The results for the Iowa caucuses are in, and while Iowa went for Ted Cruz, the Republican Party still can’t count any victories. Ignoring every warning that came with the party’s 2012 loss, the entire field has run further right than ever before on every issue from immigration to a women’s right to choose.
Donald Trump pushed the GOP’s xenophobic and anti-immigrant positions out of the shadows, forcing the rest of the field to copy him. But candidates like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio aren’t just slinging red meat for primary votes — they actually believe in those extreme policies. The snowball effect started by Trump’s rise shows no sign of stopping.
Instead of offering thoughtful foreign policy solutions, the GOP contenders continue to fear-monger and push xenophobic anti-Muslim policies. No Republican candidates support a path to citizenship or President Obama’s immigration protections like DAPA and DACA. The entire field would defund the largest women’s health provider in the country, Planned Parenthood. Every Republican tax policy is rigged to benefit the top one-percent earners while hurting the middle class. On earned benefits, the field has offered no new ideas, proposing partially privatizing Social Security and raising the retirement age.
And in a twist that must feel good at Cruz HQ, he has been repeatedly dinged by the media for not working hard enough to set expectations. But tonight, it looks like Cruz’s confidence that he’d beat Donald Trump in Iowa was well-placed. It turns out that channeling Trump’s far-right rhetoric and anti-immigrant policies plays pretty well with the GOP base:
- @BrettLoGiurato
One might read this as Cruz’s internal numbers showing him clearly losing to Trump with a threat from Rubio for 2nd https://nyti.ms/1ZZsy8Y 6:18 PM – 29 Jan 2016 - @GlennThrush
You’re not in Texas anymore, Ted… If Cruz loses Iowa, like here’s why — via @katieglueck @ShaneGoldmacher https://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/ted-cruz-iowa-expectations-loser-218466 - Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin: How Trump, Cruz and Rubio have played the expectations game in Iowa
One thing is clear: Cruz let the expectations game get way out of hand, while Trump, the political amateur, did not. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is in a virtually no-lose situation if he comes in third, and would put significant distance between himself and the rest of the field. - Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza: Seven Things I Know About the Iowa Caucuses
Cruz mismanaged the expectations game. Cruz has run one of the best — and most disciplined — campaigns. And, for months and months, he and his team were pitch perfect about keeping expectations low in Iowa even though his profile as a southerner and a social conservative were an obvious fit for the state.About six weeks ago, that discipline went out the window amid a series of polls that showed Cruz surging past Trump in the Hawkeye State. Suddenly, the idea that Cruz was putting Iowa away — and positioning himself as the favorite as the race turned southward after New Hampshire — was everywhere. - @KristinPolitico
How Cruz blew the Iowa expectations game https://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/ted-cruz-iowa-expectations-loser-218466
As the focus moves on to New Hampshire, the muddled GOP field won’t stop their infighting and their messages won’t get any more moderate. It doesn’t matter who wins: the 2016 Republican Nominee will be an extreme right-winger pushing divisive and backwards policies guaranteed to fail the GOP again and again.
Published: Feb 1, 2016