memeorandum: R.I.P. the ‘First-In-the-Nation’ Iowa Caucuses (1972-2020) (Eric Levitz/New York Magazine)

9:35 AM ET, February 4, 2020

Top Items:

This Is The Buzzy Democratic Firm That Botched The Iowa Caucuses — Shadow, a Democratic digital firm, created the app that was supposed to deliver quicker caucus results. — The tech arm of ACRONYM, a Democratic digital nonprofit group that has rapidly expanded in recent years …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Intercept, CNBC, The Daily Caller, Bleeding Heartland, Reason, NPR and Associated Press, more at Techmeme »

Clare Malone / FiveThirtyEight:

That Last, Unreleased Des Moines Register Poll Of Iowa Really Did Show Biden In Fourth — If you're the sort of person who was glued to political Twitter on Saturday night — and God help you if you are — you would have seen a mass freak-out when it was announced that that the Des Moines Register …

Discussion: The Federalist, NBC News, Townhall, Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit, Redstate, Twitchy, Des Moines Register and The Guardian, more at Mediagazer »

Tom Perez:

How We Prepared for 2020 — Tonight, our party's presidential nominating process officially kicks off in Iowa. Today, I'm reflecting on the three years we've spent preparing for this moment, the changes we've made to make sure we are ready. I'm proud of the historic reforms we passed …

Discussion: PJ Media Home and Twitchy

New York Times:

‘A Systemwide Disaster’: How the Iowa Caucuses Melted Down — Unexplained “inconsistencies” in results, heated conference calls and firm denials of hacking left the contest in a strange state of almost suspended animation. — DES MOINES — Sean Bagniewski had seen the problems coming.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, Shero and Vox

BuzzFeed News:

The Iowa Caucus Results Are Still Delayed And Campaigns Are Angry — The Iowa Democratic Party is delaying releasing the results of Monday night's Iowa caucus because of reporting inconsistencies, infuriating campaigns eager to move on with the election. — “We found inconsistencies …

Discussion: Mediaite, Slate and Talking Points Memo

New York Times:

App Used to Tabulate Votes Is Said to Have Been Inadequately Tested — The state Democratic Party commissioned a new app to tabulate caucus results. It did not appear to go as planned. — DES MOINES — The app that the Iowa Democratic Party commissioned to tabulate and report results …

Discussion: Vox, Fortune, National Review, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Daily Kos, Redstate, Common Dreams, The Verge, The Daily Caller, The Gateway Pundit, Vanity Fair, Fox News, Bloomberg and WHOTV

New York Times:

Iowa Caucus Results 2020: Live — Iowa Democratic officials say a delay in results is largely because of a “quality control” effort. Read more. — 51m ago — Candidate Votes S.D.E.s* Pct. Pledged delegates Del. — 1,811 — 1,636 — 1,553 — View all candidates

Discussion: Redstate and TalkLeft

Wall Street Journal:

Trump Campaign Ejects Bloomberg News Reporter From Iowa News Conference — President Trump's re-election campaign escorted a Bloomberg News reporter from an event in Iowa, following a pledge no longer to approve credentials for the news organization. — Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Jacobs …

Discussion: Raw Story and Breitbart, more at Mediagazer »

Politico:

'It's a total meltdown': Confusion seizes Iowa as officials struggle to report results — DES MOINES, Iowa — A technical meltdown in Iowa Monday night set off bedlam in the critical first contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, triggering competing claims of victory and stoking doubts …

Discussion: Power Line, Spectator USA, Fox News and One America News Network

Eric Levitz / New York Magazine:

R.I.P. the ‘First-In-the-Nation’ Iowa Caucuses (1972-2020) — The “first-in-the-nation” Iowa caucuses died Monday night after a protracted battle with advanced-stage omnishambles. — Or so we can hope. Iowa's eccentric, endearing — and wildly anti-democratic — nominating contest has always been an indefensible institution.

Discussion: Daily Kos, New York Times, HuffPost and The Atlantic

Amanda Carpenter / The Bulwark:

Democrats Did the Russians' Work for Them — Iowa Democrats brought this conspiracy theory on themselves. — The Iowa Democratic party had one job: tally the results for the party's first-in-nation caucus. It's almost unbelievable the Democrats could fail to perform what has been, in previous years, an exceedingly trivial task.

Discussion: The Dispatch, The Guardian, New York Times, Raw Story and The Atlantic

John Podhoretz / New York Post:

Iowa caucus mess nothing compared to intra-Democratic Party chaos on the horizon — The Iowa caucuses reveal not only a Democratic Party deliriously incompetent at handling a vote tally — this from the folks who have been screaming about voting fraud and irregularities for years …

Tyler Olson / Fox News:
App used in Iowa Democratic caucus fiasco linked to ex-Clinton campaign staffers

Discussion: National Review, Damian J. Penny, Instapundit and New York Times

John F. Harris / Politico:
The winner is ... no one — “Iowa,” a smiling Pete Buttigieg said …

Discussion: The Hill and Breitbart

Myah Ward / Politico:
Trump claims he'll protect Iowa's first-in-the-nation status

Discussion: ABC News, The Hill and Political Wire

Jonathan Easley / The Hill: Frustration, questions as delays hamper Iowa caucuses

ABC News:
Iowa caucuses fail to declare Democratic winner after major snafu with reporting results

Discussion: Politico, The Boston Globe, Associated Press, Vox, The Hill, Big League Politics, The Bulwark, Breitbart, Townhall, New York Times and WHOTV

Zachary B. Wolf / CNN: The Iowa caucuses just died forever

Wall Street Journal:
Iowa Caucus Results Delayed by Apparent App Issue

Discussion: Townhall, Raw Story, Redstate, Mother Jones and Vox

New York Times: The 1,600 Volunteers Who Were Supposed to Make the Iowa Caucuses Run Smoothly

Isaac Stanley-Becker / Washington Post:
‘It kind of failed us’: With eyes of the world on Iowa, another hiccup in American democracy

Discussion: Vox, Associated Press and Raw Story

NBC News:
Results for Iowa caucuses delayed as state Democratic Party finds ‘inconsistencies’

Discussion: Spectator USA, Washington Free Beacon, Axios and The Verge

Tim Alberta / Politico: The death of Iowa — DES MOINES — There can be no doubting it now …

Daniel Arkin / NBC News:
Iowa entrance poll: Most Dems care more about beating Trump than issues

Discussion: Axios, CNN, Associated Press, The Hill and Washington Times

Associated Press:
Democratic caucus results delayed by mobile app issues

Discussion: The Hill, PBS NewsHour, Breitbart, One America News Network and Associated Press

Axios:
The Iowa caucus ends in a meltdown

Discussion: The Hill, Disrn and Politico

Stephen Collinson / CNN:
Iowa Democratic vote-reporting meltdown hands opening to Trump

Discussion: The Capitolist and WHOTV

New York Times:
2020 Iowa Caucus Updates: Delayed Results Lead to Confusion

Discussion: The Guardian, Slate, Twitchy and Mother Jones

CBS News:
Iowa caucus results delayed as state Democratic Party does “quality control”

Discussion: The Hill, NBC News, Washington Free Beacon and WCCO | CBS Minnesota

Hannah Fingerhut / Associated Press: AP VoteCast: Iowa Democratic voters seek fundamental change

Jacob Pramuk / CNBC:
Technical glitches delay Iowa Democratic caucus results

Discussion: Slate

Daniel Arkin / NBC News:
Iowa caucuses turnout: Entrance poll shows dip in first-timers

Discussion: Washington Examiner, JONATHAN TURLEY and Axios

David Enrich / New York Times:

The Money Behind Trump's Money — The inside story of the president and Deutsche Bank, his lender of last resort. — One Day in early 2017, Mike Offit went to the Yale Club in Manhattan for a lunch hosted by a group called Business Executives for National Security.

Discussion: Political Wire and Raw Story

Sarah Blaskey / Miami Herald:

As others stand at attention for anthem, Trump fidgets, points, pretend-conducts the band — President Donald Trump has repeatedly said all Americans should “stand proudly” during the national anthem, and publicly chastises those who don't as disrespectful of the troops.

Discussion: NBC News, The Hill, Raw Story, Mediaite, HuffPost, POLITICUSUSA, New York Post, Washington Post, The Independent, The Daily Caller, Daily Kos, WFLA-TV, Page Six and The Root

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

Iowa Might Have Screwed Up The Whole Nomination Process — In trying to build a forecast model of the Democratic primaries, we literally had to think about the entire process from start (Iowa) to finish (the Virgin Islands on June 6). Actually, we had to do more than that.

George Prayias / The Rush Limbaugh Show:

Rush Shares His Cancer Diagnosis — RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, this... This day has been one of the most difficult days in recent memory for me because I've known this moment was coming in the program today. Now, I'm sure that you all know by now, I really don't like talking about myself …

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, The Gateway Pundit, Power Line, Disrn and Maggie's Farm

David Matthews / New York Daily News:
Rush Limbaugh denied health risks of smoking years before lung cancer diagnosis: 'I would like a medal …

Discussion: NB Blog

Brian Flood / Fox News:
Rush Limbaugh announces he has ‘advanced lung cancer’

Discussion: Raw Story, Mediaite, The Moderate Voice, Townhall, No More Mister Nice Blog and Twitchy

Gabriel Sherman / Vanity Fair:

“It's Payback Time”: With Acquittal Certain, Trump Plots Revenge on Bolton, Impeachment Enemies — Trump, says a source, wants Bolton to be criminally investigated for possibly mishandling classified information. Romney, Schiff, and Nadler are also... BY - GABRIEL SHERMAN — Person of Interest

Discussion: Raw Story, Balloon Juice, Talking Points Memo, POLITICUSUSA and Letters from an American

Brian Stelter / CNN:

White House excludes CNN from annual pre-SOTU lunch with news anchors — New York (CNN Business)President Donald Trump's targeting of CNN is moving to yet another arena: The annual presidential lunch with television network anchors. — CNN anchors are being excluded from Tuesday's lunch, three sources said on Monday night.

Discussion: Mediaite and The Daily Caller, more at Mediagazer »

Daniel Bice / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

‘An unacceptable and upsetting environment’: 2020 Democratic Host Committee under investigation — The two top officials overseeing Milwaukee's host committee for the 2020 Democratic National Convention were sidelined Monday amid allegations of a toxic work culture.