Ending Obama, Clinton Legacies Behind GOP Turnout

Everyone is talking about voter turnout.

Well, maybe that’s not entirely accurate as the political scene has been dominated with Hillary’s emails, Rubio’s robotic stump, Trump’s reality campaign, and Bernie’s new democratic socialism that really isn’t socialism — but it eerily sounds familiar.

Those who are talking about, and doing backflips over voter turnout, are the leadership of the Iowa Republican Party. Cody Hoefert, the Co-Chair of the Iowa GOP stated, “For the first time in history where both Republicans and Democrats have had a contested caucus, more Republicans than Democrats caucused.”

Hoefert went on to say, “this speaks volumes to the energy and excitement for our field of great candidates when contrasted with the apathy and failed policies of Obama, Clinton and Sanders.”

The numbers haven’t been finalized, but the estimate suggests that the final tally will be close to 180,000 GOP voters participated in the 2016 Iowa caucuses for an increase of 33 percent over 2012. This is the largest number of Republican caucus voters since modern era tracking started in 1980.


Many pundits have suggested that the diverse GOP candidate field, which includes a reality star and billionaire businessman, anti-establishment conservatives, a libertarian, establishment governors, Latinos, a female, and several non-politician outsiders is responsible for the intense interest in participating in the GOP process.

While this is a tremendous turn of events for the party of Lincoln, (please excuse the use of a Trump superlative) the surge in GOP interest may be due to one particular individual: the current president.

Mitt Romney was the 2012 GOP challenger to the incumbent Obama and one of two reasons can account for the GOP defeat. Either voters were convinced that Obama was so bad that the local Dog Catcher could run the tables and beat him in a 48 state landslide, or GOP voters were so distraught at yet another boring, establishment Republican standing in the RINO line now holding ticket number one, signaling it was his turn to be the nominee.

Either way, many GOP voters registered their vote from the couch.

So with the prospects of losing the 2016 presidential election to Hillary Barack O’Clinton and along with that a long march to the gulag of forgotten liberties, the GOP electorate fuse is ignited.

A swing back down memory lane will help further this point of the fear that now grips and motivates GOP voters: 

• Benghazi — What we know is that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mislead the american public about how Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods were killed. What we don’t know is where the President of the U.S. was at the time of the attack. The attackers have yet to be brought to justice. Obama achieved re-election.

• Obamacare – Obama’s signature accomplishment is a law forced on the American people, with not one Republican vote, which politicians had to pass the bill before reading it, and Americans are now fined if they choose not to purchase a product. Additionally, Americans’ like Little Sisters of the Poor are compelled by Obamacare to violate their religious beliefs regarding the birth-control mandate.

• IRS Scandal — Obama claims that there is zero corruption in the IRS, however we now know that former IRS employee Lois Lerner, director Exempt Organizations, engaged in discriminating behavior against conservative groups filing for tax-exempt status. This was done by Lerner for the express purpose of stifling the first amendment rights of conservative groups to organize and engage in the politics of their choice, thus hurting her president.

• Operation Fast and Furious — This was the ATF gunwalking scandal where the agency colluded with licensed firearm dealers to allow up to 2000 firearms to be purchased by strawman buyers in order to track them to Mexican cartels. Border Agent Brian Terry was killed with one of these firearms and former Attorney General Eric Holder became the first sitting member of the U.S. Cabinet to be held in contempt of Congress.

Then there is the laundry list of many other Obama scandals and episodes that average Americans hold in-contempt such as: the Henry Louis Gates beer summit, Trayvon Martin, Fort Hood “workplace violence," Guantanamo terrorist trade for treasonous Bergdahl, “you didn’t build that," Michael Brown and Ferguson, stimulus money to pay off “green energy” scams, gun control executive orders — just to name a meager few.

The clock is running out on the Obama “transformation” and he wants to extend it into overtime. Like mad scientists, Obama and heir-apparent Clinton are performing a Frankenstein lobotomy on the American public transforming us into Europe.

This above all is what is driving voters to the GOP and to outsider candidates railing against the Washington machine. Voters are intent on change.

Their trading in their Prius’ for 1985 DeLorean’s and slamming the gear shift in reverse.

We may just be heading back to the future.

Michael McDaniel is a political commentator who has been covering election politics in Iowa for over a decade. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.