Well, that was anticlimactic. In America's favorite sport (pro football), five of the six games played the first weekend of playoffs were blowouts. As if on cue, in the nation's second favorite blood sport (presidential politics) the first contest was also a rout.
Take a bow, Donald Trump. All the other Republican candidates who braved the debate stage, frigid winter weather, and your withering ridicule are forced to listen this morning as MAGA fans undulate to their fight song, à la Taylor Swift. On Saturday, Swift swayed in time along with 70,000 Kansas City Chiefs fans to "Swag Surfin,'" the team's official dance break tune.
The MAGA equivalent is "Who's Your Daddy?" And though Nikki Haley's super PAC tried to appropriate the old taunt in a negative attack ad against Ron DeSantis, some 56,000 Trump voters in Iowa know the answer. Their guy is king of the Republican Party, at least for now.
Now it's on to New Hampshire, which the campaign press corps will dutifully cover -- and hype accordingly -- as though anything might happen in the election booths of the Granite State. We don't do this primarily for partisan reasons. And it's not only because those of us in the Fourth Estate (whether writing or broadcasting about football or politics) like a competitive match.
It's because New Hampshire has surprised us in the past and could do so again. Will that happen this year? It's possible, but as last night's Trump landslide in the Iowa caucuses showed, it will take some doing. This man has a commanding lead and he's not sitting on it. Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, fasten your chin-straps.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon
