Why the Coin Flips Matter (and Why Clinton's Inability to Understand the Significance Echoes 2008)
Perhaps there are some who are confused about the effect on the national delegate count as a result of the Iowa coin flips to decide several tied precincts, but only a very few are confused about that topic.
The Clinton campaign (and some of her supporters) seem to think that the coin flip issue disappears upon the explanation that it did not change the national delegate allocation. The Sanders campaign (and some of his supporters) don't see the issue that way, and Sanders is right.
First, the coin flip is an idea covered by the media and embedded in the public psyche (in part because of the unlikelihood that Clinton would win all of the coin tosses):
The coin toss is not important as effecting the delegate allocation, but the coin toss is very important as a tremendously powerful metaphor for a close election.
Regardless of whether you are a Clinton supporter or a Sanders supporter, you ought to know that it was an historically close caucus that was too close to call when America went to bed on February 1. It was a tiny fraction of one percent that separated the candidates, and in America's mind, that's close enough where a coin toss is an apt metaphor.
Second, while America believes this is an historically close caucus that was too close to call as February 2 crept onto the calendar, Clinton prematurely declared herself the victor when all the main networks were saying the race was too close to call and her morning interviews on February 2 downplayed the closeness of the caucus and skirted around her earlier predictions that Iowa wouldn't be a competitive race.
Clinton's efforts to declare victory before the votes were in and to exaggerate the results highlight one of her key weaknesses as a candidate: her propensity for counter-factual self-aggrandizement the voters' consequent mistrust.
The coin toss is the key metaphor from the Iowa caucus and Clinton's awkward attempt to dispute the extraordinary closeness of this result in a state where Clinton held herself out as inevitable will only reinforce voter distrust as another example of her penchant for self-aggrandizement.
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