Opinion : Those Dang Russians, there they go messing with our elections again

Have you ever planned for months and months, saved your pennies, nickels and dimes, packed your bags and headed down the road for your vacation, arrived and then decided to just drive on by?

That's kind of what happened last night with the Iowa caucuses.

The Democrat candidates dumped millions of dollars into Iowa's economy, spent all their time here counting on, well, people counting, only to discover that they were ripped off.

In exactly one week, the New Hampshire primary will take place.

One week for candidates to start from scratch. The idea behind Iowa being first in the nation is to sort through the candidates and give the winners a boost as they move forward in their campaigns.

I imagine that somewhere in Des Moines the Democrat leaders are all sitting on the floor removing their shoes so that they can use their fingers and toes to count up the results of the caucus which ended in the precinct I attended 12 hours ago. At least, that's what it feels like.

For almost 50 years, since 1972, Iowa has held the "first in the nation" presidential contest.

For the first time, we stand to lose that distinction because the Democrats had an epic failure on caucus night.

No doubt, heads will roll. No doubt there have been major meltdowns. No doubt there have been tears.

There's also no doubt that there is no excuse for this.

You had one job, count the votes and release the numbers.

That's all.

It's not that difficult.

Releasing what you have is better than nothing.

It's no doubt a glitch in the computer programs set up to tabulate the winners.

Before rolling out a program, you test, test, test, test, test. ESPECIALLY when the world is watching.

Or it's easier to blame it on inconsistencies in reporting.

We don't even have hanging chads in this case. (For those too young to remember, I believe that was the George Bush and Al Gore fiasco)

Perhaps the changes made in the way the caucus was conducted or the data collected was the cause of the huge debacle. Who really knows. Perhaps something that should have been considered when it was a Presidential election year.

There are already talks of Iowa losing our first in the nation position.

That means a huge loss of income to the state.

A loss in advertising dollars, a loss in hotel stays for candidates, loss to restaurant income from campaigns and press. It means a loss of free advertising for the state.

Most importantly it gives Iowa a bad name, it's sloppy work.

Ultimately the blame can only land in one place.

It really means that it was an epic failure on the part of the Iowa Democrat party leadership.

It's embarrassing to be from Iowa today.

It's frustrating to have spent the last year campaigning in Iowa if you're a candidate putting all of your eggs in one basket, only to find out that someone dropped the basket.

For the sake of the history books, if Iowa loses our first in the nation caucus status, remember where the blame lies. It wasn't with Trump or some Russian collusion. It wasn't even Facebook ads that influenced the election.

It was the incompetence of Democrat leaders, right here in Iowa.