[Dr. Sivana]

It was a better bang for his buck compared to Cruz who spend 2 years and huge amounts of money for 4 percent win.

In a way, Trump has spent 30 years developing and projecting a persona that gave him a huge head start in name recognition. People already know who Donald Trump is, outaside of wonks like us and our nemeses at DU and maybe high-information voters in Texas, Ted Cruz was an unknown.

Trump's persona earned him unbelieveable gobs of free media exposure, mostly positive, at least to anti-Obama, anti-establishment types.

Trump has also framed the debate, forcing a spotlight on illegal immigration, which Pat Buchanan and Tom Tancredo failed in doing, and Bush, McCain and Romney had no interest in doing. So in that way, he is already a winner. He has tied John Ellis Bush in particular and the Establishment/consultant class generally in knots.

Despite the friction in the time before the caucus, I (a Cruz supporter) appreciate that Trump created breathing room for Cruz to succeed, and has also helped create a media environment where if Cruz fights back, he's not the only one, because Trump does it louder and has the means to hurt his opponents that Cruz does not have, because Cruz did not invest 30 years in building that persona.

Trump is not my first choice, but I do believe he loves our country, and the election is better thanks to his role in it.

[napscoordinator]

In some way you are right as far as exposure but Iowa was a tough sell for Donald Trump even with notoriety. I actually think this is good. With Hillary expecting a coronation, I actually thought that Trump was going to get one to and that really isn't good. So now Trump has to work for the nomination instead of it being handed to him. I think that is good for everyone. If Trump would have won last night, the primary would have been over and really the more debates and especially answers that Trump will have to give will just make him stronger in the end which is good for all of us.