more debates! fewer candidates! we're still talking about iowa! it's your thursday edition of for the record ... let's get to it!









two more republican candidates dropped out of the race wednesday, leaving eight candidates (nine<u+00a0>if you count jim gilmore, but that's like counting pluto as still being a planet). senator rand paul is out, dealing a blow to anyone who wanted to make political donations solely in bitcoin; 2012 iowa caucus winner rick santorum also suspended his campaign.









after careful consideration, santorum threw his 0.4% worth of influence at marco rubio, while paul says he won't make any endorsements in the primary<u+00a0><u+2014> though he says he'll<u+00a0>back the eventual republican nominee.









for paul, he returns to kentucky to focus full-time on his re-election campaign for senate.<u+00a0>a few months back, paul said he'd give up to $500,000 to help pay for an early kentucky caucus, which would have enabled him to run both for president and senator for a few months longer (here's hoping he kept the receipt).









rick santorum, meanwhile, is heading home to binge-watch<u+00a0>"touched by an angel" on netflix.









on the<u+00a0>k<u+00fc>bler-ross model of grief, bernie sanders and donald trump are stuck on "denial" about the iowa results. (you might say that trump is on<u+00a0>"anger" but no, he's just<u+00a0>like that.) on the democratic side, the official results say hillary clinton edged sanders by 0.29%, one of the closest caucuses in iowa<u+00a0>history; still<u+00a0>team sanders is looking into how coin-flipping in some precincts<u+00a0>affected the ultimate outcome.<u+00a0>(one question still unanswered: if a coin landed on its edge, did those delegates go to martin o'malley?)









on the republican side, donald trump is calling for a complete do-over<u+00a0>based on ted cruz staffers<u+00a0>spreading rumors that ben carson was dropping out of the race, and encouraging cruz's precinct captains to try to lure carson supporters to their side. trump is insisting<u+00a0>actually won the caucuses based on his strong pre-debate poll numbers.









so why were the polls and caucus results different? experts are suggesting it was a strong get-out-the-vote effort by cruz, plus a number of last-minute deciders, plus the decline of land lines and the increase in cellphone use, which actually<u+00a0>makes a lot of sense because "sorry new phone who is this" was pulling in 8% support in late january.









there's another democratic debate tonight<u+00a0>(9 p.m. est on msnbc), this time with only hillary and bernie<u+00a0>on the stage. o'malley, who dropped out of the race following the iowa caucuses, will see no significant decrease in speaking time.









"but wait, this debate wasn't on the original schedule," said no normal person anywhere. it's true, this debate is one of four<u+00a0>added to the democratic debate schedule just as the race gets more heated.<u+00a0>yesterday the two campaigns argued over twitter about the definition of "progressive,"<u+00a0>a debate that spilled over into last night's town hall meeting in derry, new hampshire. the tl;dr version: sanders says clinton is too moderate<u+00a0>on military intervention, the financial industry and trade; clinton says compromise is needed because "(a)n<u+00a0>important part of being a progressive is making progress."<u+00a0>the fun part will be during the general election, when the democratic nominee will spend months telling the country how centrist and mainstream they are.









if the political gods formed a human<u+00a0>out of campaign contributions and sadness and then made it run for president, this is what it would look like.
for the record: iowa, why can't we quit you?
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