Words to Live By Since 1993 A SPIFF Publication Vol. 4, No. 1 So what? More Iowa Caucus Stuff Well, the Iowa caucuses (cauci?) are over, which means that the 1996 presidential campaign has finally begun! We're on the road to answering the big question we've been waiting for more than three years to answer: Who will replace President Clinton and Bill at noon on January 20, 1997? It's also time to answer the question that everyone's been asking since Monday night: What does Spiff think of all of this? Ok, we'll tell you. There were winners and losers. (Duh!) Aside from the candidates, there were also winners and losers. Here are some of them. The big winner of the night was the Iowa caucus system. Iowa stopped its slow, downward slide toward irrelevance that it has been on for at least 20 years. More recently, in 1984 The President was running for reelection, so only the Democrat caucus mattered. (As it turns out, it didn't really matter anyway, since they nominated a Democrat.) In 1988, everyone knew that Iowa's neighbor Bob Dole would win for the Republicans, and the Democrats once again nominated a Democrat. In 1992, both parties blew it. Not only did the Democrats continue their streak of stupidity, but Iowan Tom Harkin was running, so the results meant even less than usual. The Republicans decided to try to match the libs' stupidity by refusing to even have the traditional presidential straw poll, because President Bush was being challenged by that mean, divisive Pat Buchanan. Rumor has it that in the precincts where they ignored the party leaders and gave the democratic process a try anyway, Buchanan won. In 1996, Bob Dole was back, but nobody seemed to care that he was once from nearby Kansas. People predicted a Dole win, but by how much? The importance for Iowa this year was because of Steve Forbes. The advantage of starting the campaign in Iowa has always been that it's a small state, and a candidate can make an impact by showing up at neighborhood meetings and Rotary club picnics. If it weren't for that, we might as well start the campaign in California and get it over with. What the Forbes campaign did was fail to prove that buying television time by the tractor-full will help you win. If Forbes' ads had worked, they could have worked just as well in California. The big loser? Well, it's not dead yet, but the flat tax is not what it once was. Thanks a lot, Mr. Dole. In your at-all-costs effort to be sure you beat Forbes, you condemned what should have been the cornerstone of Republican policy for the next Congress. Sure, if you get elected you can always change your position. We've become accustomed to that type of consistency coming from Pennsylvania Avenue, but we don't thing that's a tradition you should continue. The big who cares: the Democrat vote. Although you probably didn't know it until Bill made a big deal out of President Clinton's victory, the Dems also started their nomination process. They are now claiming victory because almost half as many Democrats caucusians as Republicans turned out, even though their race was uncontested. They're also thrilled because she won with 99.8% of the vote. (Why Pat Paulsen didn't do better, we're still not sure. Iowa Democrats are strange people.) Despite these claims, remember this: two thirds of the people voting Monday night voted against President Clinton. Also, while President Clinton and Bill's total vote was more than 99%, the breakdown isn't nearly as impressive. There were actually several different candidates in the race. Here are the preliminary totals: President "New Democrat" Clinton: 28% President "Thomas Jefferson" Clinton: 25% President "Harry Truman" Clinton: 24% President "If you want me to be Reagan, I'll be Reagan" Clinton: 22% President "I feel your pain" Clinton: 22% President "The Republicans are mean-spirited" Clinton: 21% President "Chelsea and I baked these ourselves" Clinton: 19% President "Appearance of impropriety" Clinton: 14% President "I won't raise taxes on the middle class to pay for my programs" Clinton: 10% President "Homosexuals in the military" Clinton: 1% President "Cabinet that looks like America" Clinton: 0.5% (There aren't very many rich lawyers in Iowa.) Note: The CBO says that these totals don't add up to 100%, but that type of competition-induced thinking (which raised its ugly head during the decade of greed) is what they're trying to eliminate from the public schools. We miss The President, Ronald Reagan. Out, but Not Down The first casualty of democracy in this year's presidential quest came Wednesday as Senator Phil Gramm officially dropped out of the race. (You may be wondering why we don't consider Arlen Specter or Pete Wilson dropping out to be casualites. You may also be reading Words to Live By for the first time.) Senator Gramm was one of our early favorites here in the Spiff Executive Tower, on the banks of the mighty Cumberland River. He never really did anything during the campaign to disappoint us; he just never really did anything during the campaign. It's nice to see that tons of money (which his campaign had) won't necessarily give you a victory. It's also nice to see that he is going to be in the Senate again. Say what you want about his campaign or his lack of television presence, but this man was responsible more than anyone except President Clinton herself for the demise of the Clinton Comprehensive Care Plan (CCCP). That didn't earn him many votes, but it does earn him our thanks. Quote of the weak: "...a model of religious democracy." Louis Farrakhan, on Iran Quote of the strong: "Being a fiscal conservative requires being a social conservative. The two are inseparable." Rush Limbaugh Words to Live By is published every week at about this time by Spiff. You can send a fax to us here in the Spiff Executive Tower, on the banks of the mighty Cumberland River, at 615-847-2259, or you can send us e-mail at spiff@nashville.com.