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“Iowa, you had one job." · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
0:23
Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:23
Speaker 4: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:24
Speaker 1: A beautiful day for democracy here in Des Moines. We are...
0:30
Speaker 1: So we're recording this bonus episode at 1 p.m.
0:35
Speaker 3: Central time.
0:36
Speaker 1: Central time. On what day is it? Tuesday. And so
0:40
Speaker 1: at 4 p.m. Central, we should have at least half
0:44
Speaker 1: the results. So by the time you hear this, we
0:46
Speaker 1: will have some results from the Iowa caucuses. But for now,
0:52
Speaker 1: we are just going to talk about everything that went
0:54
Speaker 1: wrong yesterday, Monday. And some of the things that went right,
0:58
Speaker 1: I guess.
0:58
Speaker 2: We'll try to find some things that went right.
1:00
Speaker 1: We'll try to find some things that went right. Okay.
1:02
Speaker 1: So the four of us and the Crooked Media team,
1:05
Speaker 1: we started the night. We went to a caucus precinct
1:10
Speaker 1: in Ankeny.
1:10
Speaker 3: Ankeny 09.
1:11
Speaker 1: Ankeny 09, which is a suburb of Des Moines. And,
1:16
Speaker 1: you know, things seemed pretty smooth at ours.
1:20
Speaker 3: Seriously. No.
1:21
Speaker 1: It was perfectly run. That's why we're laughing because it's
1:23
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't have known. We went to our caucus location.
1:26
Speaker 1: It was a pretty... diverse mix of, uh, supporters of
1:30
Speaker 1: all the different kind of candidates. Uh, I think Bernie
1:33
Speaker 1: ended up winning our caucus, but Pete was right behind him.
1:35
Speaker 1: Warren was right behind him. Uh, and then Klobuchar was
1:39
Speaker 1: behind Warren. Yeah.
1:39
Speaker 4: Four candidates reached viability, which is pretty unusual, I think.
1:43
Speaker 3: Yes, it is. Yeah.
1:44
Speaker 1: And then, and the process of counting and everything else
1:47
Speaker 1: and the realignment and all that went pretty smoothly. And then, uh,
1:51
Speaker 1: we all left and drove back to Des Moines to
1:52
Speaker 1: watch the results. And that's when we started seeing that, uh,
1:55
Speaker 1: They were not going to be reporting the results anytime
1:57
Speaker 1: soon because there was an issue.
1:59
Speaker 2: Kink in the hose.
2:01
Speaker 1: So let's, I mean, just because there's so much different
2:05
Speaker 1: information out there, let's talk about how the process was
2:08
Speaker 1: supposed to work with an emphasis on what was different
2:13
Speaker 1: about it this year. And obviously, hopefully many of you
2:16
Speaker 1: know exactly how the process was supposed to work this
2:18
Speaker 1: year because you listened to On the Ground in Iowa.
2:20
Speaker 5: Yeah.
2:20
Speaker 1: Um, but in case you haven't heard it yet, uh, Tommy,
2:23
Speaker 1: tell us what was different about this year and how
2:25
Speaker 1: the process was supposed to work.
2:26
Speaker 2: Sure.
2:27
Speaker 6: So there were a few things that were different this year.
2:28
Speaker 6: There were some changes to the rules themselves, which meant, uh,
2:32
Speaker 6: on first alignment, meaning, uh, when, when everyone first lines
2:36
Speaker 6: up in the corners of their precinct and you determine
2:38
Speaker 6: viability or not, you determine if they have 15% or not, uh,
2:41
Speaker 6: you are then locked in with your candidate, uh, So
2:45
Speaker 6: that was one new rule change. There were also these
2:47
Speaker 6: presidential preference forms that people filled out. So you physically
2:50
Speaker 6: wrote down who you were caucusing for. And then what
2:53
Speaker 6: the data that was reported back that was going to
2:55
Speaker 6: be released by the Iowa Democratic Party changed. So they
2:58
Speaker 6: were going to release a raw vote count after the
3:00
Speaker 6: first alignment, the raw vote count after the second alignment,
3:04
Speaker 6: the traditional state delegate equivalent number, and then like how
3:09
Speaker 6: many delegates you would get out of the 41 in
3:11
Speaker 6: the state.
3:12
Speaker 3: That was the plan.
3:14
Speaker 1: And this was the first time that all of those
3:17
Speaker 1: sets of data would be released or would be reported.
3:20
Speaker 1: Usually it's just the state delegate equivalents and then ultimately
3:23
Speaker 1: the pledge delegates. And so the raw vote totals, both
3:25
Speaker 1: in the first alignment and the second alignment, those usually
3:28
Speaker 1: didn't have to be reported. And so now they were
3:31
Speaker 1: going to be reported for the first time. So there
3:32
Speaker 1: was extra data to report. And the way they were
3:35
Speaker 1: going to report it was they had this app that
3:39
Speaker 1: was going to report all the data, but they also
3:41
Speaker 1: as a backup had You could call it in via phone.
3:46
Speaker 1: And it seems like there was problems with both of
3:49
Speaker 1: those systems.
3:51
Speaker 3: Why did you design that app the way you did?
3:53
Speaker 2: Hello, it is me, app designer. I work very long
3:58
Speaker 2: and hard on programming app. Goes smoothly, works exactly according
4:02
Speaker 2: to plan. That's so stupid.
4:05
Speaker 1: I guess the best way to do this is just
4:06
Speaker 1: I will read the statement from the Iowa Democratic Party
4:10
Speaker 1: that was basically the last statement that they released super
4:13
Speaker 1: late on Monday night. They said, as precinct caucus results
4:18
Speaker 1: started coming in, the Iowa Democratic Party ran them through
4:21
Speaker 1: an accuracy and quality check. It became clear that there
4:25
Speaker 1: were inconsistencies with the reports. We determined with certainty that
4:28
Speaker 1: the underlying data collected via the app was sound. But
4:32
Speaker 1: while the app was recording data accurately, it was reporting
4:35
Speaker 1: out only partial data. We have determined that this was
4:38
Speaker 1: due to a coding issue in our reporting system, which
4:40
Speaker 1: they then fixed. And then separately, there was a phone issue. Apparently,
4:44
Speaker 1: the issues with the app were confounded by failures with
4:46
Speaker 1: the party's hotline system. The IDP had set up a
4:49
Speaker 1: phone hotline as a backup method for precinct chairs to
4:52
Speaker 1: report results in case the app was not working. However,
4:55
Speaker 1: they were completely overwhelmed with calls Monday night and precinct
4:58
Speaker 1: chairs were left on hold for hours. What was your reaction, Tommy,
5:02
Speaker 1: when this was all unfolding, having been there for a while?
5:06
Speaker 3: Thrilled.
5:07
Speaker 6: No, I mean, like, look, this is a more complicated
5:10
Speaker 6: year than ever. There's more data being reported. There's so
5:12
Speaker 6: many candidates. I mean, it's crazy that there were precincts
5:15
Speaker 6: where five candidates were viable, right? So there's more math
5:18
Speaker 6: to be done. Just stepping back, like caucuses are not
5:23
Speaker 6: a precise process. This is not like scientific, really. We
5:27
Speaker 6: were in a room with 283 people and then human
5:29
Speaker 6: beings divided it up, counted them move them around, counter
5:33
Speaker 6: them again, and then ultimately split 10 delegates amongst these candidates, right?
5:37
Speaker 6: So it's an imprecise process. This isn't fucking Deloitte. And
5:41
Speaker 6: in some ways, all this- Is it more Enron? Yeah,
5:43
Speaker 6: it's more Enron than Deloitte.
5:45
Speaker 2: The Enron caucus.
5:47
Speaker 6: At scale, I think there's probably always going to be
5:48
Speaker 6: some errors at caucuses. In some ways, the transparency of
5:52
Speaker 6: a caucus where you literally stand up and do all
5:54
Speaker 6: the math publicly helps eliminate some of those errors, but
5:58
Speaker 6: there will always be problems. I think that This app
6:01
Speaker 6: and some of the technical flaws were a challenge. I
6:04
Speaker 6: think that there was a bigger problem of people probably
6:07
Speaker 6: not being fully trained to use these new technologies well.
6:10
Speaker 6: I mean, there's reports that people were downloading the app
6:12
Speaker 6: day of.
6:13
Speaker 1: Which just seems crazy.
6:14
Speaker 6: That is inexcusable. I don't know how that's possible. And
6:16
Speaker 6: there clearly wasn't a backup system. You know, you have
6:19
Speaker 6: all these paper ballots people are filling out. What was
6:21
Speaker 6: the process for then retaining like up to a couple
6:24
Speaker 6: hundred thousand pieces of paper? You need a system for that.
6:27
Speaker 6: You need some way to use it or else you're
6:28
Speaker 6: just sitting on a bunch of paper. So my reaction
6:32
Speaker 6: was enormous frustration that we didn't have any answer to
6:37
Speaker 6: who's winning. There's no winnowing of the field coming out
6:40
Speaker 6: of Iowa. There's no bounce for any of the candidates.
6:43
Speaker 6: It really sucks and saddens me that people are just
6:45
Speaker 6: calling into question the primary process generally and with some
6:49
Speaker 6: good reason here. And then like my heart just breaks
6:51
Speaker 6: for all these kids and campaigns who worked so hard
6:55
Speaker 6: for a year, put literally everything they had into this
6:57
Speaker 6: campaign and And they came out not feeling like winners
7:00
Speaker 6: or losers, but just let down by the party. That
7:04
Speaker 6: is the most heartbreaking thing to me.
7:05
Speaker 4: I'll agree with all of that. I feel terrible for
7:08
Speaker 4: the people who are at our caucus who did everything
7:10
Speaker 4: exactly right. The guy who was the caucus chair was
7:13
Speaker 4: like a master of organization.
7:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, he really was.
7:15
Speaker 4: He was awesome.
7:15
Speaker 2: And jokes.
7:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, and quite funny. But there's also, I think Tommy
7:20
Speaker 4: hit on a really interesting point here that shows why
7:23
Speaker 4: this was a little bit of a perfect storm of problems,
7:24
Speaker 4: which is you have all the new complications of the
7:26
Speaker 4: new system. But if you think back to recent years,
7:30
Speaker 4: the math was exponentially more complicated, even by the old system.
7:33
Speaker 4: In 2016, the room split up in two ways. And
7:37
Speaker 4: maybe there was one or two O'Malley people who they
7:39
Speaker 4: would fight over, but overwhelmingly, there was two candidates. In 2008,
7:44
Speaker 4: there were three candidates. I think maybe Richardson or Biden
7:48
Speaker 4: got a single delegate somewhere, but almost every room split
7:51
Speaker 4: three ways. So there was less on realignment. It was
7:54
Speaker 4: just a much less complicated system. Here where you have
7:58
Speaker 4: four and five candidates reaching viability in each place makes
8:00
Speaker 4: this so much harder. Plus, you know, decent-sized turnout. We
8:04
Speaker 4: can talk about the turnout issues, but still a lot
8:06
Speaker 4: of people, like 283 people in the room we were in,
8:08
Speaker 4: and that, it is complicated and hard, and then when
8:11
Speaker 4: you put in a phone system that doesn't work, an
8:14
Speaker 4: app that doesn't work, a new system with people being
8:18
Speaker 4: employed by volunteers who have been doing the old system
8:21
Speaker 4: for decades in some cases, it was a recipe for disaster.
8:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, love it.
8:26
Speaker 2: We were watching the caucus, and You know, there are many,
8:29
Speaker 2: many critiques about the Iowa caucus that are completely legitimate.
8:33
Speaker 2: Iowa is not demographically representative of the country. There's a
8:37
Speaker 2: lot of people who can't caucus. People with disabilities sometimes
8:40
Speaker 2: can't caucus. People who have autism sometimes don't feel comfortable caucusing.
8:44
Speaker 2: It's not a blind ballot. But yet, seeing it unfold,
8:50
Speaker 2: you actually appreciate what makes it democratic, what makes it
8:54
Speaker 2: feel like communities coming together to talk this thing through.
8:58
Speaker 2: It is civil.
8:59
Speaker 3: It is collaborative.
9:01
Speaker 2: It is a bunch of people who ultimately have the
9:03
Speaker 2: same goal coming together to do something positive. And the
9:09
Speaker 2: way in which this has been destroyed by the failure
9:13
Speaker 2: to report the information, it's a heartbreaking thing. This is
9:18
Speaker 2: the beginning of the most important primary of our lives.
9:21
Speaker 2: We've been saying that for a year and it's an
9:23
Speaker 2: incredibly inauspicious and disastrous beginning. And it's also just a
9:28
Speaker 2: deeply sad fact that we're going to be hearing about
9:31
Speaker 2: this from irresponsible people like Donald Trump and Lindsey Graham
9:34
Speaker 2: and others for the next year.
9:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, going back to the site that we
9:38
Speaker 1: were at, right, we had this precinct captain who was
9:41
Speaker 1: doing everything right. All the people who were volunteering with
9:44
Speaker 1: him to put this on were like excellent, All the
9:47
Speaker 1: supporters and all the precinct captains from the different campaigns,
9:50
Speaker 1: even as they were like realigning, they were treating each
9:53
Speaker 1: other well. No one was arguing. No one was fighting
9:55
Speaker 1: like it just went off. So there's been plenty of
9:57
Speaker 1: blame spread around to a lot of places that it
10:01
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't but i do think and tommy correct me
10:04
Speaker 1: if i'm wrong but it seems like the majority of
10:06
Speaker 1: the blame is on the iowa democratic party itself for
10:10
Speaker 1: not i mean there was problems with the app for
10:13
Speaker 1: sure right there are coding problems so that deserves some
10:15
Speaker 1: blame for sure but like a lot of these precinct
10:19
Speaker 1: chairs weren't trained on the app. A lot of them
10:22
Speaker 1: didn't even know about the app for a couple weeks
10:25
Speaker 1: until a couple weeks before. They didn't do dry runs.
10:28
Speaker 1: They didn't have the phone system, wasn't ready to handle
10:31
Speaker 1: a bunch of calls in case something went down. It
10:33
Speaker 1: just seems like they should have planned for all this.
10:35
Speaker 6: Yeah, look, it's an enormously complicated process. It's almost 1,700
10:38
Speaker 6: mini elections. But what I've heard anecdotally from people is
10:41
Speaker 6: that they didn't have people to run some of the
10:43
Speaker 6: precincts until the last days. They were scrambling to find
10:46
Speaker 6: folks Uh, it seems like there were people who just
10:49
Speaker 6: didn't understand the rules and they screwed up the alignment
10:51
Speaker 6: processes or didn't do realignment or, you know, screwed up
10:55
Speaker 6: the data. So with the caveat that, that we don't
10:58
Speaker 6: really know exactly what happened, we don't know if it
11:01
Speaker 6: was just a terribly coded app or if it was
11:03
Speaker 6: user error among people who aren't familiar with the app, whatever.
11:06
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't care.
11:07
Speaker 6: The Iowa democratic party, you had one job literally was
11:11
Speaker 6: to make this go off and it was an unmitigated disaster.
11:15
Speaker 6: And there was a lot of momentum there. And I
11:18
Speaker 6: know those people and they're nice and they're well-meaning, but
11:20
Speaker 6: there was a lot of momentum going into last night
11:24
Speaker 6: among people in the party about how the primary process
11:26
Speaker 6: needs to change. And I think there is now literally
11:29
Speaker 6: no argument for Iowa going first because part of the
11:33
Speaker 6: deal we make is that, yes, it's a not representative state.
11:38
Speaker 3: All the problems love it.
11:39
Speaker 6: Listed, but Iowa Democrats take it really seriously. Candidates get
11:43
Speaker 6: vetted and the process gets run and we learn something
11:46
Speaker 6: and it winnows the field. That deal didn't come through
11:49
Speaker 6: on their end of the bargain last night.
11:51
Speaker 3: So here we are in fucking limbo.
11:53
Speaker 1: So as this massive fuck-up is unfolding last night, people
11:58
Speaker 1: start spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation about what went wrong.
12:04
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just random Twitter users. The Trump campaign
12:07
Speaker 1: and other Republicans said it was rigged. A few journalists
12:11
Speaker 1: implied that. Even a few politicians I saw blame directed
12:14
Speaker 1: towards The DNC, Tom Perez, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Robbie Mook,
12:20
Speaker 1: former campaign manager at one point, Silicon Valley.
12:22
Speaker 6: Robbie Mook was trending on Twitter for something he had
12:24
Speaker 6: nothing to do with, apparently.
12:25
Speaker 1: So, like, obviously, you know, we just talked about how
12:27
Speaker 1: most of the responsibility lies with the Iowa Democratic Party here.
12:30
Speaker 1: But does it seem like it's not too much to
12:32
Speaker 1: ask for everyone to just wait for all the information
12:36
Speaker 1: and reporting about what went wrong to come out before
12:39
Speaker 1: you start, like, just jumping at conspiracy theories, especially if
12:44
Speaker 1: you are in a position of authority in some way?
12:47
Speaker 4: It is too much to ask.
12:48
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what I'm saying. Are we just like,
12:50
Speaker 1: part of me wondered, even if it was just a
12:52
Speaker 1: minor problem, or even if things went relatively well, like,
12:57
Speaker 1: are we just in a situation now that when there
13:01
Speaker 1: are fuck-ups like this, people aren't going to be able
13:03
Speaker 1: to handle them appropriately?
13:04
Speaker 4: And not just fuck-ups, but confusion.
13:06
Speaker 1: Right. Confusion.
13:07
Speaker 4: We are going to be in a situation if we
13:09
Speaker 4: run into a close race in California where California will
13:13
Speaker 4: not be called potentially for a week or more after
13:16
Speaker 4: Super Tuesday because we do mail-in ballots. The Republicans exploited
13:20
Speaker 4: that massively in 2018 because they were ahead on election
13:24
Speaker 4: day count and as in the crooked seven districts and
13:26
Speaker 4: as those ballots came in and it was these terms
13:29
Speaker 4: about like missing ballots and ballot stuffing and all of that.
13:33
Speaker 4: And we are ripe for that because our We live
13:36
Speaker 4: in this dystopic media environment where bad actors have all
13:40
Speaker 4: the wrong incentives. And we have a massively complex primary
13:45
Speaker 4: process that lends itself to confusion on its best day
13:49
Speaker 4: and incompetence on its worst.
13:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. The other thing too is like the idea that
13:56
Speaker 1: we always talk about this, that when we were in
13:58
Speaker 1: government and it was a question of Like, did something
14:02
Speaker 1: go wrong because it was a conspiracy or some malicious attempt?
14:06
Speaker 1: Or was it incompetence? It's usually like nine out of
14:09
Speaker 1: ten times incompetence. And it seems clearly like that was
14:13
Speaker 1: the case here, which is not excusable in any fucking way.
14:17
Speaker 1: But the idea that, I don't know, someone was going
14:20
Speaker 1: to develop an app that somehow swung the caucuses towards
14:25
Speaker 1: one candidate or the other is just like, it fucking
14:27
Speaker 1: defies belief.
14:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, it defies belief. Also, you know, look, a chaotic,
14:33
Speaker 2: deeply important situation with very limited information is going to
14:37
Speaker 2: be revealing in how people respond. And so I think
14:40
Speaker 2: you saw people like AOC and others trying to turn
14:44
Speaker 2: the temperature down, saying everybody just breathe, we'll get the information.
14:48
Speaker 2: I think that's generally the attitude we tend to take
14:50
Speaker 2: in moments of crisis, not to say that there isn't
14:52
Speaker 2: a huge fucking problem, not to say it's not a
14:54
Speaker 2: big deal, not to ignore the fuck up, but to say,
14:56
Speaker 2: let's wait till we have genuine information. But then you
14:59
Speaker 2: also see people who use it as an opportunity to
15:01
Speaker 2: go after their favorite villains, to score points, to excite division,
15:06
Speaker 2: to fight the same fights they fight online every other
15:08
Speaker 2: day of their lives. And it's obviously unhelpful. It's obviously damaging.
15:13
Speaker 2: There's this book, a lot of people are saying the
15:15
Speaker 2: new conspiracism and the assault on democracy. And I've been
15:18
Speaker 2: thinking about it a lot because it does capture something
15:21
Speaker 2: essential about how we respond in these moments. And the
15:24
Speaker 2: longer we went without an answer as to what happened
15:27
Speaker 2: and the more people who support Bernie or Pete or
15:30
Speaker 2: any of the candidates were getting more and more angry
15:32
Speaker 2: that their candidate may have been denied a key moment,
15:34
Speaker 2: the more they were looking for something big to explain
15:37
Speaker 2: their terrible feelings. And this is just a fuck up
15:41
Speaker 2: by some incompetence of people who didn't plan enough is unsatisfying.
15:46
Speaker 2: And so you look for an answer that matches your
15:48
Speaker 2: level of anger. And I think we see that all
15:50
Speaker 2: the time. And one of the unfortunate consequences of that
15:53
Speaker 2: is people just asking questions, people just doing internet sleuthing
15:57
Speaker 2: without much to back it up in a moment of
15:59
Speaker 2: real uncertainty have fed into what Donald Trump and the
16:03
Speaker 2: Trump campaign and Lindsey Graham, who buried the difference between
16:07
Speaker 2: right and wrong with John McCain, will use now for
16:11
Speaker 2: the next year in Facebook ads to target and demobilize
16:14
Speaker 2: potential Democratic voters.
16:16
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, look, I think we should point out
16:17
Speaker 6: that the campaigns were actually pretty responsible and pretty measured.
16:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
16:22
Speaker 6: Some of them put out some of the information that
16:24
Speaker 6: they had at that point of time because all these campaigns,
16:27
Speaker 6: you know, they're talking to their precinct captains who are
16:29
Speaker 6: reporting back and they're putting that into an Excel sheet
16:32
Speaker 6: and trying to figure out what's happening in real time.
16:34
Speaker 6: You know, we can talk later about some of the
16:37
Speaker 6: things Mayor Pete said and the fact that he, you know,
16:40
Speaker 6: declared victory in a lot of ways and whether that
16:42
Speaker 6: was appropriate or responsible. But, you know, I think what
16:45
Speaker 6: was disheartening last night was a lot of these additional
16:49
Speaker 6: data collection and reporting campaigns measures were put in place
16:52
Speaker 6: because of concerns the Bernie Sanders campaign had in 2016.
16:56
Speaker 3: And yet that didn't stop.
16:57
Speaker 6: They wanted more transparency. They wanted more transparency, and rightly so.
17:01
Speaker 6: But that did not stop a lot of Bernie Sanders
17:03
Speaker 6: supporters for trying to wedge the challenges in reporting back
17:07
Speaker 6: bad data into a frame of this is the party
17:10
Speaker 6: trying to fuck Bernie Sanders. And the most just asinine,
17:14
Speaker 6: absurd example of that is someone online who declared that
17:18
Speaker 6: this is on Obama because he wanted Tom Perez in
17:21
Speaker 6: charge of the DNC, apparently not understanding that the DNC
17:25
Speaker 6: wasn't running the Iowa caucuses, right? So like- DNC doesn't
17:28
Speaker 6: run state parties, guys. It just doesn't.
17:30
Speaker 1: They're independent.
17:31
Speaker 6: People, like Lovett said, were freaking out and emotional and
17:34
Speaker 6: went nuts and just lost their fucking minds.
17:37
Speaker 1: We should reiterate again, like the Sanders campaign- has been
17:41
Speaker 1: maybe one of the most responsible campaigns.
17:44
Speaker 6: And that's true on the record in terms of what
17:45
Speaker 6: they said publicly and off the record when I was
17:47
Speaker 6: talking to them. They were like, ah, we think they're
17:50
Speaker 6: calming people down.
17:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.
17:52
Speaker 2: And I'd also just say too, you know, it's unsatisfying,
17:54
Speaker 2: but even in a moment where there wasn't a lot
17:56
Speaker 2: of information and people were looking to find someone to blame,
17:58
Speaker 2: it was hard to find an ideological direction to go
18:01
Speaker 2: in because we don't know what the outcome is going
18:03
Speaker 2: to be. But it seems like the two campaigns most
18:07
Speaker 2: upset by not knowing what happened are Pete Buttigieg's and
18:10
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders.
18:11
Speaker 1: Who are not on the same page here. Right, exactly.
18:14
Speaker 2: And by the way, it's also worth pointing out that
18:16
Speaker 2: the only campaign that's come close to questioning the results
18:19
Speaker 2: is the Biden campaign.
18:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. Let's talk about how all the candidates are handling this.
18:32
Speaker 1: And let's start with Mayor Pete, as Tommy was just
18:34
Speaker 1: talking about, who basically declared himself the winner in a
18:37
Speaker 1: late night speech where he said, quote, Iowa, you have
18:40
Speaker 1: shocked the nation because by all indications, we are going
18:43
Speaker 1: on to New Hampshire victorious. His team put out a
18:46
Speaker 1: memo based on the information they received from 77% of
18:49
Speaker 1: their precinct captains, which told them they were doing eight
18:53
Speaker 1: points better than they had expected. And so therefore they
18:57
Speaker 1: had guessed that they will win the most state delegate equivalents. Now, again,
19:02
Speaker 1: by the time you hear this, we'll probably have more
19:04
Speaker 1: information on this, but let's actually, before we talk about
19:08
Speaker 1: whether it was right or wrong for them to do this. Dan,
19:11
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about how campaigns know
19:14
Speaker 1: this kind of information internally or how much they know
19:18
Speaker 1: internally on a night like this as they're waiting for
19:21
Speaker 1: official public results to come out?
19:23
Speaker 4: So a campaign builds a model based on their data
19:25
Speaker 4: of how they have to perform in each precinct to
19:28
Speaker 4: get to what they believe their win number is. And
19:29
Speaker 4: that model is turnout-based, but you can dial it up
19:32
Speaker 4: or dial it down based on what turnout is. And
19:35
Speaker 4: you make that prediction based on how many people show up.
19:38
Speaker 4: And so these campaigns, if they are well organized, have
19:40
Speaker 4: a precinct captain whose job it is to tell someone
19:43
Speaker 4: via email, phone, or text in the headquarters how many
19:46
Speaker 4: people are in that caucus site, right? So the Pete campaign.
19:50
Speaker 4: model may have said, we're expecting 350 people at this site.
19:54
Speaker 4: Third person tells them it's 283. They then adjust their
19:57
Speaker 4: model to that point. And so these results of the
20:00
Speaker 4: campaigns that put out are based on their model. And
20:03
Speaker 4: I think if Pete is reporting 80, you know, near
20:06
Speaker 4: 80% of precincts, He has a good sense. The thing
20:09
Speaker 4: that I would caution everyone on him is no one
20:12
Speaker 4: knows total turnout. So you could have really high turnout
20:16
Speaker 4: in some areas and really low turnout in others. And
20:18
Speaker 4: that could affect your model and your estimate.
20:21
Speaker 1: If you're not at 100% precinct captains giving you data.
20:25
Speaker 1: So then with 77%, the Buttigieg campaign looks at the
20:30
Speaker 1: data and says, okay, I think we might be ahead
20:33
Speaker 1: in delegates by the end of the night. They don't
20:36
Speaker 1: say you know, raw vote at the final alignment, but
20:39
Speaker 1: they do think the delegate number, and we've talked before
20:41
Speaker 1: about how these could all be different. So they send him,
20:43
Speaker 1: so all the other candidates go out and just give
20:45
Speaker 1: sort of their stump speeches. You know, Amy Klobuchar says,
20:48
Speaker 1: we punched above our weight tonight. The other ones kind
20:51
Speaker 1: of say, let's see, they give their stump speeches and
20:52
Speaker 1: Pete declares victory. What do we think about that?
20:56
Speaker 4: I think he read crooked.com and the piece that Hillary
20:59
Speaker 4: Clinton's communications director, Lily Adams wrote on the site last
21:02
Speaker 4: week that said in, in a moment of confusion, if
21:05
Speaker 4: you're confident, declare victory and go to New Hampshire. And
21:08
Speaker 4: that's what Pete did.
21:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I guess some of the context for this
21:12
Speaker 1: too is even if everything went perfectly last night, and
21:15
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before, these candidates leave Iowa, Tuesday
21:18
Speaker 1: night is the State of the Union. And then there's
21:20
Speaker 1: another debate Friday night, and then the New Hampshire primary
21:23
Speaker 1: is Tuesday. And all of these candidates, when you leave Iowa,
21:26
Speaker 1: you're looking for some kind of a big win to
21:28
Speaker 1: get momentum as you're headed into New Hampshire. But now
21:32
Speaker 1: that there's a whole bunch of different sets of data
21:34
Speaker 1: and someone could win the vote and someone could win
21:36
Speaker 1: the delegates and someone could win the pledge delegates, there
21:39
Speaker 1: could be multiple winners. And so we always knew it
21:41
Speaker 1: was kind of going to be a race to have
21:43
Speaker 1: someone spin their win as the real win. And now
21:47
Speaker 1: that there was this big fuck up, I'm sure that
21:50
Speaker 1: Buttigieg campaign thought, OK, well, we're the leaders and delegates.
21:53
Speaker 1: We better fucking say something now, because if this goes
21:55
Speaker 1: on for days. and we don't know the actual results,
21:59
Speaker 1: I will be completely meaningless to this campaign. But you
22:02
Speaker 1: could also make an argument that maybe you shouldn't go
22:05
Speaker 1: out there and say, we're victorious when you don't know
22:08
Speaker 1: for sure we're victorious.
22:10
Speaker 4: Pete's campaign has said, we just have to do well here.
22:13
Speaker 4: And they'll say, kind of on background, we just have
22:16
Speaker 4: to beat Biden. But they really need to win. Pete
22:20
Speaker 4: is struggling mightily in national polls. He has nigh on
22:24
Speaker 4: to 0% African-American support. He needs to get escape velocity
22:28
Speaker 4: to have a chance to actually be the nominee. And
22:31
Speaker 4: they have not so subtly modeled themselves, maybe a little
22:37
Speaker 4: bit ironically, on Obama and his path. And Obama won Iowa.
22:41
Speaker 4: It was a gigantic deal. We didn't win New Hampshire,
22:43
Speaker 4: but it gave us an opportunity to actually take on
22:45
Speaker 4: Hillary Clinton.
22:46
Speaker 1: And make it look like it was then just a
22:47
Speaker 1: two-candidate race.
22:48
Speaker 4: And that option is not available for Pete as of
22:51
Speaker 4: the recording of this.
22:52
Speaker 2: You look at what the five campaigns have said.
22:55
Speaker 3: You had....
22:57
Speaker 2: Amy Klobuchar go out there and say she punched above
22:59
Speaker 2: her weight. You had Warren go out there and say,
23:01
Speaker 2: it's pretty tight at the top up here. There's three
23:03
Speaker 2: of us, then a space, and then maybe Biden. You
23:05
Speaker 2: had Biden go out there and saying, we got delegates, right?
23:08
Speaker 2: And you had Bernie and Pete declare some sort of victory.
23:12
Speaker 2: And to me, that tells you what they're all feeling,
23:14
Speaker 2: and it kind of, it aligns with each other. And
23:16
Speaker 2: so the thing that I'm struck by is thinking, let's
23:20
Speaker 2: say we find out, and we don't know, but let's
23:21
Speaker 2: say we find out that either you know, Pete or
23:24
Speaker 2: Bernie can really declare victory here. They were really denied
23:27
Speaker 2: something incredibly important. A Democratic socialist who's been trying to
23:31
Speaker 2: build a movement for three decades and won the Iowa caucus.
23:35
Speaker 2: That's an incredibly big deal. Or a gay person won
23:40
Speaker 2: a statewide contest for the Democratic Party to choose its
23:42
Speaker 2: presidential nominee. That's incredible. That's historic. And it is just
23:46
Speaker 2: sad that we're here the next day speculating as to
23:50
Speaker 2: whether or not they should have given victory speeches. It's
23:52
Speaker 2: just We're going to say it over and over again,
23:54
Speaker 2: but it just, the reason that conspiracy theories are so
23:56
Speaker 2: frustrating is they don't actually point to any grand villain
24:01
Speaker 2: because it looks like the two people that may have
24:03
Speaker 2: been hurt the most are the people on the opposite
24:05
Speaker 2: ends of the ideological spectrum.
24:06
Speaker 1: Tommy, what'd you think of Pete's move there?
24:09
Speaker 6: I get it from a raw political perspective. And I
24:12
Speaker 6: do think there is something to be said for getting
24:16
Speaker 6: ahead of waiting for all the results to come in
24:21
Speaker 6: and just sort of making your case. That said, I
24:23
Speaker 6: think when you combine the fact that Pete really leaned
24:27
Speaker 6: in harder than the other campaigns in terms of declaring
24:30
Speaker 6: victory and the fact that they clearly are the reason
24:33
Speaker 6: that the Des Moines Register poll was spiked, you can
24:36
Speaker 6: understand why that leaves a pretty bad taste in a
24:39
Speaker 6: lot of the other campaigns' mouths. Now, where it gets
24:43
Speaker 6: ridiculous is this company that developed the app, this shadow
24:46
Speaker 6: or whatever the fuck the company is, you've got all
24:49
Speaker 6: these like online inspector gadgets, like, you know, figuring out
24:53
Speaker 6: through FEC reports that, you know, Pete has paid them
24:56
Speaker 6: and the Iowa's Democratic Party's paid them in Nevada. And
24:59
Speaker 6: they're trying to like draw these red strings and allegedly
25:02
Speaker 6: there's conspiracy. That's where it gets completely ludicrous and you
25:05
Speaker 6: lose me. But, you know, I kind of winced when
25:08
Speaker 6: I saw him tweet, Iowa, you have shocked the nations
25:10
Speaker 6: by all indications. We were going on New Hampshire victorious because,
25:14
Speaker 6: you know, maybe they think that's true, but there's no
25:16
Speaker 6: way for us to vet their data.
25:17
Speaker 3: So, It's kind of hard to trust.
25:18
Speaker 2: It's over-torqued, right? Like you can't say the results are undeniable.
25:22
Speaker 2: They're definitionally deniable. They're 0% reporting. And you can't say
25:25
Speaker 2: all indications because it's some indications. It's some indications.
25:29
Speaker 1: I guess where I come down on this is just like,
25:31
Speaker 1: if it's true that Pete is the delegate leader, then
25:35
Speaker 1: you look back on that and you're like, oh yeah,
25:37
Speaker 1: I guess it was smart for him to do that
25:38
Speaker 1: and get out ahead of it. If it's not, then
25:41
Speaker 1: he deserves a ton of criticism, of course, for doing that.
25:44
Speaker 1: But I guess we're going to know. Like, maybe by
25:45
Speaker 1: the time you're hearing this, we will know.
25:47
Speaker 5: Or never.
25:48
Speaker 1: Who knows?
25:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the problem. Or never.
25:50
Speaker 4: Whether Pete is first or second, and there does seem
25:54
Speaker 4: to at least be some unsaid consensus among the campaigns
25:59
Speaker 4: that that is the order.
26:00
Speaker 1: Right, because no one... The other important thing here is
26:02
Speaker 1: no one has challenged so far Pete's contention that they're
26:06
Speaker 1: going to win the delegates or Bernie's contention that they're
26:09
Speaker 1: going to win the vote total.
26:10
Speaker 2: And.
26:11
Speaker 4: Up until this year, the definition of how you won
26:13
Speaker 4: the Iowa caucus was you got the most state delegate equivalents.
26:15
Speaker 1: Right, Tommy? Yeah.
26:16
Speaker 4: So that's how Obama did it. That's how Clinton did it.
26:18
Speaker 4: Clinton probably, although we don't know because we don't have data,
26:22
Speaker 4: but by all anecdotal evidence, lost the popular vote among
26:25
Speaker 4: Iowa caucus goers in 16, but won more state delegate equivalents.
26:29
Speaker 4: And so Pete, if that is true, he did win
26:32
Speaker 4: the Iowa caucus. And if this was his conspiracy, it
26:34
Speaker 4: was a conspiracy to deny himself his moment.
26:38
Speaker 1: That's the other thing about that, like, acronym connected to
26:42
Speaker 1: pete and shadow and stuff like that it's like so
26:45
Speaker 1: the app ended up screwing over pete though how.
26:48
Speaker 5: Did the how did the app fuck with the phones
26:52
Speaker 5: yeah i know we keep saying that like yeah the
26:54
Speaker 5: no one's looked into the uh the shadow conspiracy behind
26:57
Speaker 5: uh jamming up the phone lines which is a pretty
26:59
Speaker 5: old technology.
27:01
Speaker 2: Incompetence is always going to be a safer bet over
27:05
Speaker 2: malevolent masterminds at some once in a while you'll find
27:08
Speaker 2: a mastermind all right it'll happen Most of the time.
27:11
Speaker 1: So after Pete did this, Bernie's campaign pushed out internal numbers.
27:14
Speaker 1: So we're just going to go candidate by candidate here.
27:16
Speaker 1: So Bernie's campaign pushed out internal numbers, they say, are
27:19
Speaker 1: from nearly 40% of precincts, showing Bernie with 29.7% of
27:22
Speaker 1: the final vote, Pete 24.6%, Warren 21.2%, Biden 12.4%, Klobuchar
27:27
Speaker 1: at 11%. And they said in their statement, in Sanders' statement,
27:30
Speaker 1: that they recognize it doesn't replace the full data from
27:33
Speaker 1: the IDP, but their supporters worked too hard and they
27:35
Speaker 1: wanted to have that data out, which I thought was
27:37
Speaker 1: a pretty good hedge from the Bernie thing. I guess
27:39
Speaker 1: my question was, And you brought this up, Dan, actually,
27:42
Speaker 1: why Bernie's only had 40% of precinct captains reporting. Like
27:46
Speaker 1: I would have thought they would have had more data.
27:47
Speaker 4: They were up to 60% by this morning, I believe.
27:50
Speaker 4: So a very well-organized campaign would get you, I'd say
27:55
Speaker 4: at least 80% of precincts. You would have someone whose job,
27:59
Speaker 4: a volunteer whose job it was there to get that information.
28:01
Speaker 4: So I was very surprised about Bernie's campaign, which has
28:04
Speaker 4: seemed incredibly well-organized in the state the entire time we've
28:07
Speaker 4: been here, at least. would have that data come in
28:10
Speaker 4: so slowly. And I would bet, just knowing the Warren
28:14
Speaker 4: people as we do, that they actually have at least
28:16
Speaker 4: as good a data.
28:17
Speaker 3: As Pete does.
28:18
Speaker 4: But it doesn't raise questions, to me at least, about
28:21
Speaker 4: the outcome, just about why that is. I don't believe
28:27
Speaker 4: that they are hiding data or doing like that. It's
28:30
Speaker 4: just I was surprised by how few precincts they had.
28:34
Speaker 4: information from within, you know, five hours after the caucus.
28:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.
28:37
Speaker 6: But I just bet it's for mundane reasons. It's like
28:39
Speaker 6: the precinct captain in such and such County put their
28:41
Speaker 6: kid to bed and went to sleep.
28:42
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
28:43
Speaker 6: I was talking to people in the Warren campaign this morning.
28:45
Speaker 6: They're still chasing down internal data as well. It's just,
28:48
Speaker 6: you know, it's a volunteer led process.
28:50
Speaker 2: In the grand scheme of things, a very well planned
28:53
Speaker 2: coordinated system to gather this data is not that useful, right?
28:56
Speaker 2: They're all on their way to New Hampshire regardless. They
28:58
Speaker 2: didn't know that they were going to wake up to
28:59
Speaker 2: no fucking results.
29:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
29:01
Speaker 4: Some reporter tweeted last night that if we weren't all
29:02
Speaker 4: competing with each other, we could all get this data
29:04
Speaker 4: in like two hours.
29:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's funny.
29:06
Speaker 1: Well, you brought up the Warren campaign. Earlier I said
29:08
Speaker 1: the Sanders campaign has been one of the most responsible
29:10
Speaker 1: on this whole thing. I think maybe the most responsible
29:13
Speaker 1: campaign has been the Warren campaign. They basically put out
29:16
Speaker 1: a statement. They've released no numbers. They haven't declared anything.
29:20
Speaker 1: They've said we're helping the party as much as we can.
29:23
Speaker 1: We're trying to like give them the data that we
29:25
Speaker 1: have to to make sure everything's right.
29:26
Speaker 6: The Warren people think there's like a clear tier one
29:29
Speaker 6: that's like Bernie, Pete and Elizabeth Warren and then a
29:31
Speaker 6: clear tier two, which is Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden. Now,
29:36
Speaker 6: in a normal race, the 1% difference between the candidates
29:40
Speaker 6: in that top tier is everything, right? And what stinks
29:43
Speaker 6: now is because we're still waiting on this data, because
29:46
Speaker 6: it's coming in piecemeal, because some of it we might
29:48
Speaker 6: never get, we might not ever have total clarity on that.
29:51
Speaker 6: And that would be infuriating to me.
29:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that really sucks for the Warren campaign too,
29:55
Speaker 1: because if they came in a really close or they
29:58
Speaker 1: end up coming in a really close third to Bernie
30:01
Speaker 1: and to Buttigieg, then that would be, you know, that
30:04
Speaker 1: would be a big deal for her out of Iowa.
30:06
Speaker 6: If it was a clear, this also sucks for Amy Klobuchar,
30:09
Speaker 6: who seems to have had like a surprisingly good night,
30:11
Speaker 6: which normally would be like the second big narrative out
30:13
Speaker 6: of this. Instead, the big story coming out of Iowa
30:16
Speaker 6: is this is a clusterfuck. And that's a bummer for
30:18
Speaker 6: every campaign that competed, except probably Joe Biden.
30:20
Speaker 1: Well, But the Biden campaign, talking about how all the
30:26
Speaker 1: campaigns were super responsible at the beginning, they were the
30:29
Speaker 1: first ones to release a letter from their lawyer earlier
30:32
Speaker 1: in the night when things started getting fucked up, basically saying,
30:35
Speaker 1: you know, the app has failed, the phone system has failed,
30:38
Speaker 1: you know, both are true. Basically sort of like putting
30:41
Speaker 1: everyone on notice that they were upset about the results themselves.
30:44
Speaker 1: And then the Biden deputy campaign manager this morning said,
30:48
Speaker 1: If you have a process where you can't be confident
30:50
Speaker 1: that the results that are being reported are reflective of
30:53
Speaker 1: the votes that people cast last night in the process,
30:56
Speaker 1: that's a real concern. So it does seem like the
30:58
Speaker 1: Biden campaign has gone further than the other campaigns and
31:02
Speaker 1: perhaps not just saying that this was a fuck up
31:05
Speaker 1: on reporting the results, but questioning perhaps the integrity of
31:08
Speaker 1: the results themselves. What do you guys think about that?
31:12
Speaker 2: It's not what you do when you think you won
31:13
Speaker 2: the Iowa caucus.
31:14
Speaker 3: That's for sure. Yeah.
31:16
Speaker 1: Is it fair?
31:18
Speaker 6: We don't know, but it might be. I don't know
31:20
Speaker 6: what they're looking at that leads them to believe that.
31:22
Speaker 6: But I also don't think that given the disaster all
31:24
Speaker 6: around us, that I'm going to criticize them for wondering
31:28
Speaker 6: that aloud.
31:29
Speaker 3: I would say this.
31:31
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody's in a position to defend what
31:34
Speaker 2: the Iowa party has done. And I understand why the
31:36
Speaker 2: Biden campaign, especially if they think they underperformed, is going
31:38
Speaker 2: to put out a statement like that. There's a big
31:40
Speaker 2: difference between saying there's a problem with this reporting system.
31:44
Speaker 2: There may even be a problem with some of the numbers.
31:46
Speaker 2: and claiming that they're some kind of vector against your candidate, right?
31:49
Speaker 2: Which they're not saying, but it's in some way implied
31:53
Speaker 2: by them making this stink.
31:54
Speaker 4: I was very uncomfortable when I saw that last night.
31:56
Speaker 4: After having slept for approximately three hours on it, I'm
32:00
Speaker 4: not sympathetic. But I do, like, it is very possible
32:03
Speaker 4: that there are real questions. And it could be that
32:06
Speaker 4: some of the precincts where they expect to do better
32:08
Speaker 4: are the smaller, more rural ones, where there may be
32:10
Speaker 4: more problems. Like the Polk County Democratic Party was able
32:12
Speaker 4: to figure out all their stuff and drive the numbers
32:15
Speaker 4: over to the headquarters.
32:16
Speaker 3: Right.
32:16
Speaker 4: The headquarters turned it away, which is another problem, but
32:18
Speaker 4: they got the answers. So I've seen a bunch of bigger,
32:21
Speaker 4: better organized county parties who have been able to handle
32:24
Speaker 4: their own business, and that's probably not happening out in
32:26
Speaker 4: the rural places. But we shouldn't disconnect that from the
32:28
Speaker 4: fact that if all the reports from all the campaigns
32:31
Speaker 4: are true and what we saw anecdotally, then he has
32:34
Speaker 4: a very big incentive to not have these results come
32:38
Speaker 4: out or not have them be seen as declarative.
32:40
Speaker 1: I guess I would say I understand their concern. But
32:45
Speaker 1: I would have preferred a much more nuanced statement of
32:49
Speaker 1: like what you just said or saying, you know, we
32:52
Speaker 1: think that we did well in a lot of these
32:53
Speaker 1: more rural counties where we've heard more reports of problems
32:57
Speaker 1: and we just want to wait and see. And I
32:58
Speaker 1: actually think, you know, the campaign statements I've had some
33:01
Speaker 1: issues with Joe Biden in an event today in New
33:03
Speaker 1: Hampshire was like, let's just all take a breath, wait
33:05
Speaker 1: and see till all the results come in. I think
33:08
Speaker 1: we might surprise people, whatever. I think saying stuff like
33:10
Speaker 1: that is completely fine. Good for them. I worry about,
33:14
Speaker 1: unless you actually have evidence, you know, starting to, in
33:18
Speaker 1: an environment like this, questioning perhaps the integrity of the results,
33:22
Speaker 1: which they're sort of getting a little close to.
33:23
Speaker 4: I would separate two things. There's the integrity and the accuracy.
33:27
Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
33:27
Speaker 4: The integrity suggests malfeasance somewhere, right, that someone has cheated
33:31
Speaker 4: or rigged a system. Accuracy is about competence.
33:34
Speaker 1: Clearly there's reasons to question the competence.
33:36
Speaker 3: Agreed.
33:37
Speaker 1: Okay. What will it take for Democrats to beat Donald
33:45
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35:08
Speaker 1: So we talked a little bit about who's hurt most
35:10
Speaker 1: by this debacle. I was going to ask, does it
35:13
Speaker 1: help anyone? It might help Joe Biden if he ends
35:15
Speaker 1: up coming in fourth or fifth, right? Because it's just
35:17
Speaker 1: such a muddle. And then he sort of gets away
35:19
Speaker 1: with what would have been probably the worst narrative of
35:23
Speaker 1: the night if he came in fourth or maybe even fifth.
35:26
Speaker 2: If Joe Biden ultimately comes in fifth, this is a
35:30
Speaker 2: incredible rescue of Joe Biden, right? If he comes in
35:32
Speaker 2: fifth behind Amy Klobuchar, that would have been an extremely damaging,
35:36
Speaker 2: far-reaching story for his campaign. And by the way, like,
35:39
Speaker 2: you know, They can try to kind of sow doubt
35:42
Speaker 2: in what the outcome would be, even if they have
35:43
Speaker 2: some legitimate grievances. But, you know, I'm sure inside of
35:47
Speaker 2: that campaign, the bigger question is not what happened in Iowa.
35:50
Speaker 2: It's what do we do moving forward that we have
35:52
Speaker 2: this incredible weakness that may have been revealed by this result.
35:55
Speaker 5: Yeah.
35:57
Speaker 1: Let's talk about turnout for a second. We don't, of course,
35:59
Speaker 1: know the final turnout, but we did get a statement
36:02
Speaker 1: from the party earlier in the night as things were
36:06
Speaker 1: going off the rails that that they believe the turnout
36:08
Speaker 1: was on track to match the 2016 caucuses. And then
36:13
Speaker 1: I believe that Pete Buttigieg's campaign statement also said they
36:17
Speaker 1: thought it was on track to match 2016 from their
36:19
Speaker 1: internal data. How worrisome, Dan, is that to you that
36:24
Speaker 1: the turnout in an election like this would be lower
36:27
Speaker 1: than it was in 2008 when it was record turnout?
36:31
Speaker 4: I think we were all, myself included, overly optimistic about
36:35
Speaker 4: reaching 2008 level turnout, in part because the state has
36:38
Speaker 4: moved 19 points in the Republican direction at the presidential
36:41
Speaker 4: level in that 12-year period. So you're operating with fewer Democrats.
36:45
Speaker 4: I'm very worried about it. I think we've had 1,000
36:49
Speaker 4: organizers in the state knocking doors for a year, and
36:52
Speaker 4: you would have thought you could bring more new people
36:54
Speaker 4: into the process. So that is concerning. There are some
36:56
Speaker 4: factors here that I think are worth at least addressing.
36:58
Speaker 4: One is people were very unsure. Just anecdotally, all the
37:02
Speaker 4: people we talked to as we went around, people were like,
37:04
Speaker 4: I don't know about this. I don't know if this
37:06
Speaker 4: person or this person, or I got a list of three.
37:08
Speaker 4: And it's hard to commit to go to, on a
37:10
Speaker 4: very cold night, to go to a three-hour caucus when
37:13
Speaker 4: you're not passionate for one person. Because caucuses are always
37:15
Speaker 4: about enthusiasm. The second issue is the caucus has not
37:20
Speaker 4: been part of the conversation for the last 10 days. Normally,
37:23
Speaker 4: there is this huge ramp up for it, but we
37:25
Speaker 4: have had impeachment. Every cable channel has, instead of having
37:29
Speaker 4: Candidates on– Rachel Maddow has been canceled for a week
37:31
Speaker 4: basically so you can show impeachment. And then Kobe Bryant,
37:34
Speaker 4: which is another thing. Like I think political people, we
37:37
Speaker 4: don't think enough about how non-political news stories affect passive
37:42
Speaker 4: political observers' ability to consume political news. Like the Iowa
37:45
Speaker 4: caucus was at best the third biggest story in the
37:47
Speaker 4: country in the run-up to it. And that's true in
37:49
Speaker 4: Iowa just as it is across the country. So there's
37:51
Speaker 4: a number of factors there. But I'm worrying but not
37:53
Speaker 4: panicking about it.
37:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could certainly see a scenario with that many
37:57
Speaker 1: undecided caucus goers. And I think some of the early
38:00
Speaker 1: data did show that more people than usual made up
38:03
Speaker 1: their minds in the last two days. And we saw
38:06
Speaker 1: it in our precinct as well when people are really,
38:08
Speaker 1: I mean, the way that we all look at politics
38:09
Speaker 1: as we observe it is that, you know, people's supporters
38:12
Speaker 1: are enthusiastic and passionate and don't like the other candidates.
38:14
Speaker 1: And within the precinct that we saw, like the woman
38:17
Speaker 1: that stood up to give the speech on behalf of
38:20
Speaker 1: Joe Biden to get people to come over to the
38:23
Speaker 1: Biden corner, ended up happily caucusing for Elizabeth Warren right
38:27
Speaker 1: after that when they weren't viable. And that happened with
38:29
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other candidates across ideologies. People went
38:31
Speaker 1: to Klobuchar, Yang, Warren, Buttigieg, Sanders. So there's that. And
38:36
Speaker 1: you have to think to yourself, if you're an Iowan,
38:38
Speaker 1: you could very easily think, I'm absolutely going to show
38:42
Speaker 1: up in 2020 to make sure Trump's not president. I
38:45
Speaker 1: can't really figure out which of these candidates I want
38:47
Speaker 1: right now. So why am I going to go out
38:48
Speaker 1: and sit in a caucus for a couple hours? Yeah.
38:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
38:50
Speaker 3: It's true. Look, I am worried.
38:52
Speaker 6: I mean, the 2016 turnout was about 170,000 people. The
38:56
Speaker 6: 2008 turnout was about 240,000 people. So to Dan's point,
39:00
Speaker 6: I think that does speak to an enthusiasm gap. And
39:03
Speaker 6: the conventional wisdom was that we might see higher than
39:06
Speaker 6: the 2008 level because there were so many campaigns, because
39:09
Speaker 6: there was so much organizing happening, et cetera. So that
39:13
Speaker 6: does make me nervous. And it does make me even
39:17
Speaker 6: more nervous that there are probably some people who turned
39:20
Speaker 6: out who will leave feeling like their vote didn't matter.
39:24
Speaker 6: And that is the worst thing of all, because that
39:27
Speaker 6: is what Republicans want us to think, which is that
39:30
Speaker 6: nothing will change.
39:31
Speaker 3: All candidates are the same. So why try? And that's
39:33
Speaker 3: how they win.
39:34
Speaker 4: And part of the way people dismiss this online and
39:37
Speaker 4: on TV last night is, well, Iowa's not a swing
39:39
Speaker 4: state anymore. But it is a state that we kind
39:41
Speaker 4: of need to pick up to have a good chance
39:42
Speaker 4: of getting the Senate majority. Because Joni Ernst is up.
39:46
Speaker 4: We have two very important House seats we have to
39:48
Speaker 4: defend here. And so a process that left Democratic voters
39:52
Speaker 4: disillusioned and less likely to turn out in the fall
39:55
Speaker 4: is a huge problem.
39:56
Speaker 1: How, and of course, we'll know more when we have
40:00
Speaker 1: all the results, but if you're all the other campaigns
40:03
Speaker 1: right now, if you're all the different campaigns, how do
40:05
Speaker 1: you sort of make the most of at least where
40:08
Speaker 1: we think these candidates are going to end up as
40:10
Speaker 1: you head into New Hampshire ahead of the New Hampshire
40:13
Speaker 1: primary on Tuesday? What kind of arguments are they all making,
40:16
Speaker 1: do you think?
40:17
Speaker 4: It's really hard because you you don't really know anything, right?
40:21
Speaker 3: I think.
40:22
Speaker 1: I guess the most likely scenario for me is it
40:23
Speaker 1: just is the race in stasis for, you know, we
40:27
Speaker 1: have the State of the Union Tuesday night. They've got
40:29
Speaker 1: two days to campaign there. We've got a big debate
40:31
Speaker 1: Friday night. I guess some shit could go down there.
40:34
Speaker 1: And then you've got like three more days of campaigning
40:35
Speaker 1: and then voting again.
40:36
Speaker 6: Here's my tip for all of them. Don't condescend to
40:41
Speaker 6: Hillary Clinton in a really shitty way at the debate.
40:45
Speaker 1: And say that she's likable enough.
40:46
Speaker 3: Don't do that.
40:47
Speaker 1: That's a good tip.
40:48
Speaker 4: I mean, there is a way in which I'm sure
40:52
Speaker 4: Bernie Sanders, if he turns out to be the winner,
40:54
Speaker 4: was obviously denied a very important campaign moment. There is
40:57
Speaker 4: a way in which this actually ends up to his
40:58
Speaker 4: advantage because he is the highest floor of any candidate.
41:03
Speaker 4: And so as long as you have many viable candidates
41:06
Speaker 4: getting decent support, he has a big advantage. And so
41:10
Speaker 4: he is not– Iowa is supposed to winnow this field
41:14
Speaker 4: where We would find out if Buttigieg or Klobuchar really
41:18
Speaker 4: had a shot or Biden or Warren and people would
41:20
Speaker 4: sort of start to consolidate. And that did not happen.
41:24
Speaker 4: So we're going to end it.
41:25
Speaker 1: No, probably no. It would be the first Iowa caucus
41:27
Speaker 1: where maybe no one drops out after the Iowa caucus.
41:30
Speaker 2: But even people might get in.
41:36
Speaker 1: Fuck.
41:37
Speaker 4: This also speaks to the challenge for Pete, which is Pete,
41:41
Speaker 4: if he ends up with a SDE, a state delegate
41:44
Speaker 4: equivalent lead, benefited mightily from Biden not making viability in
41:50
Speaker 4: a much larger portion of precincts than anyone ever could
41:52
Speaker 4: possibly imagine. And then Klobuchar being strong, but not strong enough.
41:55
Speaker 3: To be viable everywhere.
41:56
Speaker 4: When you get to New Hampshire, those people just get
41:58
Speaker 4: to vote for their person.
41:59
Speaker 6: Right.
42:00
Speaker 1: And so Pete's strategy was probably do really well in Iowa.
42:04
Speaker 1: Because you did well in Iowa, you look like you
42:06
Speaker 1: are the alternative to Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar. And
42:10
Speaker 1: then even if Bernie does really well in New Hampshire,
42:12
Speaker 1: maybe you're number two. And I guess that could still
42:15
Speaker 1: happen for him, but he doesn't quite, he might not
42:17
Speaker 1: have the boost that he would have had this thing
42:19
Speaker 1: not been so fucked up. And for Joe Biden, on
42:22
Speaker 1: the other hand, it gives him a chance to sort
42:24
Speaker 1: of sneak by Iowa, pretend it never happened and show
42:27
Speaker 1: up in New Hampshire and be like, oh yeah, I'm
42:28
Speaker 1: still the most, I'm still the most electable candidate. What
42:30
Speaker 1: Iowa thing? What are you talking about?
42:33
Speaker 4: I think that's, I think that's true externally. Internally, sometimes
42:36
Speaker 4: campaigns need to be smacked in the head.
42:38
Speaker 1: Yeah.
42:39
Speaker 4: And if, Like his campaign manager went on our friend
42:41
Speaker 4: David Plus podcast and said they would be viable in 90,
42:43
Speaker 4: I think it was either 90 or 95% of precincts
42:45
Speaker 4: in Iowa.
42:45
Speaker 1: And clearly that did not happen.
42:47
Speaker 4: Very clearly.
42:48
Speaker 1: No matter, yeah.
42:49
Speaker 4: 0% of the two precincts we saw.
42:50
Speaker 1: I was going to say, we know that much now
42:52
Speaker 1: that he was not.
42:53
Speaker 4: And that bespeaks both an organizational and a political weakness
42:58
Speaker 4: that they have to come to terms with. And if
43:00
Speaker 4: they have any shot of putting this together, succeeding in
43:02
Speaker 4: South Carolina and then being launched into Super Tuesday, something's
43:06
Speaker 4: going to have to change there. Sometimes you have to
43:07
Speaker 4: get knocked down to be able to get back up, right?
43:10
Speaker 4: And that may not, he may not get that either.
43:11
Speaker 1: Out of this.
43:12
Speaker 3: It's interesting.
43:13
Speaker 2: You know, the one thing that I guess we were
43:15
Speaker 2: hoping Iowa would do is shake the race. Just, we
43:19
Speaker 2: got two people in the left lane. We got two
43:21
Speaker 2: and a half, you know, whatever, three people in the
43:24
Speaker 2: moderate lane. And we just need something to shake this
43:26
Speaker 2: loose to see who ends up being the final two
43:29
Speaker 2: or three competing. And the fact that we may not
43:32
Speaker 2: get the result until later today, if after has prevented
43:35
Speaker 2: an opportunity for that shakeup to take place.
43:39
Speaker 1: I will say, you know, it seems pretty bleak today,
43:42
Speaker 1: but we do have a lot of voting left. And
43:45
Speaker 1: now these primaries and caucuses happen very quickly. And we
43:50
Speaker 1: have debates coming up that I imagine that these coming
43:53
Speaker 1: debates will not be the friendly affairs that they were
43:58
Speaker 1: in Iowa. Maybe they will be, but I would imagine
44:00
Speaker 1: that as we are starting to go on and there's
44:02
Speaker 1: a desire on all these campaigns to make sure that
44:04
Speaker 1: the field starts winnowing and they are part of the
44:07
Speaker 1: people who have not been winnowed. that there may be
44:10
Speaker 1: some sharper elbows and there may be some more contrast
44:13
Speaker 1: as we get to these other states. And I do
44:16
Speaker 1: think even though it looks like a complete fuck up today,
44:19
Speaker 1: like by the time we get to New Hampshire and
44:20
Speaker 1: then Nevada and then by the time we're in South Carolina,
44:23
Speaker 1: you know, this chaos could be a distant memory.
44:26
Speaker 2: I'll also make one slightly hopeful note in that it
44:32
Speaker 2: was actually also striking to me coming to see some
44:34
Speaker 2: of these candidates in their stump speech in the final
44:36
Speaker 2: days to see how many of them became such stronger
44:39
Speaker 2: candidates while being in Iowa. And they left without a result.
44:44
Speaker 2: But Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, you know, I
44:49
Speaker 2: was struck, Amy Klobuchar, I was struck by how much
44:52
Speaker 2: they've gained just by being in an intimate form of
44:55
Speaker 2: campaigning for so long. And I think that's probably true
44:59
Speaker 2: of a lot of the organizers who learned a lot
45:01
Speaker 2: being on the ground and doing this kind of politics
45:03
Speaker 2: as well.
45:04
Speaker 1: So you think this is curtains for the Iowa caucuses?
45:08
Speaker 2: I do.
45:08
Speaker 6: I mean, Dan was making a compelling case for this
45:11
Speaker 6: being the last Iowa caucuses before the results, given the
45:15
Speaker 6: very obvious need to.
45:18
Speaker 3: Give more power to diverse voices in the country.
45:21
Speaker 6: I think there needs to be a small state early
45:24
Speaker 6: in the process so you have retail politics. Otherwise, you
45:27
Speaker 6: could run a campaign by sitting in a satellite studio
45:29
Speaker 6: in New York and just doing TV hits all day.
45:32
Speaker 6: Podcast studio in L.A.? Yeah, podcast studio in L.A., But,
45:35
Speaker 6: you know, Iowa had a great run.
45:37
Speaker 3: I just can't imagine that they're first again.
45:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. And not just the state of Iowa, but just
45:42
Speaker 1: the caucus process itself.
45:43
Speaker 3: Caucuses are dumb.
45:45
Speaker 1: Yeah. It seems like there is no defensible reason to
45:49
Speaker 1: have elections this complicated.
45:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.
45:52
Speaker 6: Like, again.
45:52
Speaker 1: Especially when we control. It's not like a law we
45:54
Speaker 1: have to pass, like election reform, which is really tough.
45:57
Speaker 1: It's the party. We control it.
45:58
Speaker 6: And not to sound like totally discordant, as someone who, like,
46:00
Speaker 6: loved working in Iowa, loved being there with Obama, did
46:02
Speaker 6: a five-part series on the Iowa caucuses, like, The thing
46:05
Speaker 6: I loved about the Iowa caucuses is what Lovett was saying,
46:07
Speaker 6: that you're organizing at the grassroots. The candidates are getting better.
46:10
Speaker 6: You're having real conversations with voters. You're taking hard questions.
46:13
Speaker 6: You're talking to the press. You get put through the
46:16
Speaker 6: ringer in this grassroots way, but that's not specific to
46:19
Speaker 6: a state. Any state could take on that responsibility if
46:22
Speaker 6: they want it.
46:22
Speaker 2: And it doesn't need to culminate in a caucus. It
46:24
Speaker 2: can culminate in a primary. You can have all the
46:26
Speaker 2: same retail politics in a place that ends where everybody
46:29
Speaker 2: can vote. People with disabilities always can vote. People who
46:32
Speaker 2: have to work can vote.
46:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's plenty of ways to do this. Dan, you
46:35
Speaker 1: wrote a piece that's on cricket.com right now. This morning,
46:38
Speaker 1: you got up and felt like it's time to.
46:41
Speaker 4: I looked up my calendar this morning and it said
46:42
Speaker 4: analyze caucus results. And I was like, what else am I.
46:44
Speaker 1: Going to do? You want to tell us a little
46:46
Speaker 1: bit about what you wrote? Sure.
46:47
Speaker 4: I was struck last night by how the complications in
46:52
Speaker 4: the very complicated democratic primary process, which are complicated well
46:55
Speaker 4: beyond Iowa, we have proportional allocation of delegates and It
46:59
Speaker 4: is very messy.
47:00
Speaker 1: It's going to take a long time to get the
47:02
Speaker 1: results in California.
47:03
Speaker 3: Exactly.
47:04
Speaker 1: Letting you know now, everyone.
47:05
Speaker 4: And what struck by that is how that was such
47:08
Speaker 4: a ripe target for bad actors who want to sow
47:11
Speaker 4: divisions within the party. Just in this Twitter era, the
47:14
Speaker 4: slightest hiccup can be turned into a massive conspiracy that's
47:17
Speaker 4: amplified by the Twitter account of the president of the
47:18
Speaker 4: United States. And we may see it in the State
47:19
Speaker 4: of the Union tonight. And that fuels cynicism. And what
47:24
Speaker 4: fuels cynicism hurts our party because we are completely dependent
47:28
Speaker 4: on encouraging people to come into the process, to make
47:31
Speaker 4: them feel like their vote counts. And the Democratic primary
47:33
Speaker 4: process has a very good job of not making you
47:34
Speaker 4: feel that way. A candidate in a primary can win
47:38
Speaker 4: a congressional district by many points and end up with
47:40
Speaker 4: the exact same number of delegates as the opponent. And
47:43
Speaker 4: so I came up with some ideas of how, not
47:44
Speaker 4: this time, we can't fix it now, but going forward,
47:47
Speaker 4: we could do it. We should, as Tommy said, get
47:49
Speaker 4: rid of caucuses. We should go to winner take all.
47:52
Speaker 4: So whoever gets the most votes in a state gets
47:54
Speaker 4: the delegates. It would also make the process shorter, which
47:56
Speaker 4: I think would benefit everyone. And then ranked choice voting.
48:00
Speaker 4: Because what I think is actually really wonderful about Iowa
48:02
Speaker 4: is you need to appeal to the supporters of other
48:05
Speaker 4: candidates to succeed here.
48:06
Speaker 3: Agreed.
48:07
Speaker 4: And that, and we saw that in a pretty inspiring
48:10
Speaker 4: way in the caucus site we were in, where people
48:13
Speaker 4: are like, you may be a Bernie person, you may
48:15
Speaker 4: be a Biden person, but the Bernie people over there
48:17
Speaker 4: trying to get the Biden people to caucus with them, which.
48:20
Speaker 1: Is- In like inspiring ways. Yeah. And like no one
48:23
Speaker 1: was mean.
48:24
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's very unlike Twitter. And I think, but that
48:27
Speaker 4: The fact that you need to be people's second choices
48:30
Speaker 4: in Iowa minimizes negative campaigning, which minimizes division.
48:34
Speaker 1: It fuels party unity in the long term.
48:36
Speaker 4: So if you went to a ranked choice system, I
48:37
Speaker 4: think it would fuel party unity in the long term.
48:40
Speaker 4: And then the other thing that I'm really struck about
48:42
Speaker 4: the Iowa caucus is basically about 1,000 of the best
48:46
Speaker 4: organizers in the party have been here for a year.
48:48
Speaker 4: They've knocked every door. They've accumulated all this data. And
48:51
Speaker 4: they've built really strong local political power. And they're all
48:56
Speaker 4: getting on a plane today and they're leaving. They're not
48:58
Speaker 4: coming back. So what if we did this in states
49:00
Speaker 4: where you would want them to all stay and win
49:03
Speaker 4: for the nominee? Like Iowa used to be in 08
49:05
Speaker 4: and 12.
49:05
Speaker 3: Right.
49:06
Speaker 4: And so if you had a system that put Wisconsin
49:08
Speaker 4: or Pennsylvania or Michigan or Arizona near the front of
49:12
Speaker 4: the line, then I think there would not be a
49:15
Speaker 4: sunk cost in what we spend to organize a state.
49:17
Speaker 1: I totally agree on the swing state thing because some
49:18
Speaker 1: people were saying, what would be a better situation?
49:20
Speaker 3: To do it?
49:20
Speaker 1: And someone's like, Illinois or this. And it's like, no, no.
49:22
Speaker 1: I don't want to put a bunch of people in
49:23
Speaker 1: a state where we're going to win in the general
49:25
Speaker 1: no matter what. Let's pick some swing states, some real
49:28
Speaker 1: swing states or states that are trending towards us like
49:30
Speaker 1: a Georgia, like an Arizona.
49:31
Speaker 6: And it doesn't have to be a hardened process. It
49:32
Speaker 6: doesn't have to be Kansas is first forever. We can rotate.
49:37
Speaker 3: It's such a silly thing.
49:39
Speaker 1: The only thing I'm against for sure is a national
49:41
Speaker 1: primary like all the states in one day.
49:43
Speaker 3: Terrible idea.
49:43
Speaker 6: Because Mike Bloomberg would be spending more money than everyone
49:46
Speaker 6: by a factor of 100 and he would probably win.
49:48
Speaker 6: I'm not criticizing Bloomberg, but that's distorting the process.
49:52
Speaker 2: The grassroots aspect of this is good. Someone having to
49:55
Speaker 2: go on the ground and convince people and build an
49:57
Speaker 2: organization from the ground up is good.
49:59
Speaker 1: And you want a couple chances to get this right,
50:02
Speaker 1: to pick the right nominee. You don't want to have
50:03
Speaker 1: one day and then after you're done and you get
50:06
Speaker 1: a nominee be like, oh, now we're stuck with this person.
50:07
Speaker 1: We didn't get to see them grow through a process
50:10
Speaker 1: of different states have.
50:11
Speaker 2: You met democrats we love a flight of fancy you.
50:14
Speaker 1: Know on that note uh all right we will uh
50:19
Speaker 1: dan and i will talk to you on thursday after
50:21
Speaker 1: we have some more results and we can talk about
50:23
Speaker 1: the hopefully uh you can talk about the state of
50:26
Speaker 1: the union that will happen tonight it's just a whole
50:28
Speaker 1: nother thing that's going on uh we'll see a triumphant
50:31
Speaker 1: president uh who will be acquitted on wednesday Just a
50:35
Speaker 1: banner week here.
50:37
Speaker 2: For all of us. Hey, let's hope this is the bottom, everybody.
50:41
Speaker 2: And let's start climbing up.
50:43
Speaker 1: Bye. Bye. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media.
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Speaker 1: The senior producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is
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Speaker 1: Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
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Speaker 1: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Carolyn Reston, Tanya Sominator,
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Speaker 1: and Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team,
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Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Narmel Coney, and Yael Freed, and Milo Kim,
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Speaker 1: who film and upload these episodes as a video every week.