A Tie Goes to the Democrats (good read)
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn't quite win the 2016 Iowa caucus on Monday, but she didn't quite lose either, at least yet. As of about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, the race between Clinton and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was still too close to call, and it will end too close to matter. And that's actually for the best, for everyone...
Each camp can certainly spin the night as a win...And Clinton can take comfort in the fact that the road doesn't get much easier for Sanders from here on out: New Hampshire, where the Vermont senator has a big lead, can be brushed off as a win due more to home field advantage than evidence of a movement. He's way behind in South Carolina and not running much better in Nevada...
But in many ways, of course, Sanders won too, and won big. By coming from so far behind and earning such a large share of the vote, he proved that his campaign is not just a quixotic attempt to raise issues and drag Clinton a bit to the left – as it was portrayed when he first got into the race – but a real effort with a significant piece of the progressive base behind him...
Perhaps then, the real winners on the evening were Democrats, writ large. Over on the Republican side, firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz – the recipient of almost universal loathing in Washington, but not, apparently, from primary voters – won the night, with the bombastic billionaire Donald Trump eking out a second place finish over Sen. Marco Rubio. Considering that establishment Democrats would likely prefer running against Cruz or Trump than Rubio – and that Rubio now needs to try to out-conservative Cruz in some places – that's a result that will have plenty of Democratic pols smiling.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/pat-garofalo/articles/2016-02-02/a-sanders-clinton-tie-in-the-iowa-caucus-is-a-win-for-democrats
