The final stretch toward the Republican caucuses

Just rolled out from Thanksgiving stupor as Black Friday dawns with the Iowa Republican Caucuses rolling in like a stiff wind out of the Dakotas.

Come Jan. 15 all the shouting should be over. The way it looks, Iowa Republicans are still all bound up in Donald Trump.

Vivek Ramaswamy could have shot somebody on Lake Avenue last week and hardly anybody would show up. He was the flavor of the week several weeks ago until Nikki Haley ripped him to shreds in a debate.

Iowans have met Ron DeSantis and don’t like him much — except for Gov. Kim Reynolds and Bob Vander Plaats, who endorsed him for reasons that ordinary people are not meant to understand. His poll numbers are backing down. His Never Back Down PAC just shoved its chief overboard. Trump is stomping on him and Reynolds. Trump jeers while the lessers pander to the evangelicals.

Haley is garnering what momentum can be had among the second tier. The anybody-but-Trump money is flowing her way. She did Trump’s bidding as UN ambassador. She was his hired help. But she does have youth, vigor and a sharp enough edge to dispatch Tim Scott and Ramaswamy in the process of elimination. Chris Christie is not playing in Iowa, which means he is not playing. This time, Iowa probably determines the Republican nominee.

For now, that looks like the man in the golden bouffant.

Which has the hyenas howling: How can this be? The media has failed! It must not have pointed out the Jan. 6 insurrection, or the 91 criminal charges, or the jury finding that he was responsible for sexual assault. Or that Trump pledges to round up the undocumented, put them in pens (too bad the Sioux City Stockyards are gone), and arrest his political opponents. This must have not been reported 24/7 on cable TV.

Still others pray that Joe Biden will make an Irish exit, quiet-like through the side door before the final dirge plays. All signs say that Trump, 77, is leading Biden, 81. Biden beat Trump before, against the odds. Those who think he is feeble underestimate him. He just did a polar plunge to remind them. Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom sound interesting in the abstract. Joe Biden is running for re-election, and more likely than not he will win. The economy is turning in his favor. Perhaps he can tamp the flames in the Middle East, or Ukraine makes a breakthrough. Biden has not made it this far by being Mrs. Biden’s dim son.

Trump, meanwhile, belongs in the psychologist’s handbook for self-destructive behavior.

They are likely to be our choices a year from now.

Where does that leave Reynolds? In the cold. Bob Vander Plaats had his 15 minutes of fame when he ran off three Iowa Supreme Court justices for legalizing same-sex marriage. What happens when the money well runs dry? DeSantis better win Iowa, or get closer than 15 points to the former president-cum-criminal defendant.

This will be the final push. Storm Lake has not seen that many candidates. Too many Mexicans here getting along with Anglos, not a good look when you would rather pen them up. We have started to see a little more traffic, like the dashing ex-fighter pilot who says he thinks he can beat Trump. When sows sprout wings.

Iowa could change the trajectory. We could learn to our surprise that Kim Reynolds does have mojo, and that it is transferrable to the caricature of a rat — when you look at DeSantis you think rodent in big boots. Problem is, voters in recent city and school elections rejected the Reynolds/DeSantis cultural wedge song and dance. They may have enough appeal to deny Haley the ability to get close enough to Trump to inflict damage in Iowa.

If Trump prevails by 20 percentage points or better, Christie will not slow him down in New Hampshire. Then, not even former Gov. Haley is likely to stand in Trump’s way in South Carolina.

A barometer to determine how serious they are will be how much time the second tier spends barnstorming Northwest Iowa, the reddest place in America. Not enough yet, for sure, because they were loving up Trump bigly in Fort Dodge while he talked about the authoritarian standard writ new in the US of A. We all heard him, you bet. Still, Iowa is likely to anoint him in a matter of weeks. Now, that is something to think about, especially if you are Kim Reynolds. Remember them chanting: “Lock her up!”

Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks. His Substack page can be found here.