Caucus chaos: Is this any way to pick a candidate?

We’re going to go out on a limb here and suggest that this is probably not the way Democrats wanted to kick off the 2020 campaign.

In a word, the much ballyhooed Iowa Caucuses have turned into a disaster.

As of Tuesday morning, there was still no word out of Iowa on which Democrat emerged as the winner. Party officials are blaming tech glitches and “inconsistencies” for the delay.

In the meantime, the horde of Democratic candidates wasted no time moving on to New Hampshire, which holds the first primary of the campaign next week.

None of this will exactly engender confidence in a voting system that has been battered in recent years by everything from “hanging chads” to disinformation campaigns to outright hacking from nefarious outside interests.

Democratic officials in Iowa took great pains to assure that the problems were not the result of “a hack or an intrusion.” They vowed to have results later in the day Tuesday.

None of that will come as especially reassuring to voters who are growing weary with shenanigans marring our fundamental democratic process. That’s with a small d, not a capital D.

Campaigns spent millions on Iowa, thousands of workers have been on the ground for months, looking to gain favor and perhaps offer a bit of clarity in a very crowded field that lacks a standout front-runner.

Instead we got questions, lots of questions. Some of those questions no doubt will focus on the long-held theory that the caucuses, as opposed to a primary in which voters actually cast ballots, are a sufficient way to pick a candidate. The caucus amounts to a series of statewide town meetings, with candidates put forward and lots of horse-trading depending on the amount of support each candidate gathers.

Then there is Iowa’s longheld tradition of being the kickoff event for the campaign season, the first real test in the marathon that will end when the nation goes to the voting booths in November.

Instead of providing clarity for Democrats, right now the Iowa caucus has done little more than muddle the field, with more questions than answers, and more suspicions about the legitimacy of the process.

President Trump kicked off his post-caucus campaign celebration by taking a victory lap on his favorite social media platform – Twitter – and taking a jab at the Democrats’ situation.

“The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster,” the president gloated. “Nothing works, just like they ran the Country. Remember the 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare Website, that should have cost 2% of that. The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is Trump.”

“Democrats are stewing in a caucus mess of their own creation with the sloppiest train wreck in history,” chortled Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. “It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process. And these are the people who want to run our entire health care system?”

Despite their obvious glee at the Democrats’ ability to trip all over themselves as they staggered out of the campaign starting blocks, the real danger here is one more pin stuck into America’s confidence in the voting process.

And perhaps, one more reason to turn off voters, many of whom already have their doubts about the system, its accuracy and the importance of their vote.

All of the leading Democrats quickly seized on the uncertainty to claim victory before high-tailing it out of Iowa. Next stop: New Hampshire. Let’s hope the nation’s first primary adds a little stability – and confidence – to the shaky start provided by the mess that is the Iowa caucus.

Unless, of course, you live in Pennsylvania. Here in the Keystone State, voters can continue their winter slumber, knowing that they will not visit the polls until the last Tuesday in April.

There are several efforts underfoot in Harrisburg to move up the date of the state primary in an effort to give Keystone State voters more of a say in who will be their party’s standard-bearer, as well as pumping up Pennsylvania’s prestige.

They won’t get a better reason than what transpired Monday in Iowa.

Maybe by April, we’ll have some results from the Iowa caucus.