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January 04, 2012 04:06 AM UTC

Iowa Caucus Night Open Thread

  • 103 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE 8:15PM: With 47% of caucus votes counted, Rick Santorum (counties won shown in brown on FOX News’ map, H/T Aristotle) is holding a narrow lead over Mitt Romney with Rep. Ron Paul slipping into third place.

Santorumentum?



—–

It’s Rick Santorum’s finest hour…

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103 thoughts on “Iowa Caucus Night Open Thread”

  1. And it’s Santorumentum!

    And Herman Cain is still on the ballot!!

    This is with 3% of the vote tallied, via TPM

    Rick Santorum 26.2%   463 Votes

    Ron Paul 22.9%   406 Votes

    Mitt Romney 18.0%   318 Votes

    Newt Gingrich 16.2%   286 Votes

    Rick Perry 9.5%   169 Votes

    Michele Bachmann 6.3%   112 Votes

    Jon Huntsman 0.3%   5 Votes

    Herman Cain 0.1%   2 Votes

    Buddy Roemer 0.1%   2 Votes

    2. probably from the kind of precincts where a couple of people show up in someone’s living room.  And by the way they have 6% reporting on Politico right now and Santorum is already a couple percent down from this high with Romney a few up. Wake me at 30 or 40%.  Never mind. Don’t wake me.

  2. GOP rivals are attacking Ron Paul and leaving Santorum alone to divert the wingnut vote from Paul to Santorum, in order to get Paul out of the race ASAP. As soon as Paul is out, they’ll destroy Santorum, leaving Romney to put down a last-minute Gingrich surge mostly thanks to desperate “Anyone But Mitt” voters. Paul will accept the Libertarian nomination, Gingrich will accept a book/TV deal, and Santorum will go snuggle more stillborn fetuses or whatever it is he does in his quiet time.

    (Stuck at work, can’t watch live, so I’m refreshing TPM between tasks…)

    1.  “Santorum will go snuggle more stillborn fetuses”

      I don’t know where this came from, but I heard it on Combs last night.  We all need to respect whatever manner a family decides to honor a child stillborn. There are rituals that hospitals offer to help grieving parents.

      In the Catholic tradition, stillborn children may be provisionally baptized as may miscarried fetuses.

      It is a way of affirming the importance of the child that died or was never born, to those parents and siblings.

      It should be respected.  It is not political.  It is not bizarre. Something this personal and this tragic should NEVER be used to denigrate a candidate or indeed anyone.

      And for a moment, do a gd tebow and be glad that you never had to bury a baby.  

      1. And apologize for offending you.

        However, I think that this is a case where the subject matter’s privacy is negated by Santorum’s choice to make this particular family ritual a part of his platform, which includes supporting huge restrictions of a woman’s right to choose not just abortion, but even birth control.

        Your point is fair because I happen to get my hackles up every time someone pokes their nose into a politician’s bedroom using the justification that they have abhorrent positions on sex-related issues. Given that, I’ll have to think seriously about whether or not I agree that Santorum’s mourning ritual is acceptable material for mockery. The justification is the same, but he’s also advocating for taking away existing rights, not just (like the closeted anti-gay types) opposing a change that would grant more equal rights, so I think his own right to privacy is reduced somewhat.

        In either case I appreciate the calling-out as it has provided food for thought.

            2. As much as Santorum’s politics is antithetical to my own, I cringe every time I hear a progressive criticize him for how his family handled the loss of their son. As a grieving mother myself once (I shared that story rather publicly on Pols once), I have every sympathy for his family, and think it is no one’s business how they coped with their grief. Until a woman has lost a child, she, and no man, can ever understand how incredibly painful that experience is. I hope no one here will ever go through such a trauma.

          1. He wasn’t just having closeted gay sex, he was allegedly seeking it in a public place where that is prohibited by law. I think there’s every reason to have a problem with that. Public places full of children (e.g., airports) are not the place for anonymous hookups. Same goes for the Spitzers of the world; if you want your sex life left alone, don’t patronize prostitutes privately while prosecuting them in public. (I kind of think sex work should be legal in a limited form, but nevertheless breaking current law is a matter that the public has a legitimate right to know about.)

            I have a bigger problem with snooping on politicians and following them into hotels and such to get proof of consensual, adult extramarital affairs. Not all marriages are monogamous, and what goes on legally between two or more consenting adults is the business of the parties involved. John Edwards is a gray area for me since he fathered and denied a daughter with his mistress, which if not illegal is at least grounds for civil action. Likewise Newt Gingrich; an affair itself isn’t necessarily relevant to potential as an elected official, but his pattern of behavior is so extraordinary that I would have a hard time suggesting the media should leave it alone. He’s not just a cheating scumbag, he’s one who allegedly exposed his kids to his sexual practices and had inappropriate relationships with staffers.

            1. but those guys generally create enough smoke which cause the tabloid media to go looking for the fire. You’re absolutely right that no one should “poke” their noses in, but outside of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, and Ted Haggard and his hired sex worker, I can’t think of any other recent* political sex scandal that wasn’t brought on by the politician’s carelessness. And in the case of Haggard, it was the sex worker who blew the whistle, making Clinton the only one that resulted from undue nosiness.

              I do think that taking any moral position, regardless of what it is, justifies closer scrutiny of a politician’s personal conduct with regard to that position. There are lines, of course, but the public has a right to know when a politician is being a hypocrite, especially if they’re scoring political points from that position. (Frankly, this wouldn’t be a problem if politicians only spoke of policy; but then again, politicians wouldn’t do all that distracting stuff if the electorate was sufficiently knowledgeable about policy.)

              * “recent” meaning the last 20 or so years that I’ve been voting.

              1. But I once read an excellent essay on arguments in the gay community for and against outing gay/lesbian politicians who take public positions opposing gay rights. It gave several examples of state and municipal figures who were outed against their will. There was also the time someone followed Roy Romer and caught him making out with his mistress, right? (I dimly recall this, I think I was 4 or 5 at the time)

                That kind of thing, I’m not cool with. It’s just pandering to the appetite for salacious headlines at the expense of public figures’ privacy.

                1. and it should be noted that it goes back to the AIDS era, when outing was much more destructive. For example, the cancellation of Ellen Degeneres’s sitcom was directly tied to her outing (namely when she incorporated it into the show – hard to say what might have happened if she hadn’t done that). And that’s a relatively minor thing to have happened – many others lost more.

                  But in the 20 or so intervening years, attitudes have shifted, so it doesn’t carry the same blowback. (Does anyone care that Jim Parsons from “The Big Bang Theory” is gay? Or Neil Patrick Harris? Granted, they came out on their own… but could that have happened so easily in the 90s?)

                  When it comes to politicians who promote one policy and practice the opposite in private (and most often in secret), I’m all for outing. The more it happens, the more society can come to understand the insidious nature of homophobia. After all, closeting and externalized hatred result from it, and the more that’s broken down, the better society will be. It’s not all about the politics.

                  Politicians have a certain reasonable expectation of privacy, but that erodes in direct proportion to their focus on the rights of others. Sexuality isn’t the only application. If you preach fiscal responsibility, then it’s fair to ask if you’re fiscally responsible. If you preach pro-family sanctimony, you should have a clean nose there. And if you preach pro-environment, you should be living by a pro-environment lifestyle.

                  It’s a messy business sometimes, but given the impact of not only the actions of these people on the lives of millions, but even their words, it’s fair to scrutinize people to see if their practice melds with what they preach, and to expose them when it doesn’t.

        3. i think that Santorum’s position on reproductive rights is absolutely fair game; for two reasons.  The first is his refusal to accept the Constitutional rulings on the right to privacy and secondly, his determination to impose his own religious beliefs in the public sphere. But I do not see how his inability to accept a constitutional  right to privacy, free from government interference, translates into a your decision t to mock the  private grief of a public figure.

          I was not aware that this ritual was part of his platform. I understand that his fourth child was either stillborn or died shortly after birth. He may have described how the family grieved the lost of that child consistent with his catholic faith.  But I don’t see how this is part of the platform.  I still say this is a private family matter and I would hope, particularly since he still has relatively small children, that it would not be a subject for public mockery or even note.

          Hear me out.  Consider the pain such a discussion or even sarcastic reference causes those who have lost a child and may have participated in such religious rituals and I ask that you consider that.  Respecting  a family’s mourning of a wanted child has nothing to do with any political or legal matter.

          1. I was under the impression he’d used this particular mourning ritual for political gain and to argue for taking away women’s rights — I thought I clearly even recalled photos of him on stage next to his children discussing it. After your comment I checked around and I can’t find any confirmation that he’s used it in stump speeches. He’s definitely used it for political gain (discussed it in interviews with newspapers, keeps a photo of the stillborn on his Senate desk, that kind of thing) but no more so than any politician uses his family.

            Consider the stillborn-snuggling thing dropped from my criticisms of Santorum unless he does start directly using it to attack women’s rights. If I could I’d edit my post.

            Thanks for the correction.

          1. But it is fairly unusual and, since he did share it, it was bound to get some attention. Too bad.  I really feel for them on this.

            I remember when it first came out, it was thought to be rather odd and a little creepy but I don’t remember talking to anyone who thought it was for political purposes. I mean the guy’s human. His and his wife’s way of handling this sad tragedy may have struck some as strange but you’d have to think him a monster to think his first thought was… goody…I can use my dead baby to make a point.

            And having recently viewed my brother’s body after his sudden death I can understand the impulse.  I just wanted to stay with him, my hand on his.  It certainly didn’t feel creepy to me. I  just felt awful leaving him there alone.  I may think Santorum is an idiot but I don’t think he’s inhuman.  

      2. The baby was not stillborn, he was born alive and lived for two hours before he died.  Therefore he was a baby who died shortly after birth.

    2. Paul, Santorum, Romney in that order, neck and neck. Will Romney win? Will Paul or Santorum follow in the triumphant footsteps of  President Huckabee? Oh wait.  I’m going to watch the Bulls.

      1. I also like how they put Romney’s name on top, even though Santorum took many more counties and the number was tied within a very small number of votes. You know they were in the tank for the corporate candidate all along.  

  6. Romney/Santorum/Paul in that order but essentially tied. What’s screwy is it will probably end with the 3 of them within 1% of each other yet it won’t be reported as a tie, it will be reported that one of them WON!

    Bachman is going to have to drop out after this – she staked it all on Iowa and is getting almost nothing. Perry is also clearly dead but has the money to stick around.

    Gingrich is probably dead too but he’s got books to sell so he’ll go to at least New Hampshire. And this primary is so weird, who knows what could happen.

    1. No point in declaring a winner if the delegates are awarded proportionally (and with several more levels of caucusing to go, the “winner” could still flip).

      Bachmann is doing better than I predicted. I didn’t think any Republican would vote for a woman, but apparently there’s a very small percentage who would.  

  7. I can not find c. rork’s quote  that became my mantra through the mayoral, etc. etc.

    I think it went something like:

    “If there is a God, let this election be over. Now.”

  8. reappears to make a prediction that Bachmann will have to drop out. “Maybe not New Hampshire, quitting by then, maybe not South Carolina or Florida but down the road, unless something really turns around for her, I don’t see a way to progress her candidacy to become the top-tier candidate.”

    So Bachmann will have to drop out… eventually.

    How insightful. She is truly a genius. No wonder Fox News hired her.  

  10. It’s interesting that the split between Santorum and Romney comes down to cities vs. small towns, with Romney winning the urban counties and Santorum winning the rural ones (a few exceptions to that, but not many).  With the exception of Black Hawk (Waterloo and Ceder Falls), Ron Pauls’ strongholds were more rural as well.

    If you want to see a more detailed map, I recommend this site:

    http://iowacaucus.com/results/

      1. I’m assuming you are just being sarcastic, but for the polsters not very familiar with Iowa, there is actually a range in terms of population density — the state is not just one giant corn field (though there is a lot of corn).

        Des Moines is like Denver in that it has a metro area around it — with over half a million people total (it’s no New York, but that’s not tiny either).

        1. I’d surprised if Des Moines MSA has 500k – I would have guess 460-470.

          But what you are saying is Des Moines is bigger than say…Fort Collins, but not as big as Colorado Springs or Boise.  Ok.

          I would guess what you are calling urban –  rural would also split pretty well along age, income and occupation. But on to NH and their urban rural voters!  

          Newt wins South Carolina.  Who wins Florida?

          1. they have to be as sick of the Newt as everyone else. And, don’t forget, Newt has never one a statewide election anywhere.

            The south historically has not been fond of Catholics but Santorum seems to have a Southern Baptist bent. Perry is back in. If he doesn’t screw up too bad and gets some $ both he and Santorum could do very well in both SC and FL. But, never forget, those old farts that retired to FL arrived from the northeast where they are presumably more used to someone like Romney

          2. If you think his poll numbers are down now, wait until we have two weeks of no-holds-barred-asshole Newt to remind everyone why they always disliked him.

            2. I suppose we could all be “pleasantly” surprised if he suddenly changes back into “Mr Nice Guy,” but don’t hold your breath for that one.

                1. but I doubt we’ll find out until a couple years later.

                  “Yeah, all through the Presidential campaign I was getting blowjobs from a staffer because I just loved my country so much. I was just about to tell you, really.”

                    1. that would apply to Cain’s campaign as well. Personal gratification and fleecing the true believers.  

                      I guess with Bachmann it was batsh!t insanity and book sales.  

  13. Jan 03, 2012 (96% of precincts reporting)

    Rick Santorum 28,958 24.6%

    Mitt Romney 28,879 24.6%

    Ron Paul 25,044 21.3%

    Newt Gingrich 15,580 13.3%

    Rick Perry 12,093 10.3%

      2. Damn, give him a tax break, fast.

        Four years of campaigning and $10,000,000 later it must be personally invigorating for Romney to see that he held onto almost all of those same voters that he had in 2008?

    2. I had my money on Romney to “win”, that is I thought he would take a plurality/bragging rights and I was wrong. I thought the conservative vote would be more split. Who do you like in New Hampshire, Romney or someone not as obvious?

      But it does look like you were wrong about Ron Paul. His 22% showing is fairly respectable given little more the “winners” got and he is, for now, runner up in polls in New Hampshire. I think he still has potential to become the “Not Romney” if Santorum is yet another flavor of the month.

      1. The fact that pretty much every top Republican hates Ron Paul means that his support can never get much higher than a small vocal minority. That helped him do a little better in Iowa than he will elsewhere (since that translates well into a caucus), but he still underperformed his polls. And if he ever started doing well, you’d see every other Republican going after him hard (which already started a little in Iowa). He’s not going anywhere.

        Romney will clobber everyone in New Hampshire, obviously. I think Huntsman will underperform his current numbers. He’s a twerp, he’s loyal to nobody, he’s unlikeable, and he says things he doesn’t believe just to get attention. That’s a sure way to do horribly in a primary, especially in a Republican contest in a year like this.

        It was easy to predict Santorum’s rise, but now things get more difficult. Mathematically all the not-Romneys (Paul and Huntsman don’t count) have had a one-month rise and fall, but since Santorum timed his so well, I think his will last a little bit longer. I’m much less certain about South Carolina, but I suspect they’re in a pretty crazy mood this year and will not go for Romney. (Right now I think Santorum is most likely to win it.) But by Super Tuesday Romney will have a giant sweep and clinch it.

      2. compared to Romney, but Santorum even surprised me by a few points. I didn’t know the gigantic Duggar Family (stars of reality tv show “19 and Counting” were working for him. They count for a decent sized fraction of his turnout!

      3. and apparently he has by a single perfect hair, eight votes. Santorum hit the top of the not Romney roller coaster at the right time for Iowa. But here’s something to bear in mind.  He hasn’t been a front runner of the week before and so firepower has not been trained on him.  It will be.  And you  have to ask what’s with Newt’s campaign to  bloody Romney at any cost including promoting a general election no hoper like Santorum?  Must be he’s mean enough to want no Republican to be President this time around since he can’t have it and everybody is being so mean to him.

        Glad I watched my second team (I only root against them when they play the Nuggets) the Bulls win in spectacular style.   Great come from behind win, 19 points down in the 3rd. Poor Hawks didn’t know what hit them.  Go Jalen!  

  15. “to reassess.”  Blitzer nearly shits himself — “the drama .  . . on this historic night in Iowa.”

    Golden Girls reruns up at 10:30 . . . thank God.  

    1. This was pretty much an exact tie, but people are still reporting it as a Romney “win,” even though Romney and Santorum will get the exact same number of delegates out of it. So silly.

      1. from the results of the straw poll.

        Last time, McCain came in about Gingrich territory, but by the time all the conventions had happened, he would un with all the RNC delegates from Iowa.

        1. but my understanding is that Iowa works kind of like ours, in that the caucus just elects delegates to the county convention or whatever, and then those people vote among whoever’s left. So the number of delegates each one should get to the county conventions is the same.

      2. This morning I’m seeing headlines about Santorum’s “big ‘win'” on the CNN. If the results had been flipped it would’ve been Romney’s big loss. As it is, poor Mittens is barely rating a mention.

        It is silly. An interesting study in perspective though.

  18. I make no claim to understading  the R nomination procedure, but I can add.  ANd if the math is being reported correctly, the delegate count is now tied three ways.

    http://www.thegreenpapers.com/…

    Though “soft unpledged” v soft pledged vs hard ….wel, that’s anyone’s guess.

    So 1 down, 55 to go (the D’s have 57 total, the R’s only 56)  and there’s a 3-way tie.  Hooey.

  19. I was sure Santorum would win, not by much but win anyway. My reasoning still holds. All the others are vile and nasty, especially that cult follower Romney. Santorum is like the strange uncle, who your aunts think is gay, who goes around speaking of keeping women barefoot and pregnant because he wants to prove his manhood is stiff and strong. Somewhat harmless but the uncle you do not leave alone with children, he might tell them things you would rather they wait to hear.

  20. Why is everyone calling an 8-vote advantage a win?

    Makes no sense.

    Paul, Santorum and Romney are in a three-way tie. If Perry and Bachman drop out, most of their supporters go to Santorum.

    The real story from Iowa is that Romney seems unable to put it away. He has a serious problem called: “Anyone but Romney”.  

    1. Nobody is calling it a Mittens triumph although it should be remembered, as of a few weeks ago, he wasn’t supposed to get the most votes, not even by eight. And Santorum was a bottom feeder. So both exceeded expectations.  Santorum should ask Huckabee how important winning or tying in Iowa is for a GOTP hopeful.

      1. In a caucus, where county convention delegates are awarded proportionally and anyone could still end up with the delegates later, there’s no reason to declare a winner.

        In the 2000 Presidential election in Florida, that was also a tie, but it was necessary to pick a winner since someone had to get all the delegates. There are no such consequences here.

  21. god knows I have no shame, since I have been wrong a lot.

    However, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

    I think Gingrich  is going  to position himself as Santorum’s Dick Cheney.

    1. It makes sense in so many ways politically, dwyer. Good insight and good call.

      I still think Romney ends up the Republican candidate for 2012 but he just doesn’t excite the base. There’s no other way to spin it. And if he doesn’t excite his own base, we all know what that means–the Unaffiliated votes are up for grabs this year. 0000000

      1. Pretty sure Gingrich knows Santorum can’t possibly win a general so he can’t possibly be his Cheney.  He’s just a mean, bitter vindictive man who wants to make sure he screws it up for everyone who screwed him. And that’s quite a list.  Almost every fellow R who served with him has been out there dissing him as a selfish, out of control opportunist who doesn’t  believe in anything except himself.  I see this more as his final FU very much to the whole Republican party.

        He never meant his campaign as anything more than a book tour booster and lucrative celebrity status maintainer but he resents everyone treating him with such dislike and contempt and having the gall to remember how quickly he went from leader of the successful revolution to screwing up royally, back in the day.  

        1. Cheney’s nature was known to political observers in 2000, but not the general public. They mostly knew he was a guy who brought experience to the ticket (Bush had only been an elected official for six years). If Cheney’s negatives were anything like Gingrich’s, it’s doubtful he could have been anything but a burden to Bush. Hell, even today I think Cheney is more likeable than Gingrich – he shows real devotion to his family, something that’s not the least bit evident about Newt.

          1. this isn’t about what voters think of Gingrich.

            Dwyer’s comment is about what Gingrich thinks of himself and his options. He doesn’t see himself as a negative. He doesn’t see himself as a bad candidate or as running a bad campaign. He doesn’t see himself as an egotistical, hypocritical self serving prick. What voters think of Gingrich is far different than what Gingrich thinks of Gingrich.  

            1. Though I’m sure he would be. Just that he knows Santorum isn’t going to be anybody’s ticket to the White House.  Standing by my assessment that his motivation is just to give a parting giant finger to the GOP.

            2. to mean “become Santorum’s VP candidate” as well as “become Santorum’s hatchet man.” To be a “Cheney” to a presidential candidate has to mean both to be a valid comparison, unless I’m missing something important here.

              In that regard, what Gingrich thinks of himself isn’t that relevant, at least not compared to what Santorum, the GOP kingmakers, and (most importantly) the voting public think of him.

              Granted, it’s possible to be the power/hatchet man in the White House without being the veep. Maybe that’s what dwyer was driving at – some cabinet post, or chief of staff, directing policy and being the strong arm, none of which require showing his pasty face to the public this fall.

        2. (I think it’s Romney in the end, myself) but that doesn’t preclude him from positioning himself as the guy on the short list for VP for Santorum.

          And yeah, of course it’s an FU to Romney. He hates Romney with a passion. Gingrich’s actions are always based in self interest so that’s not exactly news, I know. Which is why I think in his delusional mind, he sees himself as viable VP material.

          In politics, the “just in case” scenario is never a bad idea as a back up plan. And Mitt ain’t exactly exciting the base–think of it this way–75% of Iowa Republican caucus voters opted for anybody but him.  

        3. I guess dwyer can clarify, but I have a different sense of what that phrase means. To me it’s the slimy henchman who carries out the boss’s attacks while the boss acts like the good guy. The impression everyone seems to have gotten from Gingrich’s speech last night is that Gingrich has decided he can’t win so he’ll fuck it up by attacking Romney in a self-destructive way and boosting Santorum, in much the same way Cheney was free to be a total asshole since he didn’t want to run for President himself.

          1. both Cheney and Newt. It’s simply the finer points we’re discussing here; the precise nature of said slime.  The possibility of a Newt with good intentions or concern for the country hasn’t occurred to anyone, so  it’s not as if any of us are in danger of looking like idiots. If I misunderstood anyone on the details, apologies.

    2. Come on, show of hands, who really thought Gingrich was going to put aside his juvenile grudges and act like a serious candidate for more than a couple weeks? Honestly?

    3. Because it is crazy but will only be proven wrong if Santorum wins the nomination which is a pretty big IF. 🙂

      Gingrich 8.0 was a populist, political strategist with a very pragmatic point of view. He appealed to southern Democrats (Neo-Republicans) with an old style distrust of government and then built his base of support for the Speakership with a savvy campaign of getting new Republicans into the House. He rode the rising tide of evangelical Christians into the Republican party (and helped others aspiring to get elected do the same) without ever agreeing with their point of view.

      Gingrich 9.0 continued on this vein as he reached the apex of his power and led the witchhunt against Clinton by appealing to this same religious rightwing (while simultaneously having an affair of his own). But he lost control of the animal. The religious right continued to grow in prominence within the party and his own call to shrink big government (which was once a more pragmatic position) got overwhelmed by the “distrust/hate all things government” movement.

      Gingrich 20.00 has been struggling to claim his legacy on the movement that he led to prominence 20 years ago. But he can’t. Because the party left him behind a long time ago. When he does try to say something in keeping with the modern movement, he comes off as crazy because that is when he is speaking least from his strength, his own base of knowledge and philosophy. But when he speaks more from his strength, he comes off as the gadfly screaming at the wind, trying to tell the party that it has gone off the rails.

      Even as ambitious as he is and always has been, I don’t see him being Santorum’s Cheney for two reasons. 1.) His own ego would never let him play 2nd fiddle to anyone. 2.) Santorum is just the kind of new Republican that stole his party from him, the most right wing of the right wing nuts that took his conservative populist (right wing) rhetoric and ran through the endzone and into the tunnel with it.

      The politician in him may be trying to outflank the right wing nuts for the sake of victory. But the pragmatic Newt is ultimately still just trying to get recognition for his legacy. And being number 2 to Santorum won’t do that.

      But selling a lot of books that proclaim his legacy will. And if he has to hack down these crazy pretenders to his legacy along the way, so be it.

            1. On its face, being VICE President means playing second fiddle to the President. Though you and I may agree that Cheney was the least 2nd Fiddle of all Vice Presidents in American History or may even agree that this was an executive branch turned upside down, the fact remains that Cheney accepted the secondary title of VICE.

              I don’t think it is in Newt’s ego or character to do that even if you could assure him that he could drive his policy from the VP seat.

                1. Our dry humor was flying over each other’s heads. Ralphie’s point below is the one I thought you were making originally. So, I was saying that, perhaps only on a technicality, Cheney was 2nd fiddle to Bush (But how do you play 2nd fiddle to someone who brought a triangle?)

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