SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 2:25 A.M. TUESDAY

MARCO – No doubt about it.  Ted Cruz may have won Iowa, and Donald Trump, coming in second, may have been surprised.  But the real news on the GOP side is that Marco Rubio almost upset Trump for second place.  Marco is rising.  He may not be a smash in New Hampshire next week, but if he catches fire it will be in the states after that.  It's reported that Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, an African-American, is about to endorse him.  The South Carolina "first in the South" Republican primary is February 20th.  Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina is also going with Rubio.  Big question:  Where will Nikki Haley, South Carolina's Republican governor, stand?  If she endorses Rubio, and Rubio gets the nomination, she could wind up as his vice-presidential candidate.  Utterly intriguing.

HILLARY, WE HARDLY KNEW YE – They aren't finished counting in Iowa.  We still don't know who won on the Democratic side.  The vote between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is essentially 50-50, although a late statement by the Democratic Party suggests that Clinton may eek out the narrowest of victories, hardly anything to brag about.  After all, Sanders isn't even a Democrat.  He's an independent self-described socialist who honeymooned in the old Soviet Union.  The result is bittersweet for Clinton, who expected to sail to the nomination.  It may get worse next week in New Hampshire because Sanders, from the neighboring state of Vermont, is ahead in the polls.  Clinton's camp hopes that she will break out in the South Carolina primary, where African Americans make up a sizable proportion of the vote.  The real question is whether she can break out of the FBI investigation, which hovers over her campaign like vultures.

AND NOBODY CARES – Such big political news.  Michael Moore, who once was a well-known documentary-film maker of the political left, has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president.  From The Hill:  In a letter posted on his website just before the Iowa caucuses, Moore dismissed those who doubt Sanders and claim there's no way a "democratic socialist" can be elected president.  "Do you ever wonder why the pundits, the political class, are always so sure that Americans “just aren’t ready” for something — and then they’re always just so wrong? They says these things because they want to protect the status quo," Moore wrote. "They don’t want the boat rocked. They try to scare the average person into voting against their better judgment."  I don't recall the pundits and political class ever doubting whether the public was ready for Barack Obama.  The pundits read the polls.  If I were Bernie Sanders, I'd make sure no one knows about Moore's endorsement, not that anyone would care.

February 1, 2016