’ floating sausage?
- This week in Hamilton: today at 10 AM, the next block of Hamilton tickets will be released for sale. These tickets are for shows between November, 2016 and January, 2017, so if you want to see Hamilton on Broadway over the holiday break, do not throw away your shot!
- Or, if you are willing to wait for it, it was announced yesterday that Hamilton will come to Atlanta – this is not a drill – for the 2017-2018 Broadway in Atlanta series.
Did your neighborhood groundhog see its shadow? Did your candidate survive the caucus (cue the sad trombones for Huckabee and O’Malley)? Let us know in the comments!
About Author
Teri
Teri Anulewicz is a Democrat who represents House District 42 in the Georgia General Assembly. She previously spent nearly a decade on the Smyrna City Council. A native New Orleanian and quasi-Texan, Teri graduated from Agnes Scott College in 1998. She's been a front page contributor since 2015, and she compiles each Tuesday's Morning Reads.
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Eight years of screaming, “BIRTH CERTIFICATE” and Iowa Republicans support a guy born in Canada.
I hate America.
Before I see people talk about Iowa, I want to throw in my 2¢.
Victory comes in numerous forms. If we were simply counting delegates, then Cruz is the only winner. Fortunately for the other candidates, more is at stake than the delegates. Iowa is the first chance to show viability. Scott Walker is a great example: He was polling in the mid to high twenties before falling to the single digits only to drop out. He was not viable despite a commanding lead early in the game. Cruz, Trump, Rubio, and to an extent Carson showed they are viable candidates.
As Charlie wrote in “5 GOP Takeaways From Iowa,” which you should read if you have not already, Rubio won the expectations game. Polls had him at 15-18%, but he finished with 23% of the actual vote.
Conventional wisdom says Cruz has the momentum out of Iowa, but it’s Cruz AND Rubio who share the momentum. Trump had everything to lose and he lost. His campaign said Trump never loses…well.
Trump doesn’t come in first place and this means he’s done for? You guys are just spinning your own hopes now. If Trump does take a backseat for a couple months it will only put the spot-light on Rubio and Cruz…something that hasn’t really happened yet. Then he’ll be back in all his insane, pandering glory…the albatross around the neck of the GOP.
Please direct me to where I said Trump is finished. His entire campaign was based on “I’m a winner, so you should vote for me. Look at the polls!” The real numbers show he’s in second place. The aura surrounding him is pierced by the sharp tip of reality. Does this mean Trump’s candidacy is over? Far from it. He’ll stick around, but how much longer can a campaign without substance survive without bombastic rhetoric?
What you say would be true…if this wasn’t 2016. At what point has this election cycle looked anything at all like previous ones? My take on it is that the conventional wisdom the pols in general are spinning is just wrong. If there was any doubt, how is it that Trump is such a force to begin with…anytime, anyone else would have been drummed out a long time ago.
Iowon’t
The Iowa Caucus is finally in the books and the poll front runner Punxsutawney Phil has been upset by Buckeye Chuck of Marion Ohio. Georgia’s General Beauregard Lee who will now take over as the establishment candidate finished a close 3rd to Punxsutawney Phil. Punxsutawney Phil was magnanimous in his concession speech to his supporters last night but all week he had been calling his opponents Fat, Lazy, and, Weak. The Iowa polls had been predicting an easy win for Punxsutawney Phil for 4 weeks but Buckeye Chuck’s ground game proven to be the deciding factor in the race getting most of the un-decided vote just before the caucus. It should be noted that the winner of the Iowa caucus does not usually guarantee that groundhog will go on to win the general election. Now it’s on to New Hampshire where Punxsutawney Phil in considered a favorite. Still no word if the candidates favor an early spring but Georgia’s General Beauregard Lee has said he will make his position known after the SEC Primary.
Any chance that the Assembly will consider action/funding for the DPH to combat Zika? It *will* be a problem this summer/fall; Aedes aegypti (vector species) is prevalent throughout Georgia.
Surprise Surprise
The Cruz ground game beat the ” high energy” entertainer. And yes the Cruz strategy could work in other states such as Georgia.
Rubio is a generational candidate who has strong appeal to millennials and gen-xers. As the process moves forward the “kid” issue will fade and he will gain support from older folks. The Rubio campaign has the best growth potential.
Trumpet has limited or no growth potential so he must insure his current supporters appear at the polls. We now know it’s a three man race.
Obnoxious Carson has enough publicity. Time for him to return to his book tour, paid speeches and perhaps he could get Huckster’s old spot at Fox News.
The Burnie experiment will fade after NH. The only thing that stops Hilly is an indictment and that’s unlikely.
The GaGOP awarding convention delegates in proportion to primary vote seems simple enough, but there are plenty of wrinkles: http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2015/12/2016-republican-delegate-allocation_10.html
It’s no wonder the GOP establishment is desperate that coalescing around one of the establishment candidates begin in earnest soon. Georgia’s (and perhaps other SEC primary states) proportionality rules have the potential to effectively knock out the establishment candidates that haven’t developed daylight between themselves and the pack.
I think Trump’s floor of support will have him well in the hunt if not leading the pack well into March. Lesser establishment candidates hanging around or remaining and the ballot have the potential to be spoilers.
@ Dave Bearse:
Basically, the third-place candidate (and below) in each CD gets to hear (in the immortal words of Gene Wilder/Willy Wonka):
“You get nothing! You lose! Good DAY Sir!”
Statewide, the floor is 20%. If only one candidate crosses that threshold, they get all of the 34 statewide delegates. If two or more, they share proportionally.
Though one thing that’s critically missing is the per-CD allocation of Republican support – would rural CD’s split Trump/Cruz, while more urban would split Rubio/Cruz or Rubio/Trump? Hard to say for now.
The worst performance of either party was Hillary. She struggled mightily against Bernie, even having to win a single delegate with a pathetic coin toss.
Bernie wins this huge in spirit and momentum. Astonishing! He crushes her in New Hampshire next week and who knows, he may take the Socialist message to the 99%ers in SC. Everybody just lovesssssssssssss the promises of free stuff.
Rubio comes out with huge momentum after knocking out of the park against expectations in Iowa. Off the top of my head, I don’t know his recent numbers are in NH but expect them to rise big.
Trump? All hat and no cattle in Iowa. All of the bragging and only 23%. Bad, really bad. Is the wound mortal? Maybe a slow bleed…I think folks start running from him like he farted in an elevator…
Everyone not named Cruz, Rubio and Trump has no real business continuing, especially Bush. I give a pass to Christie, he’ll be trying to play the hometown boy thing in NH.
Damn interesting….
I don’t see Burnie going anywhere after SEC primary. The black democrat vote is critical in the south. Hilly and Billy have a long history with black voters and Burnie does not. He will hang around for a while because he likes the publicity and he does have a constituency but he won’t be a serious threat.
Agree on Christie and Kasich may also pull a strong fourth in NH, but neither (particularly Kasich) have a post NH plan.
Amtrak: got the App, love the ride (in NY/DC corridor). Wanted to take some high schoolers, ATL to DC. But….Going Southwest Air for a lot less money.
Want to go on the cheap: mega bus is ready.
And this week’s World Health Organization drive:
Must be 18 to go to a movie with smoking in it…….tobacco I guess,
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/01/movies-depicting-smoking-should-be-given-adult-rating-world-health-organization.html
Did Hillary cheat to win? WOW!!!!!BTW the chances of winning 6 coin tosses in a row are less than 2 percent….
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/2/1478596/-Don-t-call-it-a-win-Six-coin-tosses-and-fuzzy-math-determined-Iowa-vote-lead
That’s some pretty good luck. Maybe she should try some long shot investing…like in cattle futures or something.
Lol !!…..that was a very funny comment ?
So there’s a huge amount of Sturm und Drang about the coin flips. Keep in mind, they were to determine precinct delegate allocation to the county conventions – not delegates to the DNC, nor delegates to the IA State convention. So impact is very small – about 5 in 1000.
In addition, there’s still a potential for change in the 23-21 allocation to the DNC based on whatever machinations occur at the county and state conventions. As a reminder, in 2012, Romney was announced as the “winner” of Iowa, upon later count Santorum was found to have earned more precinct delegates, and at the state convention, Ron Paul’s activists managed to get more delegates allocated to the RNC than any other candidate.(http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/16/ron-paul-wins-21-25-delegates-elected-in-iowa.html)
Secondly, according to the DMR (http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2016/02/02/iowa-caucus-coin-flip-count-unknown/79708740/ ), they have records of 6 tosses, of which one went Sanders’s way.
Even if we say 6 went Clinton’s way – that’s a 5.4% probability of 6 out of 7 [ (0.5)^6*(1-0.5)^6* 7C6 ] – which is p>0.05, so statistically we conclude this easily could happen by random chance, and would need *significantly* more data (n>100) to suspect something is fishy.
I’m done here.