With the Iowa Caucuses just three weeks away, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has surged into the lead, with a 20% share of the vote in a poll published Fri., Jan. 10, by the Des Moines Register, CNN and Mediacom.
It is not hard to discern why Bernie is surging. As the purest of the pure anti-war warriors in an anti-war (Democratic) party, Bernie is benefiting from the renewed focus on Iran and Iraq. The Washington Post‘s Michael Scherer reports:
“The targeted killing of a top Iranian military official on the orders of President thrust a long-simmering foreign policy divide to the forefront of the Democratic nomination fight Friday, exposing divisions about America’s role in the world just one month before voting begins.”
“Joe Biden’s Vote for War,” intones The New York Times. The vote ominously referenced is Biden’s October 2002 vote to authorize U.S. military action against Saddam Hussein. As the Times explains:
“The vote has exposed him [Biden] to direct and implicit criticism from his chief presidential rivals, including Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a military veteran, and especially Senator Bernie Sanders, who voted against the war as a Vermont congressman and whose campaign has sharpened its criticism of Mr. Biden in recent days.
“Now, three weeks before the Iowa caucuses—held in a state with a fierce antiwar streak— the issue threatens to be a campaign liability for Mr. Biden as he seeks to assure voters of his ability to handle a foreign crisis even as he works to distance himself from a war that has had enormous costs for his own family, and for the nation.”
Ideology is very relevant and important in Iowa. In 2016, notes NBC News:
“More than two-thirds of Iowa Dem participants identified themselves as liberals… Twenty-eight percent said they were ‘very liberal,’ and Sanders won them [over Hillary] by nearly 20 points, 58 percent to 39 percent…
“A larger share—40 percent—said they were just ‘liberal,’ and Clinton narrowly beat Sanders among these voters, 50 percent to 44 percent.”
Politics is filled with irony, and one of the greatest ironies surely is this: A great wartime achievement, the killing of terrorist mastermind Qassem Suleimani, may lead to a great political victory in Iowa by a fervent isolationist and anti-interventionist, Bernie Sanders. More ironic still: it may lead to Bernie’s election as President of the United States.
