As I sit down to write my reactions to the State Of The Union speech and the Democratic response, votes from Iowa are still trickling in. That's a rather bizarre overlap, caused by the total breakdown of the Iowa Democratic Party's reporting system. The spectacular failure of the whizzy new app taken together with the equally spectacular failure of the backup phone hotline reporting system meant it was almost 24 hours from when the caucuses started to when any results were made publicly available. And the only saving grace was that there was indeed a full paper trail to follow, so the votes themselves (we are assured) will all be counted accurately.

Obviously, something's got to change. This is a screwup of epic proportions. If Iowa had been a state voting on Super Tuesday, it wouldn't have been such a big deal (although it still would have been the butt of plenty jokes), but with their "first in the nation" status, it is nothing short of absolutely unacceptable.

Now, the breakdown could be fixed by a better reporting system -- whether technological or just having enough people available to answer the phones. But it brings into question two much larger points -- should Iowa change from a caucus to a primary, and should Iowa still be allowed to go first? Those weighty issues are now solidly on the table for discussion, as they should be. The case against caucuses has always been pretty easy to make, which is why almost every state has now moved to a primary system. The case against Iowa going first is a trickier one, but "You had your chance and you blew it" will now be a big part of that argument.

But given that the Democratic Party has four years to figure all of this out before the next one happens, let's get back to the big speeches tonight instead.

The State Of The Union

Most of President Trump's speech tonight was fairly standard stuff, at least to my ears. About 80 percent of it could have come from any Republican president, in fact. The other 20 percent was mostly about illegal immigrants, and a few other Trump bugaboos.

Overall, I have to say Trump has gotten better at reading his big speech each year off of a TelePrompTer. He sounds a lot less bored, and a lot more interested in reading the words. That's a notable change, for him. Instead of sounding like a fifth-grader reading from a textbook in a class he doesn't much care about, Trump now can manage to sound like an average politician reading a speech off a TelePrompTer. That's progress, of a sort.

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We're finally at the point where Democratic primary voters (or "caucus voters," today) get to register their choices in an actual election. It's been a long and winding road to get here, and along the way 18 of the announced 29 Democratic candidates have already dropped out of the race, leaving us with only (!) 11 remaining. After the Iowa and New Hampshire results are in, that field should narrow down to, hopefully, single digits.

Of course, only 10 of those 11 candidates are actually competing in Iowa tonight (since Michael Bloomberg is sitting out the first four states), which does make it marginally easier to guess what's going to happen. Although maybe not, because Iowa will be announcing not just one but three sets of results tonight. So let's run down what's going to happen tonight. I should mention that I'll only be making picks for the entire primary season on the Democratic side, because Donald Trump is a sitting president who is pretty much guaranteed to win the Republican nomination, so "picking" him over and over again in Republican primaries would make no sense.

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Today's column requires a preface, because once again I am forgoing my usual Friday format to fully address the importance of the impeachment trial. Regular columns will resume next week, right before the next Democratic debate airs, and we'll return to our usual awards and talking points then. I thank my readers for their patience, in advance.

Other program notes for next week: Monday's column will be my first prediction of the outcome of a primary race in the 2020 election season, and will be published before the Iowa caucuses finish. Tuesday's column will be late, as I'll be writing my snap reactions to both the State Of The Union speech and the Democratic response. Normally I would also write my snap reactions to the Democratic debate as well, but because it falls on a Friday (and because this column has already taken two weeks off) I won't be doing so this time around. There will be a total of three debates in February (before New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina vote) so we'll have other opportunities for debate analysis before Super Tuesday rolls around.

Oh, and for those who like fun calendar tricks, this Super Bowl Sunday will be an interesting palindrome: 02/02/2020. Even more fun: this will be true worldwide, since Americans are pretty much the only ones who put the month before the day in our date format, but in this case it won't matter.

OK, with all of that out of the way, let's get right to my reactions, impressions, and other thoughts about the history that is being made in the Senate today.

The impeachment endgame

As of this writing, nothing has been officially decided yet in the Senate impeachment trial. However, one thing seems almost certain at this point: there will only be 49 votes, maximum, in favor of calling witnesses. Both Lisa Murkowski and Lamar Alexander have announced that they will not be voting for witnesses, which leaves all 47 Democrats together with only Mitt Romney and Susan Collins. Murkowski may have been persuaded to vote no because if she had voted yes it would have set up an uncomfortable situation for Chief Justice Roberts, who would have to decide whether to break a 50-50 tie or not (with the safe money being on "not"). In any case, that's how things stand as I begin writing this.

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There will be no column today, sorry. I am playing hooky to watch all of the last day of questions in the impeachment trial in the Senate. Also, next week's going to be a doozy, starting with the Iowa caucuses on Monday, the State Of The Union speech on Tuesday, and finishing with the next Democratic debate on Friday. So I'm resting up for all of that. Again, my apologies for the lack of column today, but promise I'll be sharing all my impeachment trial thoughts in tomorrow's column, as I did last week.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Some constitutional history was made this week -- and it had nothing to do with President Donald Trump, because presidents have absolutely no role in amending the Constitution itself. That power is reserved to Congress and the legislatures of the states. And Virginia's state legislature just officially ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. In doing so, they became the 38th state to ratify, which seems to meet the constitutional requirement that three-fourths of the states ratify an amendment in order for it to be adopted as part of the Constitution. This is a fairly momentous occasion, which coincides with the other constitutional history being made in the Senate this week, as only the third-ever presidential impeachment trial continues.

The United States Constitution has essentially been amended only 18 times. I say "essentially" because while we actually currently have 27 amendments, the first ten were adopted at the same time, as the Bill of Rights. Only 17 times since then have amendments been approved by Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures. This week, perhaps, will go down in history as the nineteenth time an amendment succeeded in become part of our government's foundational document.

Again, there's a "perhaps" in there that needs explaining. Because while 38 states have indeed now ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, there are two legal arguments still standing in the way of it being declared valid and part of the Constitution. So far, the government's official stance is that at least one of these arguments precludes such recognition. The whole matter will undoubtedly wind up before the Supreme Court before the E.R.A. becomes the law of the land.

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In less than a week's time, we will have the first results of the 2020 Democratic primary season, from the Iowa caucuses. After more than a year of campaigning, the curtain is finally going to go up and we'll all be able to see what actual voters think about the remaining Democratic candidates. Or most of them, at any rate, since Michael Bloomberg won't be on the ballot at all until Super Tuesday.

Polling has been volatile, both in Iowa and nationally, meaning it is really anyone's guess what's going to happen next Monday night. Since this is true (at least to some extent), I'm going to offer up my own guesses as to which candidates actually have a chance to make a big splash, and which really don't.

There are really only five candidates worth talking about here: Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders. Given the fact that in Iowa candidates who garner less than fifteen percent support will even be counted in the final tally, it's just not realistic to talk of Andrew Yang or Tom Steyer (or any of the others) at this point. They may get some scraps in New Hampshire, but they quite likely won't win a single delegate next Monday night in corn country.

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Could the 2020 presidential election wind up being a contest between two black swans? Or, to put it another way, will we actually get to see a contest between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders?

A black swan, historically, was supposed to be an impossibility. The only swans anyone had ever seen were white, therefore black swans did not exist, period. Indeed, the phrase was used almost 2,000 years ago in Roman times to denote something which did not exist, and it continued to be used right up until Europeans actually saw black swans for the first time, in Australia. Since then the term has taken on a new meaning, as explained by Wikipedia:

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Since there's really only one story this week, we're going to totally forgo our usual format here and instead share our thoughts on the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump in the United States Senate. Other things happened in the world of politics this week, but they all pale in comparison to the constitutional theater playing out live on television for seemingly-unending hours. We're even going to forgo our much-beloved editorial "we" this week, to better focus on our personal reaction to the third-ever presidential impeachment trial in our history.

The mechanics of an impeachment trial

I must admit, I haven't watched every single hour of it, although to my credit I did make it through all of the televised House testimony from beginning to end. The trial is a rehash of what was learned in those hearings, assembled in storyline fashion and complete with all the relevant video clips from the hearings. The House managers are spending 24 hours over three days on what in a criminal trial would merely be the opening statement from the prosecution. The president's team of lawyers will then have the same 24 hours over three days to present the defense's opening argument.

Unlike in a criminal trial, however, what happens next is that the senators will have two days to ask questions of both sides. Questions must be submitted in writing, and will be read by the chief justice, who is presiding over the trial. The senators are often called "the jury" but in reality they also have much of the power of judges as well.

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Once again, today I prefer to focus on the Democratic primary race rather than on the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. I'm saving up all my impeachment commentary for Friday, so you'll have to wait another day for that. Just wanted to be clear about this, up front.

Over the past two weeks, I've been watching the Democratic presidential polls to see if any significant changes could be ascertained after the most recent debate. It's still too early to draw firm conclusions, but at this point in time it seems that Bernie Sanders had a great debate, Joe Biden's was pretty good, and nobody else moved the needle -- except Michael Bloomberg, who wasn't even at the debate. As I said, it is still too early to tell if this "Bernie bump" (or maybe "Sanders surge"?) is going to be real or wind up being just a few outliers which happened to arrive at the same time.

But before we get to analyzing the numbers, the reason why this is interesting even if it proves to be illusory is that ours will not be the only eyes taking note of this trend indicator. You can bet your bottom dollar that everyone on all the other Democratic campaigns is also paying close attention. Which is why the conclusion we're going to draw will probably prove to be true even if the Sanders surge never actually manifests itself fully. Because there's not a lot of time before Iowa and New Hampshire vote, meaning the other campaigns are going to react by painting as big a target on Bernie as they possibly can. Nothing terrifies a campaign like the news that one of your competitors is experiencing that sought-after "late-breaking surge." Such surges can turn into wildly unexpected results on Election Day, even though there's no guarantee of it happening. Which is why I fully expect the anti-Bernie onslaught to begin in earnest very soon now. But more on the implications for the next few weeks in a moment. Let's first take a look at the three points of data that recently came out.

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As the Iowa caucuses draw nearer and nearer, the Democratic presidential candidates are getting a little sharper-edged towards each other, it seems. I say "it seems" because all I know of the dustups is what I read in the media, and they're an often-inaccurate judge of what is really going on. The candidates might have been this sharp all along and it is only now that the media has noticed, to give just one example of how they might be misleading us. But whether new or just the media's current obsession, the attacks flying between the candidates (and former candidates, now) are all being covered with breathless glee.

That's fine and good, because it really is just par for the course. This is a primary race, and not a feel-good yoga session, after all. Like The Highlander, in the end there can only be one. This means everyone else has to lose the race, and none of them want that to happen to them. So of course they're competing hard for voter support. However, what truly annoys me is the almost-total media focus on personality instead of paying attention to what will prove to be more important when we get to the general election: the actual or perceived substance of these attacks.

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