Tom on Elections (Iowa Caucus Night)

 Elections often have the same inevitability that those old standbys, death and taxes, have long offered.  It's interesting because death and taxes are playing a role in today's festivities.  Taxes are pertinent because Republicans reflexively loathe anything that even hints at being a tax, even as they claim.to be the voice of reason when it comes to fiscal discipline.  I'm dubious about that assertion, because they continue to propose tax cuts for their very favorite cohort of Americans: The Hard working Billionaire plutocrats.  Many of them are too stupid to understand that fiscal salvation stands on a 3 legged stool of: time, (it took decades for us to get into the current mess we face, and it will take just as long to dig our way out of it), a rethinking of our spending priorities, (do we really need to spend a trillion dollars a year on the military? Do we need to lavish large sums of taxpayer dollars on agricultural subsidies, including the ludicrous ethanol subsidies that benefit only Iowa farmers who don't see it as the public welfare scheme  that it really is?),  and increased revenues, (If you want to pay down the national debt, you have to raise the money to do so in an orderly manner.  That means tax hikes.  To think otherwise is nothing more than a case of Magical Thinking).   And Death is creeping around the edges of the DeSantis campaign; licking the place where his lips would be, were he not a skeletal apparition.  

But before any votes are cast, I'll confess that I'm already sick and tired of the campaign. The candidates, have conscripted armies of motivated volunteers, and import  legions of paid staffers who infest every corner of the state, like medieval mendicants beseeching passersby,: crying "Alms for the poor ", and Iowa merchants grow fat on the expenditures of the various campaigns.  They rent cars, buy advertising, and consume meals and liquor as if money were no object.  These folks work hard and play harder, and prostitutes often flock to where the 'action' is, because that's where the money is.  The members of the Fourth Estate: blow-dried avatars of physical beauty and intellectual vacuity who repeatedly state the obvious to an audience of the uncomprehending.  For most of them, campaign coverage is a great adventure, much like those 8th grade field trips to the nation's capital that many of us remember, except that they were children back then and now they're adults with expense accounts and rented rooms. Their spouses are back in DC,  New York, or Atlanta, taking care of the kids and keeping the home fires burning.  You do the math:)

Speaking of expense accounts, some members of the media become legendary for their ability to manipulate their expense accounts to their financial advantage. One such was the legendary Johnny Apple of the NY Times.  He would come up with an outrageous excuse for an eye-popping charge on his expense account.  I recall reading about how he expensed a cashmere overcoat to The Times, claiming that his previous coat had been stolen by ":person or persons unknown", and that since he was at the airport in hot pursuit of a breaking story, the only place that he could find a suitable replacement was at the duty free shop at the airport.  The meals that Mr  Apple consumed on the Times' dime were of the pricey gourmet variety, and those don't come cheap.  

But Apple was probably the best reporter of the second half of the 20th century..There wasn't a big story that he didn't cover, and those he covered, he covered well.  He was most responsible for making the Iowa Caucuses the kickoff to the quadrennial spectacle that the presidential elections that it is today, when he relentlessly covered Jimmy Carter's 1976 trek through Iowa, making him a legitimate contender in the national consciousness.  In a sense, Jimmy Carter owes his presidency to Johnny Apple and The Allman Brothers Band, who pioneered the use of benefit concerts as a fundraising machine. 

After tonight, the circus folds its tent and moves on to New Hampshire.  The merchants and vendors will count their money, the volunteers will resume their mundane lives, and a couple of them will mout campaigns for seats on their local school boards and town councils because, once bitten by the political bug, nothing else will do.  It's showtime and I, for one, plan to watch some football and dine on fishsticks.  Have a pleasant evening...