Iowa Ruins the 'Inevitable'

The results in the Iowa caucuses are a rebuke to the notion that the national media have all the influence over America's voters. Donald Trump has been the overwhelmingly dominant figure on television news. Even his decision to duck a debate was treated as bigger news than the actual event, and he almost fell to third place in Iowa.

On the Democratic side, when Hillary Clinton entered the race last April, she was presented as an unstoppable colossus, the American royal family returning to its natural place of power and adoration. Time magazine published a nauseating tribute from Laurene Powell Jobs, wife of the late Apple computer genius Steve Jobs, as "one of America's greatest modern creations ... she represents new realities and possibilities."

Team Clinton was left with trying to win Iowa by flipping coins, finally squeezing out a pyrrhic victory. So much for her inevitability. It must be said that while the media have noticed the polling trend of Clinton's decline and Sanders' ascent, they are wholly unable — or unwilling — to focus on the desperate nature of this candidacy.

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