It's the beginning of a three-day weekend that culminates with the Iowa Republican caucuses. The latest polls you'll find here, all of which show a looming Donald Trump landslide. But I'll offer a few (half-hearted) caveats, starting with this: Iowa Republicans sometimes break late for a candidate whose momentum may be hidden. Mitt Romney experienced this phenomenon in 2012 when Rick Santorum came out of nowhere to finish in a dead heat with Romney.
Also, it's a caucus, not a primary, so peer pressure can play a role in the outcome, although those dynamics vary from precinct to precinct and I'm aware of no evidence in Iowa of the prevalence of the supposed "shy Trump voter."
A third factor may be the weather. Iowans are a very hardy people, but with near-record cold temperatures and an impending blizzard this weekend, the conditions will be a challenge.
Finally, I'm wondering this morning whether the innate decency of Iowans will play any role in the outcome. I'll have more on that idea in a moment, along with Friday's quote of the week, which comes from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Perhaps you've heard the phrase "Minnesota nice." No quibble here, although in my experience Minnesotans have nothing over their Midwest neighbors from Iowa in that department. Journalists who've covered these caucuses always come away impressed, even awed, by Iowans' simple everyday kindnesses.
Veteran political writer Elaine Povich recalls getting stuck in an Iowa snowstorm without a car because she was switching from covering one campaign to another and was flying out (weather permitting) the next day with the new candidate. "I was also in desperate need of underwear," she recalls, as there was no laundry service in her suburban Des Moines motel. "I was explaining all this to the night desk clerk, who gave me directions to a Target, and then lent me her car so I could go shop there." This night clerk had never met Elaine before, had no idea if she knew how to could drive in snow (she does) or whether she would see her again. "Just handed me the keys," Elaine recalled. "Gotta love Iowa folks!"
I bring that up because the two-hour insult session Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis engaged in the other night might prove problematic. I understand that each of them feels they must finish second to Trump in Iowa, so they want to disembowel each other, but I'm reminded of the kamikaze attacks launched in 2004 by Dick Gephardt against Howard Dean -- and how Dean responded in kind.
Gephardt's gambit worked in one way: Dean, the high-flying frontrunner, was brought crashing back to Earth, partly by the anti-Dean negative ads, but also by how harshly he responded. The upshot was that those two guys finished third and fourth, leaving the agreeable candidate lane to John Kerry and John Edwards. The two Johns wound up atop the field -- and became the Democratic Party's ticket in November. (The candidate I liked the best, Dennis Kucinich, came in last with 1% of the vote, which shows how much I know.)
Perhaps that example has nothing to do with current politics. We are an angrier country now than we were then, probably even in Iowa. Moreover, it's not as if Donald Trump is playing the role of Mr. Nice Guy, so who knows what will happen? If I lived in Iowa and the temperature was below zero and the NFL was showing a playoff game on television, I might just stay home by the fire.
In other news this week, Chris Christie won't be answering the bell in New Hampshire. His speech announcing that fact was Christie's typically self-reverential fare, as he managed to kick every single remaining candidate in the groin on his way out the door. No surprise there. This was a fellow who delivered the keynote address in 2012 at the Republican National Convention and in a 24-minute speech barely mentioned the party's nominee (Mitt Romney). He spoke mostly about, and this will not shock you … Chris Christie.
Yet in his speech this week announcing his withdrawal from the race, Christie spoke evocatively and thoughtfully about America's broken immigration system and our virtually open southern border. He didn't blame those coming across the Rio Grande. He even suggested we could learn an important lesson from them.
"I want you to remember something," Christie said. "Those people who are coming over that border, many of them are walking hundreds if not thousands of miles to get there because here is where they see hope. Here is where they see freedom. Here is where they see success. Here is where they see that flag, which means for them, thousands of miles away in other countries, all of those principles."
He continued:
We are still the indispensable nation for the rest of the world. We need to be the indispensable nation once again to each other. We need to believe in America as much as they believe in America. Right now, they believe in America in a way that this country -- angry, divided, with selfish leadership who puts their own ambition first -- isn't doing for our country anymore. We need to change that, and every election is an opportunity to change it.
And that is our quote of the week.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon
