Nikki Haley, upon finishing third in the Iowa caucuses last night, had a rather bizarrely optimistic pronouncement. It ranks right up there with Bill Clinton proclaiming himself "The Comeback Kid" after finishing only second in New Hampshire, in fact (although, to be fair, Clinton's spin-job worked wonders for him). Here's what Haley had to say last night: "I can safely say tonight Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race." The audience reportedly applauded and cheered.

She's right... but only if you take out two words from her sentence. Because the correct summation of the Iowa results is actually: "I can safely say tonight Iowa made this a two-person race." Those two people, however (sorry, Nikki), are Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The primaries are over before they have even begun. The general election race is now underway. And much to most Americans' dismay, it is going to be a rematch of 2020.

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With fewer than 750 votes in -- less than one percent of the total -- the news organizations have already called the Republican Iowa caucuses for Donald Trump. As I write this, Ron DeSantis is up over Nikki Haley by a count of 161 to 159, so obviously there is still going to be a close race for second place. Neither one of them is topping 16 percent as of now, while Trump sits above 60 percent. All of these numbers could swing as the evening continues, but the fact that Trump is going to walk away the winner is already set.

The entire Republican primary season has the same feeling of inevitability that we're experiencing right now in Iowa. Perhaps Haley or DeSantis might score some sort of upset in one of the next few states, but even if they do, they're likely to see their hopes buried by Super Tuesday. By early March, the news organizations may have called the entire nomination contest for Trump.

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It is shocking (it always is), but here we are on the brink of the 2024 presidential election cycle's official start. The Iowa caucuses will be held Monday. Most of us, thankfully, will have a few more months to go before being faced with the prospect of going to the polls for our state's primary, when (hopefully) the weather will be a lot better than it is predicted to be in the Hawkeye State three days from now. They may be heading to their polls in the midst of a blizzard, with the temperature forecast to be: "Oh CRAP it is cold!" with windchill factors being as low as: "I can't feel my toes... or my face... just leave me here in this snowbank for the wolves to find...."

OK, we exaggerate, perhaps. But not by much. Hey, we grew up in a state that did get some snow (but usually not too much), so we do fully understand (as many Californians simply do not) what "six below" truly means.

Of course, this year, only Republicans will be having their votes counted on Monday. Iowa was defenestrated from the early-state Democratic calendar after their abject failure to count the Democratic votes in a timely manner the last chance they had, so it'll be a GOP-only affair this year.

[As all columnists who reveal future plot developments must, we hereby issue an official Spoiler Alert. Skip to the next paragraph if you want to stay up late Monday listening to the returns come in with breathless anticipation. OK, you have been duly warned!] The outcome of the GOP Iowa caucus, of course, is not in any doubt. Donald Trump is going to win. The only two questions left to be answered are: "By how much?" and "Who came in a distant second place?"

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The speaker may have changed, but the underlying dynamics of the Republican-led House have not. Kevin McCarthy was ousted -- the first House speaker in American history to lose his job this way -- because he had to work within the reality that having a slim GOP majority in the House simply did not mean that the hardliners in his caucus got to dictate terms to everyone else in Washington. The Democrats hold the Senate and the White House, and they're never going to knuckle under to the MAGA hardliners and just give them everything they want. Now Mike Johnson is in charge and is facing exactly the same demands from exactly the same members of the GOP's "Chaos Caucus," who still refuse to admit any reality outside of their own warped view of how Washington should work. And Johnson may wind up facing the same fate as McCarthy before all of the dust settles.

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I was just sitting here contemplating what to write about today when some breaking news made the decision for me: Chris Christie has just ended his presidential campaign. This is going to shake things up in the Republican field, obviously, but will it shake things up enough to make any sort of difference? That remains to be seen.

We won't have to wait very long for the other major candidates' reactions, since Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are scheduled to hold their first one-on-one debate tonight on CNN, while Donald Trump will be holding a town hall over on Fox. Undoubtedly all three will be asked at some point to react to the breaking news, so we'll see if Nikki Haley (in particular) can contain her glee.

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Donald Trump has long believed that because he was president, he was constitutionally allowed to do anything he pleased, without any possibility of ever having to answer for any of it in any way. He explicitly stated this belief while he was president and he has claimed the same sweeping immunity ever since he left office as well. He truly believes that somewhere in the Constitution is a clause that essentially bestows the divine right of kings upon the U.S. president. A president's actions can never be challenged in court because of this supposed loophole, in other words (according to Trump).

Just because Trump believes this to be true, however, does not actually make it true. Far from it. Today, Trump's fantastical views of presidential immunity hit the brick wall of legal reality in a courtroom. A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals heard Trump's arguments today, and (to put it mildly) they were not very impressed by them. Their ruling is now seen as almost a foregone conclusion -- the only real question is whether it will be a 3-0 unanimous decision or whether one of the judges might dissent. At this point, a unanimous ruling appears much more likely, as even the Republican-appointed judge on the panel (appointed by George H. W. Bush) showed a healthy degree of skepticism towards Trump's claims.

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It seems fitting that we take today to remind everyone of the events which transpired at the United States Capitol three years ago last Saturday. Joe Biden reminded everyone, in his first campaign speech of the year. Some in the media are even starting to call the 2024 presidential election "the January 6th election." That may or may not turn out to be the case (some other issue could easily be the main motivator for voters by November, in other words), but with Donald Trump out there still refusing to admit he's a loser and with a frighteningly-high percentage of Republican voters buying into his dark fantasy, it behooves us all to go back to what was said about the events of that day. By Republicans.

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Happy new year, everyone! It is indeed a brand new year, and an election year to boot. The presidential election isn't some faraway thing anymore, as the Republican Iowa caucuses are now less than two weeks away. Then it'll be on to New Hampshire and South Carolina and eventually Super Tuesday, which is quite likely the point where Donald Trump will have functionally wrapped up the GOP nomination.

Today is also the day before January 6th, and President Joe Biden marked the occasion by giving the first political speech of his re-election campaign, at a community college a few miles away from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Biden had initially planned on appearing tomorrow -- on the attempted insurrection's third anniversary -- but had to reschedule at the last minute due to the possibility of a heavy snowstorm hitting the area. Which is kind of an ironic thing to happen, for a speech near Valley Forge, you've got to admit.

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In 1992, James Carville defined the focus of Bill Clinton's presidential campaign as: "It's the economy, stupid." For better or worse, the American people (led by the American mainstream media) generally give the sitting president either a whole lot of credit or they assign a whole lot of blame for whatever the current state of the economy happens to be. So no matter what else is going on, the fate of President Joe Biden in the upcoming election is going to be tied in a big way to how people feel about the economy.

Right now, people don't feel especially great about the economy. By all rights, they should feel better than they do, because by almost every metric the economy is in great shape, having achieved the fabled "soft landing" from all the spikes and dislocations of the COVID pandemic era. However, this hasn't been reflected in public opinion, at least not to the degree which it usually is.

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This year, the Supreme Court is going to be a critical factor in the presidential election, no matter what it does. In the words of the rock band Rush, this could even come down to "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." But we're getting ahead of ourselves a bit. Let's take the two issues that will almost certainly wind up before the high court and see what the possibilities are and how the timing of it all could affect the race for the presidency.

Will Trump appear on the ballot?

This is the most immediate issue the court is going to face. In two states -- Colorado and Maine -- Donald Trump has been barred from appearing on the primary ballot. In Colorado, the state supreme court ruled that Trump did indeed engage in an insurrection and thus is ineligible to be president. Since he is ineligible to serve, his name will not be on the primary ballot (in much the same way that a 29-year-old would be barred from the presidential ballot for not being old enough). Appeals have already been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. But the deadline for finalizing the primary ballot is this Friday, and no one really expects the high court to rule before then.

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