We woke up this morning to some surprises in Iowa.

For the past several months America’s attention has focused on Iowa and the practice of caucuses instead of primaries. Only Iowa, Nevada, Alaska, and American Samoa caucus.

Caucuses present a nightmare to pollsters. Simply put it’s hard to predict who will actually show up and participate. Two days ago the Des Moines Register reported that Republican Donald Trump led with 28% and Ted Cruz followed with 24%. Marco Rubio commanded only 15%.

That’s not what happened. Today we learned that Ted leads with 28%, Don follows with 24%, and (most surprisingly) Marco surprised everyone with 23%.

On the Democrat side of the isle Hillary Clinton feared a defeat, given that Bernie Sanders is heavily favored in New Hampshire and losing the first two states bodes ill in the long run. It was close, but it appears Hillary won by a razor thin margin. To quote her campaign: a win’s a win.

Not surprisingly these results did winnow the field, even if a little. On the Republican side Mike Huckabee, and on the Democratic side Martin O’Malley, both suspended their campaigns. They made good choices. Neither were viable candidates and needed to leave.

This makes the Democratic nomination a two person race. On the Republican side, several candidates need to do the same thing. Right now Marco Rubio is the candidate of the “mainstream” wing, Ted Cruz is the candidate of the “Tea Party/Evangelical” wing, and Donald Trump is the candidate of….geez I can’t even describe this.

In any case the ultimate nomination lies in one of these three people. If you’re an Abraham Lincoln or a Teddy Roosevelt or a Dwight Eisenhower or a Ronald Reagan Republican, you need to come together and support Marco Rubio.

As a Democrat I hope you’ll ignore my advice but I have to confess a fear: there’s always a chance that the Republican nominee will win. If that happens I think we can survive a Rubio Presidency. Indeed we survived (but paid the price for) the Presidency of George W. Bush. But a Ted Cruz Presidency would lead us to a Christian Caliphate where our laws won’t lead us to freedom but instead to a nation that cares only for those who look like Ted and believe in his homophobic and exclusionary agenda. A Donald Trump Presidency would make us so xenophobic that our collective fear would drive all of us into poverty.

Here’s my plea to Republicans: Don’t nominate someone who will destroy us.

Most of us who are following the Presidential election find ourselves puzzled at the numbers. We elect a President every four years and by this time in the campaign we expect to know that our next leader will be found among a half dozen of the candidates. We also expect that we will choose from politicians we’ve known for a long time.

Last year at this time most of expected that the primaries would present us with a clear choice: Hillary Clinton vs. Jeb Bush.

It made some sense. Both come from families familiar to us and their resumes are well known. The 2016 campaign was supposed to be fairly predictable.

But it’s not. Turns out large segments of us are tired of “the same old thing” and “the same old politicians,” and they are looking to outsiders. Many of us honestly believe we need to look outside those with political skill sets and choose leaders who have different skill sets.

For many, Donald Trump speaks to their frustrations. His father succeeded in real estate and Donald joined him after graduating from college. Given a fair amount of seed money, Donald parlayed it into the millions he now enjoys.

So here’s the problem: Don touts his own success because he is a “self made man.” Except he isn’t. His father’s wealth gave him a headstart and now he runs on a platform that claims that as President he can give all of us his same success.

He can’t. For better or for worse we’re all going to learn a lesson from junior high school: if you elect the class bully to be class president, all he knows how to do is to bully. Don’s success comes from telling us that he will “stand up” to our enemies but he doesn’t understanding that he needs to negotiate with our enemies and partner with our allies.

We need to use our entire skill set in our negotiations, and power is only one of those skills. We need to convince our allies and our adversaries that their advantage lies in following our lead.

But that never works when we lead with our ability to bully.

Bullying gives us enemies and negotiation gives us allies. The “better angels of our natures” rises when we convert our enemies into allies instead of converting our allies into enemies.

Donald Trump, simply put, is a bully. I wrote about this in a previous post where he said this about Mexican immigrants:

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

On July 18th he said this about Senator John McCain who was a prisoner of war from 1967 to 1973: “.. He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured, okay? I hate to tell you that.”

Last month he called for a ban of all Muslims entering the United States.

So why is he polling so well? Simply put, he is tapping into a deep anger in many Americans who feel that their American Dream has passed them by.

And their anger comes from a reasonable place. The Washington Post published an article in 2014 that explains that economic growth in the last few decades has disproportionally favored those who were already wealthy while leaving behind the poor and middle class.

Many listen to Don and believe his lies that he will “make America great again.” He won’t. In moments of candor all politicians will admit to a limited ability to grow the economy and basic equality does not come from unfettered capitalism. A Trump America looks xenophobic, isolationist, and much poorer. Wage equality achieved through making everyone poorer is nobody’s dream.

Frankly put, the best route to a better America for all lies with the Democrats. Bill Clinton served from 1992 to 2000 and was the last President to offer a balanced budget. By all accounts his 2 terms made everyone’s lives better. When he left office we were operating at a surplus of $307,000,000,000. Eight years later, when George Bush left office we operated at a deficit of $458,600,000. Seven years into the Presidency of Barack Obama we carry a deficit of $439,000,000.

But it’s not that simple. President Bush passed the keys to the President Obama on January 20, 2009 and the deficit grew to $1,413,000,000 as he was forced to increase spending to end the Great Recession.

Simply put, Presidents Clinton and Obama made America great by growing our economy for everyone, not just the wealthiest. Republican mantras of less government and keeping out people who we fear will not make us great, it will make us poor and weak. It’s always done that before.

Yesterday we heard from the latest Republican casualty: George Pataki.

He decided to suspend his campaign for President. When I told this to my wife she expressed surprise that he was still running. Yeah, it just doesn’t pay to be one of the “undercard Republicans” who never made it to the national stage. He shared the stage with so many Republicans who sought the 2016 nomination that the debates were split into two: those who did well in the polls and those who didn’t.

He came to the race with some credentials. He was governor of New York from 1995 to 2006, including the morning of 9/11.

He attempted to place himself as a candidate on the mainstream. He opposed the Affordable Care Act but sought an alternative. He described himself as socially liberal on abortion and gay rights and he may well have been the best Republican candidate for millennials, those born after 1980.

But, and I’ve said before, the Republican source of funding and votes are mutually exclusive. He just couldn’t get traction among his own party and his own party just refused to see how valuable he could have been in the general election.

Can I say this? It’s a good for the Democrats. As a Democrat I’m pleased.

Many of us expect that some of the Republican candidates will soon see the handwriting on the wall and withdraw from the campaign. Yesterday that candidate was Lindsey Graham.

He suspended his campaign, recognizing that he has no path to the White House. He is an honorable man and he does this for no other reason than to increase the chances of a Republican successor to President Obama.

But it’s been an uphill battle. He clearly staked out a place for himself as a hawk, calling for boots on the ground against ISIS but just couldn’t gain any traction.

Donald Trump continues to consume most of the oxygen of the Republican campaign and it’s made it nearly impossible for serious candidates to have serious discussions.

Lindsey is much too hawkish for me and I never would have voted for him, but I do respect him for the conviction of his beliefs. We will be well served if he continues his work in the Senate.

Most of us who are following the Republican Primary believe the field should winnow. Today Bobby Jindal announced he is suspending his campaign. He’s had a hard time gaining traction. His popularity never broke above 2% and he never made the leap to the “adult table” in the Republican debates.

Nearly all the members of the Republican herd feel that the crown will eventually be placed on his (or her) head. They feel that their opponents will implode and the Democrats will self destruct and all Americans will see him or her as the only logical candidate.

Nobody can predict the next 11 months but I think Bobby’s exit doesn’t make much of a difference. I’m guessing that none of the remaining candidates will seek Bobby’s endorsement simply because he holds no power.

Bobby is a good man and a good American, but there is no way he would have made a good president.