What does “Winner” Mean?

As of today, there have been two Democratic Party Presidential Candidate Nomination events: the 2020 Iowa Caucus and the 2020 New Hampshire Primary. 

At this point, the Associated Press and other news media are distressed that they are “unable to declare a winner.”  Really?  What self-important ridiculousness.  

This is neither horse-race nor sporting event.  There is no such title and reward distinct from what is already determined: delegates pledged to different candidates going into the National Democratic Party Convention later this year.  Simple boring facts.

The candidates will, of course, step into the media-distorted view and proclaim their fortunes for their own purposes.  The behavior is akin to prize fighters claiming their advance to the title.  There are even metaphors such as “knocked out.”

We are seeing politics in the manner that politics is useful in a democratic society.  Noisy, disruptive, thrashing about, looking for consensus and if not consensus, determination of a way ahead in the face of uncertainty.

There are inside-baseball dramas of course, a feast brought about by failures of accountability and transparency, in the case of the Iowa Caucus operation. 

Although there has now been the equivalent of a public hanging, it remains unclear whether the lessons to be found in that process are being learned.  I’m thinking of the unfortunate introduction of technology and inadequate/absent risk management.

The processes behind the conduct and resolution of elections tend to be good enough until something “too close to call” arises.  Then reforms arise.  The injection of technology and technology fads offering technological cures to technological failures suggest that the lessons about human responsibilities, and our mutual fallibility, are not willingly recognized and learned.