Us politics

What now for Hillary Clinton? The rumour in Washington last week was that, given her weak position in New Hampshire and the never-ending saga of her emails, if she lost in Iowa, Vice-President Joe Biden would enter the race and spare the blushes of the Democratic establishment. Well, Hillary didn't lose. But she didn't win either. She effectively drew with Bernie Sanders in last night's caucuses in Iowa. Which leaves her candidacy in limbo. Does she still have the confidence of the Democratic machine? Now that Hillary's hopes are in the balance, will Biden at last take the plunge and declare his candidacy? It is understood that, if he entered the race, Biden would have the support of his friend and ally Barack Obama.

Marco Rubio wins tonight in Iowa — by coming third. That, I suspect, will be the on dit among the commentariat this evening in America. And it might not be wrong. According to the latest polls, Rubio is the only candidate to have gained momentum in the run up to today’s caucuses. If the polls aren’t off — big if, I know — he should emerge as the only viable ‘establishment' candidate that can stop Trump or Cruz. He will emerge as the hope of the rational versus the irrational, the pragmatist’s choice against the stupid and crazy. At least that’s how the ‘narrative’, as strategists like to call it, could develop.

So, did Donald Trump outfox Fox? Shunning the crunch TV debate four days before the opening Iowa caucuses, setting up a rival show with CNN, and thumbing his nose at the most powerful right-of-centre media organisation in the world looked at first like madness. Then it looked like genius. And then, meh, well, who knows? At his rival Veterans event, Trump’s speech was bizarre as usual. “I’ve got to be honest I didn’t want to be here tonight,’ he said. ‘But you have to stick up for your rights when you are treated badly’. It’s difficult to know if Trump believes that his spat with Fox anchor Megyn Kelly — which is what he’s referring to — is the real reason he avoided the debate, or if he is deliberately conning his audience.

It’s easy to get carried away about televised political debates. But tonight’s Fox News/Google Republican Party showdown really could be a significant moment in American history. By ducking the debate, and picking a fight with Fox, Donald Trump appears ingeniously to have sucked all the media oxygen out of the event. All the headlines continue to be about Trump, and Fox can expect a ratings drop. The elephant in the room will be the elephant not in the room. Still, with less than four days to go until the opening Iowa caucuses, Trump's absence presents a major opportunity for Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, the second and third-placed candidates in the polls. Without Trump dominating proceedings from centre stage, both men are bound to have chances to grab the limelight.

It sounds ridiculous, I know. The Grand Old Party, the party of Lincoln, could never want Donald Trump. Everybody knows that the ‘elite' wants Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush. Trump, with his crazy brew of vulgar populism and economic nationalism, is not their guy. The trouble is, as I wrote in my Spectator piece this week, Trumpmania has been knocking the Republican National Committee’s preferences flat — and the establishment candidates are doing a brilliant job of cancelling each other out. Some party bigwigs are therefore coming to terms with the idea of Trump. Major players behind Romney’s 2012 campaign are now reportedly 'trying to find their way into Trump’s orbit’.

The shamelessly censorious MPs and petition-signers who want Donald Trump banned from Britain are basically saying: ‘Oh my God, he wants to ban people from entering America! This is so outrageous we must ban him from entering Britain.’ Can these people hear themselves? The thing they claim to find repulsive in Trump — that he fantasises about forcefielding his nation against people who have allegedly dodgy ideas (Muslims) — is the very thing they aspire to do. The Trumphobes share Trump's intolerance of funny-thinking foreigners. They denounce The Donald, but when it comes to being tolerant, open and not a mind-policing, border-enforcing irritant who shuns any outsider who thinks a bit differently, they fail just as spectacularly as he does.

Would you bet against Donald Trump becoming president? Lots of us have. British gamblers have reportedly put more than £1 million on Trump not reaching the White House. Put this down to the general loathing of 'the Donald’, plus a common sense instinct that, while Americans may be mad and/or stupid, they can’t be that mad and/or stupid. Most bookmakers have Trump at 4-1 to become president. At those odds, most pundits on either side of the pond would advise betting against. A more difficult question now is whether Trump can win the Republican nomination. Most UK bookmakers now price him at 6/4 or 15/8 for that market.

If you saw the BBC Ten O'Clock News last night you will have witnessed Nick Bryant’s dispassionate, even-handed treatment of Republican candidate Donald Trump. Trump had called for an end to Muslim immigration into the United States. Bryant’s face was puffed up with outrage; he almost spat out the words of the story and ended by saying that 'this is the gutter'. https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/nick-bryant-discusses-donald-trumps-comments-about-muslims-on-bbc-ten-oclock-news It does not matter how often they are told, it does not matter how many complaints they receive: the BBC continues to pursue its own political agenda at every possible opportunity. If it addressed this problem it might find that fewer people wished to see the licence fee abolished. But fat chance.

I hope anyone who sees footage of the two shrieking women at Yale and Missouri will finally concede that political correctness is not ‘all about politeness’. It’s about power, and always has been. The Yale hoo-ha started because the authorities failed to take seriously a letter from the university’s ‘Intercultural Affairs Committee’ warning about Halloween fancy dress costumes being offensive. People wonder how one of the most high-ranking universities in the world can be embarrassed by an argument over adults wearing fancy dress, but that is exactly the point; if the row was over something that mattered, there could be little kudos in winning it. This is about displaying power.

I have a sinking feeling that Joe Biden might be the next president of the United States. In a brilliant essay published by the American Spectator in 2010, Angelo Codevilla of Boston University foresaw a popular revolt against ‘America’s ruling class’. What he calls ‘the Country party’ repudiates the co-option of the mainstream Republican party by the bureaucratic behemoth that is Washington, DC. You cannot understand the popularity of Donald Trump until you grasp the essential characteristics of this Country party. White, male, ageing Americans are sick of political correctness. They are sick of carefully calibrated talking points. They are sick of immigrants. They are sick of wars in faraway places of which they know nothing and care less.

   Washington DC Ben Carson is relaxed. ‘He’s always relaxed,’ says an aide. The next televised Republican primary debate is two days away, but Dr Carson is about to begin his first rehearsal for it. The preternatural calm he exudes is presumably what gave him his steady hands during the 22-hour operation that led to him becoming the first surgeon to successfully separate Siamese twins fused at the head. That operation is part of the Carson legend: growing up poor, black, becoming chief of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins aged 33. This life story has aided an improbable presidential bid that is now starting to look more plausible. Carson is polling second in a Republican field of 16 and he has momentum.