by: the Common Constitutionalist
**UPDATE** It’s beginning to look more like the Cruz people may actually have been right about Carson – in repeating the CNN report of the Doctor. There’s definitely something fishy going on at the Carson campaign.
Obviously the big news is the Cruz victory and the Trump loss. The lead up to the caucuses was that Cruz must win Iowa and that if Trump won, he could run the table. Well, that didn’t happen. That’s not to say it still can’t going forward.
The Iowa race was rather exiting and not without a few controversies. Of course we all know about the great Hillary, Heads I win, Tails you lose coin toss. She is one lucky woman – winning all six tosses in a row. On a lark, I grabbed a quarter and flipped it six times as they did to decide the State election. I attempted 20 rounds of six flips. Each time I chose heads. Not once did I achieve six for six. Read what you will into that.
Then there is the dust-up between the Cruz and Carson campaigns. CNN reported that after the Iowa race had concluded, Ben Carson would not go directly to either New Hampshire or South Carolina, as it appears all other candidates are doing. Rather that he would fly home to Florida.
Apparently this was enough news for Cruz staffer Spence Rogers to email: “Breaking News. The press is reporting that Dr. Ben Carson is taking time off from the campaign trail after Iowa and making a big announcement next week. Please inform any Carson caucus goers of this news and urge them to caucus for Ted Cruz.”
Then it was off to the races, as the erroneous report developed a life of its own. At 7:00 PM the official Ted Cruz mobile app sent out a message that “CNN is reporting that Ben Carson will stop campaigning after Iowa,” the alert read. “Make sure to tell all of your peers at the caucus supporting Carson that they should coalesce around the true conservative who will be in the race for the long haul: TED CRUZ!”
Shortly after, Iowa Congressman Steve King, Cruz’s national co-chair tweeted: “Carson looks like he’s out…” It was like a bad game of whisper down the lane! Did no one bother to ask: “have you checked with the source to see if it’s accurate before we go 
spreading it around?” Guess not. Carson told Sean Hannity he was going home to some more clothes.
I’m a Cruz guy through and through, but this incident was just irresponsible of his people, including King, whom I also love. This is what we don’t want to see. It just looks like gotcha-politics. This is what we see the Washington establishment do – take some innocent statement completely out of context and twist it into something that it is not. I don’t think Cruz was aware of it, but his statement to CNN that the harmless statement by Carson which was twisted is somehow “Fair Game,” is just wrong. Cruz should have just apologized directly to Carson and admitted that his staff screwed up and should have looked into it further before jumping on the rumor bandwagon. He didn’t and that’s bad on him.
Now to the Trumpster, whose post caucus speech was pretty good, overall. But he again exposed to all what a small man he is. If you watched it you may have noticed an obvious separation between his children. On one side of the stage were his wife and kids – at least the ones he was proud of. But to his right, standing all alone was his daughter Ivanka and I believe her husband. I suppose I could check, but I don’t give a crap. She was his Iowa campaign chair and as such he evidently made her the goat, blaming her for his loss. No, he didn’t say that, but she was the only one Trump did not mention and the sibling separation looked intentional. Pretty pathetic if you ask me. It says a lot about Trumps maturity.
And then is the rather odd tweet that he isn’t getting the credit he believes he deserves for self-funding his campaign, which he isn’t.
Three words for Trump: STAY OFF TWITTER”! With few exceptions, it is the platform of the rash and terminally stupid. Just ask Congressman Steve King.
Trump hasn’t spent any more than the other frontrunners and a lot less than some. Is he not the one who brags about how rich he is? And what’s with the it’s “not worth it” quip? Your victory is not guaranteed. I suppose you only invest in sure things, like Atlantic City casinos? Not everyone can fund their own presidential bid. If that were the prerequisite, our choice would be between you and Bloomberg. No thanks.
Regardless of what the kiddie table candidates do in New Hampshire, I agree that it is more than likely a three horse race. If Trump somehow does not prevail, it may be a two horse before too long. He doesn’t possess the temperament or maturity to absorb more than a few losses. Because of this, things may start to get really ugly, starting with the next debate on Saturday.