Iowa Caucuses Cartoon

UConn building 'black-only' living space to promote scholarship

They're just kidding us right?

Faced with alarmingly low graduation rates for black males, the University of Connecticut is trying something it calls bold -- and critics call segregation.
The school's main campus in Storrs has launched a program slated for fall in which 40 black male undergraduates live together in on-campus housing. Proponents believe the students can draw on their common experiences and help each other make it to commencement. But others cringe at the idea of black-only housing, saying it turns decades of hard-fought racial progress on its head.
“Forget about this nonsense and just treat students without regard to skin color,” President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity Roger Clegg told Insidehighered.com. “If there are students of color who are at risk or who could use some access to special programs, that’s fine, but schools shouldn’t be using race as a proxy for who’s at risk and who’s going to have a hard time as a student. There are lots of African-American students who come from advantaged backgrounds. And lots of non-African-American students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

“Forget about this nonsense and just treat students without regard to skin color."
- Roger Clegg

ScHOLA²RS House – which stands for “Scholastic House of Leaders who are African American Researchers and Scholars” – was designed so UConn could more effectively marshal resources for black males, similar to other learning communities at the school that live as a group. When ScHOLA²RS House launches, it will be located in a new facility, Next Generation Connecticut Hall, along with seven other learning communities.
Niger Innis, the national spokesperson for the Congress of Racial Equality, said UConn may be unintentionally creating an atmosphere where black students are “the other.”
“If they wanted to go to an all-black institution, there are plenty of historically black colleges that still exist,” he told FoxNews.com. “But if they want to go to an institution that is racially diverse and integrated, then racial diversity and integration is part of it. To have a university-sanctioned segregation or separation is, to me, a bit troubling.”

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An artist's rendering of Next Generation Connecticut Hall. (uconn.edu)

Some minority students have expressed irritation at the narrow focus of ScHOLA²RS House.
While black females are “encouraged” to apply to other learning communities, according to the UConn website, that solution doesn’t appear to satisfy everyone.
“My immediate thought was ‘What?’” Haddiyyah Ali, an Africana studies and political science major, told Daily Campus. “I know there had to be a lot of research that went into it…but just for me coming from a student perspective, my initial thought was, 'What about black women and girls – what about us?'”
Vice Provost Sally Reis rejected critiques of the program.
“It’s no more segregated than putting individuals with an interest in entrepreneurship together because they have common interests,” Reis told FoxNews.com.
But while students with interests in engineering and public health and female students with a focus in math, science and engineering majors also have their own learning communities, a race-based cluster is new.
Erik Hines, a UConn professor set to serve as faculty advisor to the ScHOLA²RS House students, said that while the only current race-based group was for black males, the administration could add learning communities based on other races, genders or cultures.
“We have all types of learning communities,” he told FoxNews.com. “If they bring forth a proposal to our Office of Programs and Learning Communities they will be considered by our executive director.”
Hines said about 13 students had already applied for ScHOLA²RS House. Male students “who identify as African American/Black or mixed-race will be prioritized in selection, however any student interested in engaging in topics related to the experience of black males in higher education is invited to apply,” according to the UConn website.
 “In predominantly white institutions, some of the experiences that African-American males face on campus is a little different than some of the other populations,” Hynes said. “In some of your courses you can be the only African American male in your class. It could be stressful and that’s a huge burden to shoulder.”
Reis pins most of the pushback so far on “misinformation.”
“I’ve actually heard people saying, ‘You’re building a dorm for African-American males only?’” she said. “We’re not building a separate dorm. It’s not even a separate floor. It’s a portion of a new residence hall.”
Puppetry major Isaac Bloodworth told Daily Campus that opposition could be rooted in racism.
“The white portion of the University of Connecticut is probably not ready for it,” he said. “You have people who are going to go against it because they are just racist and they see this as a form of segregation or that we’re getting better things than they are.”

Carson accuses Cruz camp of spreading false rumors on campaign suspension

Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson on Tuesday pointedly accused Ted Cruz’s campaign of spreading false rumors during the Iowa caucuses claiming the retired neurosurgeon was suspending his bid, in a coordinated effort to seal Cruz’s victory Monday night.
The stunning charge came as a Carson spokesman declared, “There has never been a more tainted victory in the Iowa caucuses.”
Early reports that Carson – who was directly competing with Cruz for social conservative and evangelical supporters – was leaving the campaign trail started to surface as caucusing began Monday evening.
Upon hearing reports that their candidate was leaving the trail to return to his home in Florida, Team Carson responded swiftly, saying the retired neurosurgeon was only going home for clean clothes but was then headed to New Hampshire for the Feb. 9 primary.
But Carson told Fox News Tuesday morning that Cruz supporters and representatives took that narrative a step further, and began telling caucus-goers at “many” precincts that he was dropping out.
Speaking on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Cruz apologized on Tuesday. He said their political team had forwarded an initial news report that said Carson was taking a break from the campaign trail, but did not forward an update to that same story.
“Unfortunately, they did not then forward the subsequent story, that was Ben’s campaign clarifying that he was continuing the campaign and was not canceling the campaign,” Cruz said. “And so I apologize to Ben for that. They should have forwarded that subsequent story. That was a mistake on our part.”
Carson's campaign issued a statement Tuesday evening saying he "accepted" Cruz's apology.
On Tuesday morning, Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler also told MSNBC that the campaign simply repeated what Carson had said: that after Iowa, he was returning to Florida for a couple of days, then going to Washington for the National Prayer Breakfast.
“That told us he was not going to New Hampshire,” Tyler said. “That was not a dirty trick.”
Carson, interviewed earlier on “Fox & Friends,” said that his supporters were told Monday that “voting for me was wasting their vote, and that they should reconsider.”
Carson ended up finishing a distant fourth in Iowa, with 9 percent, while Cruz claimed a big victory over Donald Trump. Cruz, a Texas senator, had 28 percent, and Trump had 24 percent. How much the drop-out rumors may have affected that count is unclear. But the interactive caucus process does offer an opportunity for supporters of one candidate to be persuaded to change sides before casting their ballot.
The usually mild-mannered Carson accused the other side of using the process to execute “dirty tricks.”
“It’s the exact thing the American people are tired of,” he said. “Why would we want to continue with this kind of shenanigans?”
He said his suspicions were also confirmed by tweets, “other correspondence,” and a first-hand experience by his wife at a precinct.
Carson said his wife Candy arrived at the precinct to learn that a Cruz supporter was “disseminating” the misinformation and was asked to set straight the record.
“She did, and we won that precinct,” he said.
One of the tweets, Carson noted, came from Rep. Steve King, a Cruz supporter and an influential Iowa Republican.
King later tweeted that he respects Carson and regrets any "miscommunications."
Carson said if Cruz was unaware of the tactics, then he should find out who was involved and fire them. And if Cruz knew about the effort, he should admit his involvement and “offer a solution,” Carson said.
The Cruz campaign is also taking heat for a “mailer” it sent out to potential voters before caucus night that seemingly accused them of voting violations.
Tyler earlier told MSNBC that Iowans are used to getting similar ones and that the campaign “modeled ours after them.”

Iowa scrambles expectations for 2016 'front-runners,' tees up drawn-out contest

The future of the 2016 presidential race ain’t what it used to be.
Emerging from Monday night's Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton -- the respective Republican and Democratic polling front-runners -- now appear locked in a dog fight heading into the New Hampshire primary.
Clinton's apparent razor-thin win in a photo-finish with Bernie Sanders does little to blunt the Vermont senator's momentum heading into the Granite State, where he enjoys a comfortable polling lead. The Associated Press and state Democratic Party called the Iowa race for Clinton on Tuesday.
On the Republican side in Iowa, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz beat billionaire businessman Trump -- but it's Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's closing surge to nearly overtake Trump that overnight changes the dynamic of the GOP battle.
“It’s a three-person race now,” Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told Fox News.
The New Hampshire primary next Tuesday, where no fewer than five candidates are battling for the No. 2 spot in the polls under Trump, could make the GOP leaderboard even more crowded.
On the Democratic side, Clinton was declared the winner of Monday’s Iowa contest, but only by a fraction of a percentage point.
Sanders, en route to New Hampshire overnight, suggested the results prove decisively he’s no longer a “fringe candidate,” as some had described him.
“We’re in this to the convention,” Sanders vowed.
To be sure, the 2016 outcome on the Democratic side had echoes of 2008, albeit with a better outcome for Clinton. In 2008, Clinton placed third while underdog Barack Obama won, using that momentum to eventually secure the nomination.
In this case, Clinton scored what appeared to be a narrow win – but in a contest where she used to be the overwhelming front-runner, at one point leading Sanders by roughly 30 points in the polls.
She now heads to New Hampshire where Sanders holds a wide lead in the polls. Like in 2008, she could very well go 1-1 with her closest rival in the first two contests.
Further, the race essentially begins at a near-draw in the delegate count. Sanders noted that Iowa's 44 Democratic national convention delegates would be distributed almost evenly between the two candidates. The Associated Press reported that Clinton had captured at least 22 delegates to Sanders' 21, with the remaining one going to the statewide winner.
Republicans gleefully described the returns as a problem for Clinton.
“It’s a total disaster for Hillary Clinton,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told Fox News, predicting the Democrats could be “even more unclear in April than we are” in their nominating contests.
Nevertheless, the Clinton campaign touted their narrow delegate lead early Tuesday as a victory, plain and simple – though it appeared some precincts had stray delegates decided by coin toss.
"Statistically, there is no outstanding information that could change the results and no way that Senator Sanders can overcome Secretary Clinton's advantage,” the campaign said.
A number of news outlets, including Fox News, have not yet formally called the contest for the former secretary of state.
Sanders said the results sent a “profound message” to the media and political establishment.
Anti-establishment overtones also were apparent on the Republican side, where Cruz claimed a more resounding victory in the state.
“Tonight is a victory for the grassroots. Tonight is a victory for courageous conservatives across Iowa and all across this great nation,” Cruz told cheering supporters.
In the Republican campaign, Cruz fought hard in recent weeks to make up lost ground in the polls and was helped in part by a sophisticated ground operation. He also hammered Trump for his decision to skip last week's Republican debate.
Meanwhile, Rubio's stronger-than-expected third place finish was helped in large part by late deciders. An energized Rubio touted the results at a post-caucus rally.
“For months they told us we had no chance. … They told me I needed to wait my turn,” Rubio said. “But tonight … here in Iowa, the people in this great state sent a very clear message. After seven years of Barack Obama, we are not waiting any longer to take our country back.”
With almost all precincts reporting, Cruz had 28 percent, Trump had 24 percent and Rubio had 23 percent. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson placed a distant fourth in the race with 9 percent, while Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul placed fifth with 5 percent.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the one-time front-runner on the Republican side, placed a disappointing sixth.
Still, Bush said Tuesday he’s looking to recover in New Hampshire.
“New Hampshire has a tendency to reset the race,” Bush told Fox News.
A big question heading into next week will be whether Trump’s second-place showing in Iowa affects his sizeable lead in the Granite State.
Trump, for his part, argued he beat initial expectations by placing second and predicted he'd still win in New Hampshire.
“We will go on to get the Republican nomination, and we will go on to easily beat Hillary or Bernie or whoever the hell they throw up there,” he said. He closed his speech by saying: "I think I might come here and buy a farm, I love it.”

Donald Trump admits skipping debate may have hurt him in Iowa

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump admitted Tuesday that his decision to skip the final debate before Monday's Iowa caucuses could have cost him victory in the Hawkeye State. 
Despite leading in most of the pre-caucus polls, the real estate billionaire finished second behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and barely held off Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who placed a close third.
"That could've been with the debate," Trump told reporters at a rally in Milford, N.H. "I think some people were disappointed that I didn't go into the debate."
Trump declined to participate in the Jan. 28 Fox News/Google debate in Des Moines due to a dispute with Fox News Channel. He cited the tone of press statements from the network about his possible pulling out of the debate, as well as issues with one of the debate moderators, Megyn Kelly.
Instead of participating in the debate, Trump held a fundraiser for veterans that raised $6 million. The candidate said Tuesday that he would make the same decision again, saying he "would never, ever give that up to go between first and second in Iowa."
Entrance polls conducted by Fox News showed that 55 percent of caucus-goers who made up their minds in the final few days chose to support Cruz or Rubio.
Later Tuesday, Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity that his campaign "didn't have much of a ground game because I didn't think I was going to be winning."
"In retrospect, we could have done much better with the ground game," Trump said, in an apparent slight to his Iowa state director Chuck Laudner.
Laudner had said in January he felt "fantastic about the ground game."

Hillary Clinton Cartoon

Cruz shrugs off Trump attacks in winning Iowa, but The Donald is hardly done

In the end, Iowa was a must-win state for Ted Cruz, and he pulled it out despite weeks of withering attacks from Donald Trump.
For Cruz, projecting the winner by Fox News and other networks, capturing the caucuses here is a bigger victory than just beating Trump by a few thousand votes. The press and the Republican power brokers originally viewed him as a middle-tier guy, a bomb-thrower in Washington, and not a charming personality to boot.
He stuck to his strategy of hard-line conservatism, courting evangelicals, bashing the media—and parrying Trump’s assaults better than any other Republican candidate.

Cruz appeared to be slipping in recent weeks as Trump questioned his Canadian birth and called him a nasty guy, and he had his worst debate in last week’s Fox faceoff in Iowa. But he had a resilient base of support in this state.

For Trump, the loss clearly dents his shield of invulnerability. But a billionaire mocked by much of the establishment showed he could mount a competitive race, he's far stronger in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and he has all the money he needs. Perhaps a dose of humility will be good for him.

It’s hard to know whether Trump skipping the Fox debate was a factor among late deciders, or his big-rallies-over-county-fairs approach. We do know that Cruz had a much stronger ground game, and with Iowa’s complicated caucuses, that still matters.

Rubio’s surprisingly strong third-place finish, which put him close to Trump, vindicates his strategy of trying to emerge as the establishment alternative. The Florida senator got traction at just the right time, brilliantly managed the expectations game, and comes out of Iowa (where he didn't play that hard) firmly in the top tier with Trump and Cruz, heading into better states for him.

But before we get completely swept away by the media hype, Iowa, with its strong evangelical vote, is a unique battleground. Four of the last GOP winners in Iowa have failed to win the nomination. In just eight days, Trump could be buoyed by a huge victory in New Hampshire. The Iowa afterglow is intense, but short-lived.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton was leading Bernie Sanders by an extraordinarily thin margin, possibly avoiding the possibility of an 0-for-2 start in the state that crushed her hopes against Barack Obama. But let’s be honest: The race shouldn’t even be close. A former first lady, a former secretary of State, a Clinton, should clobber a 74-year-old socialist who hadn’t even been a member of the Democratic Party. But she is an establishment candidate in an anti-establishment year. Whatever the final numbers, this is a moral victory for Sanders and certification of his grass-roots appeal.

What’s striking among Republicans is how the last two Iowa winners, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, finished below 2 percent, along with once-hot contender Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie, who is betting his campaign on New Hampshire.
The early signs were good for Trump, as one wave of Fox entrance polls showed Trump barely trailing Cruz among evangelical Christians, Iowa’s key voting bloc, 26 to 24 percent—with Rubio at 21 percent. Those voters are Cruz’s key constituency, and perhaps he lost some crucial supporters to Ben Carson, who hung in at about 10 percent.
The entrance polls showed Trump dominating among voters whose most important quality was a candidate who “tells it like it is.” Cruz did best among voters seeking a candidate who “shares my values.” Rubio was strongest as the candidate who “can win in November.”
Demographically, Trump did best among voters with a high school education or less, while Rubio edged Cruz among college graduates and those who did postgraduate study. Cruz, not surprisingly, did best among very conservative voters, Trump scored highest with moderate voters, and Trump and Rubio were essentially tied among somewhat conservative voters.
On the Democratic side, according to those entrance polls, Hillary Clinton dominated among voters over 65, while Bernie Sanders clobbered her in the 17-to-29 age group.
Sanders decimated the former first lady among those most interested in an “honest and trustworthy” candidate and one who “cares about people like me.” Clinton creamed him for having “the right experience” and as someone who “can win in November.”

Trump fever has broken. Cruz out-organized him. Here's what's next

Imagine trying to explain America’s presidential selection process to an extraterrestrial.
The nation’s two major political parties entrust Iowa with beginning the elimination process – that one Midwestern state representing just 1 percent of the nation’s population, with an electorate not reflective of America writ large (Iowa’s population is whiter, more Protestant and decidedly less black and Hispanic than the rest of the country).
Moreover, it’s not much of a political bellwether. Jimmy Carter won the Democratic caucuses in 1976, as did Barack Obama in 2008. In modern times, George W. Bush is the lone Republican to parlay a caucus win into the presidency.
Yet here we are in 2016, once again giving this under-populated state an oversized role in the nation’s future.
Some observations about what transpired in Iowa, on the Republican side, on Monday night:
Mister Trump, Meet Mister Tyson. The former boxer is credited with saying that “everyone has a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth.”
On Monday night, Trump was on the receiving end of said punch.
Yes, the turnout turned out to be a record high, as Trump had promised. But not all the newcomers flocked in his direction, as he also prophesized.
According to Fox News entrance polls, the late-deciders broke first to Marco Rubio, then Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and then Trump – one reason why Rubio finished a close third (much closer than expected) to the flamboyant developer.
One way to look at Trump’s bad night: going into the caucuses, Trump stood at 28.6 percent in the Real Clear Politics Average. He finished with only 24 percent on Caucus night.
Cruz Was Everything – But Likeable. Cruz organized Iowa like few Republicans ever have – 12,000 volunteers, 1,000 precincts, a pair of old college dorms rented and renamed “Camp Cruz” to house that army. Unlike Trump’s calculation that star power was an irresistible force, it was sweat equity that paid off: Cruz bumped his RCP average by about 4 points.
Credit Cruz with standing his ground: he didn’t back down on opposing the ethanol subsidy. He didn’t deviate from his game plan of courting evangelicals.
However, the game plan wasn’t glitch-free: three out of five GOP caucus-goers identified as evangelicals in this year’s Republican caucuses – a higher percentage than in 2012. Yet, per the Fox News entrance polls, this portion of the vote didn’t break as heavily for Cruz as anticipated.
This suggests a core problem for Cruz moving forward: he’s bright, organized and a methodical strategist. But he’s just not likeable beyond that base of religious and constitutional voters. He’ll be hard-pressed to finish second in New Hampshire, where the electorate is less devoutly Protestant and less conservative – and Trump may be particularly vengeful.
The Rubio Expectations Game. One other way the Iowa night seem alien to alien visitors: the ability for a non-winner to claim victory.  And In 2016, that’s Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whose surprisingly strong third-place finish confirms him as the biggest fish in the so-called “establishment lane.”
Rubio was a non-factor in Iowa as recently as a few weeks ago. But then he worked the state in person, invested heavily late in television  on the eve of the vote, and profited handsomely from the one-fifth of the GOP voters for whom electability was the prime concern.
Armchair quarterbacks will debate how much Rubio benefitted from Trump’s debate snub (didn’t work for Reagan in 1980, maybe also backfired on The Donald in 2016) plus Cruz’s controversial mailer.
Rubio won the expectations game. Let’s see if that translates into votes in New Hampshire and, more immediately, an influx of cash as donors contrast his over-performance to the anemic showing of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (at 2 percent, just a percentage point behind Jeb Bush).
Left Behind. Dr. Ben Carson finished fourth – a better showing than he might have anticipated a month ago when his campaign cratered.
Carson’s free-fall led to Cruz’s December surge; Carson’s slight recovery on Monday night – his core being evangelicals – likely kept Cruz from a bigger win.
To the adage that elections reflect change and turnover: Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum won the last two GOP caucuses. On Monday night, neither cracked 3 percent. Huckabee quickly put his campaign on hiatus; Santorum likely won’t be far behind.
Change Gives Us . . . Continuity. For all the talk these past few months of how Iowa would be an opening salvo in a Trump-fueled revolution, reality proved otherwise.
Yes, a historically large GOP electorate struck a blow against Washington experience: Cruz, Trump and Rubio combined have all of ten years in federal government between them; they cornered three-fourth of Iowa’s vote.
However, the Iowa results were also a vote for more of the same.
Since 1988, the GOP caucuses have followed a familiar pattern – Iowans siding with a Republican who embodied the concept of “one of us.” Bob Dole, a son of Kansas, was a fellow Midwesterner. He was Iowa’s winner in 1988 and 1996. George W. Bush, Huckabee and Santorum all ran campaigns in which their personal faith and public policy ideas were DNA strands.
Given the choice of voting for Cruz, who worked the evangelic crowd in no uncertain terms (“Father God, Please . . . Awaken the Body of Christ”), Iowans went with the purer social conservative – not the wealthy guy from New York running as a born-again conservative, trying to win over the Midwestern crowd with his celebrity persona and flashy plane.
In the end, Cruz simply out-organized and out-thought Trump. Which is why Trump Fever is over – at least, until next week’s vote.