Donald Trump faces his Iowa test

Jane Sanders, wife of Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, speaks to supporters during an event in Fort Madison, Iowa, U.S., on Friday, Jan. 29, 2016.

Obama’s 2008 campaign achieved an incredibly hard balance, making an orderly organization out of the pragmatic and the pissed-off alike. His solutions are not radical, but, seen historically, are the unfinished business of the New Deal started by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I contributed to the speech announcing his candidacy, and, every other week, I hung out at his campaign headquarters in Boston.

“He’s provided enthusiasm and excitement like nobody else”, said pollster John Zogby, who written two books about millennial voters and said that they are drawn to Sanders’ integrity and belief that government could improve their lives and long-ignored problems.

But the $100 million that campaigns and super PACs are spending in Iowa is terrific for their state’s economy, and if those citizens’ unrepresentative demographic has been arbitrarily elevated by party hacks and media elites to a sacred status, well, who could refuse an offer like that? “And I’m not going to politicize that issue”.

Sanders, above all, has been consistent in his values and message for years.

Or one could take three and leave the other person only one.

With polls showing Sanders in a nail-biter with frontrunner Hillary Clinton, the Vermont candidate earned cheers from the more than 1,700 who packed a Des Moines gym with promises of a massive federal jobs program, an expansion of health insurance, tuition-free public higher education and a new infusion of funding for infrastructure projects.

At the same time, what a bonanza it’s been for the state’s TV and radio stations, which have raked in tens of millions of dollars in attack ads, and what a bordello it’s been for the billionaires and special interests who’ve anonymously funded those air wars. He gives voice to it.

Pastor Joshua Nink, right, prays for Republican presidential… “You can’t run a country that way”.

Most of the time, candidates use activists who are respected in their communities to stand up and persuade voters to back their candidate. “We can’t roll the dice”, he said.

“I think people are getting exhausted of the old ways and looking for some real change”, said college junior Jonathan Rudnick. “And be president of the United States?” he said.

“He’s saying one thing to a group of folks in Marshalltown (Iowa), something totally different to a group of folks in Manhattan”, said Huckabee spokesman Hogan Gidley.

Perhaps even more important than skills and software, the insurgents have been emboldened with the audacity to think they can win. It means we have to help people. People between age 18 to 33 have not lived in easy times, he began. “I haven’t totally decided”, said Charlie Weber.

Trump and Cruz are both trying to portray themselves as political outsiders. Voters older than 65 prefer Clinton by a mirror-opposite 65-27. “And there were the same criticisms”.

“If it snows on Monday, you go through the snow – you’re from Iowa”, he said to laughs and cheers from the crowd. Hart’s second-place finish in Iowa led to a stunning win in New Hampshire.

This year it’s likely that supporters of Martin O’ Malley, scraping along at low single-digits in the polls, will struggle at many caucus meetings to form a “viable” coalition. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., smiles as he arrives a campaign rally, on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016, in Waterloo, Iowa.

Appearing with evangelist Jerry Falwell Jr.at a Davenport, Iowa, town hall event, Trump said he was happier that he was connecting with evangelicals than he was leading the new poll.

After many months of up close and personal attention, the end is near. And that revolution is now.

That history also fuels the contempt he expresses for the current economy politics, but especially for the current foreign policies under President Barack Obama’s administration, and by proxy, those of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, Obama’s former secretary of state. He is the author of “Count My Vote: A Citizen’s Guide to Voting” (AlterNet Books, 2008).