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Colbert on the GOP's Incredibly Lame Excuses for Voting Against Witnesses in the Trump Impeachment Trial

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BeachDem2/04/2020 4:11:03 pm PST

So today’s words about the caucuses are EPIC, DISASTER, CHAOS, DEBACLE, DEMS IN DISARRAY, HORRORS!!

Let’s hop into the time machine and check some of the reporting on the 2012 Republican caucus situation:

HuffPo—calm and considered:
A final count of votes from the 2012 Iowa Caucus may show that Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum actually won over rival Mitt Romney.

Doubts about Romney’s win surfaced quickly after the caucus, with one vote-counter from Appanoose County coming out less than 48 hours after the caucuses and claiming a mistake gave the former Massachusetts governor 20 extra votes.

Matt Strawn, chairman of the Iowa GOP, responded to the claim with a statement assuring that the final Iowa Caucus results would come after a “two-week certification process for each of the 1,774 precincts.” He also said the Iowa Republican party did “not have any reason to believe the final, certified results of Appanoose County will change the outcome of Tuesday’s vote.”

Politico—ho hum:
Strawn’s Thursday announcement, which placed Santorum ahead but didn’t definitively declare him a winner because eight precincts had yet to report their results, had left enough uncertainty for Romney’s campaign to suggest that the state was a draw.

ABC—
At first
:
DES MOINES, Iowa Jan. 4, 2012— — Mitt Romney won the first presidential preference contest of 2012 by a mere eight votes Tuesday, narrowly edging out a surging Rick Santorum in the Iowa Caucuses.

Then, calm as a bunch of cucumbers:
Final Iowa Results: Santorum Tops Romney, but We’ll Never Know Who Won

On caucus night, precinct officials phoned in results to an automated system after they’d counted the votes by hand. As the last precincts reported their votes, the tally swung back and forth into the wee hours of Jan. 4. Since the Iowa Republican Party announced on caucus night that Romney had edged Santorum by a mere eight votes, it has been collecting certified results forms from Iowa’s counties and precincts.

Thursday’s results are final. Santorum will forever hold a lead with incomplete returns.

NPR—we just want to clarify:
Rick Santorum is officially the winner of the Jan. 3 Iowa Republican presidential caucus. The state Republican Party reversed itself from a previous assertion that it would not declare one, given problems at eight precincts, as The Des Moines Register reported.

In a news release late Friday, the party said it called the race “in order to clarify conflicting reports and to affirm the results released Jan. 18 by the Republican Party of Iowa.”
The preliminary count on the Jan. 3 caucus put former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney ahead by eight votes, as NPR reported that night. Later, the party said there was no official winner, though a recanvassing of the votes showed Santorum won by 34 votes.

Daily Beast:
Did Rick Santorum win the Iowa caucus?

Shot:
This possibility has the Iowa state GOP under new scrutiny as they begin the official certification process, which they have promised to complete by the end of the week.

Chaser:
The national media to date has largely dismissed this story—which was first reported by local Des Moines station KCCI—apparently choosing to trust the state GOP’s initial off-the-record assurances that the story had zero credibility.