Trump loss a reason to celebrate

By Mitchell Blatt
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, February 6, 2016
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Donald Trump suffers surprise defeat to Ted Cruz.



After months of candidate posturing, debating, boasting, bragging, and lying, the first votes have been cast in the contest for the 2016 U.S. presidential nominations of both the Democratic and Republican parties. There were dramatic surprises on both sides that could change the whole complexion of the race from now on.

To begin with, perennial front-runner Donald Trump lost. He had worked hard to create a political brand on being "strong" and repeatedly stressed polls showing him with a big lead. The final polls of the Iowa Register showed him winning, but, in fact, he ended up losing to Republican Senator Ted Cruz by four points, a not-insignificant margin considering how many people were running. For example, Jeb Bush, son and brother of former presidents who was the front-runner a year ago, finished with less than three percent of the vote.

To be sure, Iowa is just one of many states, and Cruz had been leading Trump in most state polls since mid-December. But Iowa is a very important state. The loss shatters Trump's image as an unassailable strongman. In fact, he barely avoided falling into third place.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio finished 2,000 votes-or 1.2 percentage points-behind Trump. Rubio project-ed his strong third-place finish as a victory because he outperformed expectations. He will try to consolidate mainstream Republican support behind him rather than being spread between him and three other candidates as of now.

Jeb Bush is one of those "establishment" candidates who will be pressured by Rubio's strong showing. He and his supporters are extremely anti-Trump, if it weren't for Jeb's campaign taking 2.8 percent of the vote, Rubio would probably have overtaken Trump.

Rubio's strength is that he can attract both mainstream moderate Republicans and grassroots conservative ac-tivists. With his high-minded, positive-themed, almost poetic speeches, he comes off as sounding rational, in stark contrast to Trump's insult-filled ramblings and Cruz's uncompromising fundamentalism.

At the same time, he has taken conservative positions on the issues, which appeals to ideological conserva-tives. The conservative activist group Heritage Action, which ranks representatives on their votes, rated Rubio as the fourth most conservative member of Senate.

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