With nearly every candidate claiming some form of “VICTORY!” in Iowa without any hard numbers to look at, the inevitable blaming and finger-pointed has begun – and it’s pointing straight back at Hillary Clinton’s former campaign staffers.

Sure, there are those loons who are screaming “RUSSIA!” and “TRUMP!” But the honest truth is that those who guided Hillary Clinton through 2016 apparently had their fingers in the pie of the app that caused a massive meltdown last night.

The best part is that all the pompous jackasses who cheered when coal miners were told to “learn to code” should have taken their own advice. Ahh, karma, you cheeky bastard.

NEW statement from @iowademocrats — "While the app was recording data accurately, it was reporting out only partial data. We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in the reporting system." pic.twitter.com/kOXdcvggoe

— Maura Barrett (@MauraBarrettNBC) February 4, 2020

This app was developed by a company called Shadow, Inc. And Shadow’s board is comprised of a lot of Hillary campaign alumni. Shadow was created by a group called Acronym, which is supposedly a part of the Democrat digital campaign strategy (and has a spinoff super PAC, Pacronym, to combat the Trump digital presence). Gerard Niemira, Shadow’s CEO, was formerly COO of Acronym – and Hillary Clinton campaign’s former senior product manager.

Gerard Niemira is CEO of Shadow Inc. In 2015, he was senior product manager for Hillary Clinton's campaign, developing tools for field teams to contact voters. And in 2016, he was in charge of the tools used by volunteers.

He worked as an intern for Rep. Eliot Engel in 2005. pic.twitter.com/IMGqnIyWJa

— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 4, 2020

Acronym has one David Plouffe on its board. Yes, THAT David Plouffe, Obama’s former campaign manager. Shockingly, when put on the spot by Chris Hayes, David Plouffe tried to twist his way off the hot seat. Apparently, Plouffe just sits on the board and has never learned to code.

Chris Hayes asks David Plouffe about Acronym/Shadow: pic.twitter.com/bLIrKW2te0

— Matt Shuham (@mattshuham) February 4, 2020

The other interesting element about this Shadow/Acronym screwup is the Pete Buttigieg angle. The Buttigieg campaign has paid them some fair cash for “text messaging services,” but it turns out that a good chunk of Shadow has been on Team Pete for a while. Buttigieg is getting raked over the coals today with a #MayorCheat hashtag after all these connections to Shadow are being brought to light, and his speech to the crowd last night.

Buttigieg delivered a victory speech Monday night, despite no precincts reporting. “We don’t know all the results, but we know by the time it’s all said and done, Iowa, you have shocked the nation,” he told the crowd. “By all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.”

When asked how his campaign could declare victory without the official results in, Buttigieg during his CBS This Morning appearance Tuesday that his organization had the results, and added that the diverse voters that his campaign attracted marked a win to him.”

“We have the results from our organization. And if you look at what we were able to do, what happened last night, the fact that this campaign was able to gather support in urban, suburban, and rural communities alike, in counties that Hillary Clinton won, counties that Donald Trump won, we are thrilled and absolutely consider that a victory,” he said.”

This has been a disaster from start to finish. The Iowa Democratic Party is now claiming that about half the results will be out this evening (before the State of the Union), but every single campaign has been able to declare their own version of victory at this point, not just Buttigieg. And what’s worse? This same app is supposed to be used for the Nevada caucuses in just a few weeks! Can you just imagine the shitshow that awaits us all?

Look, campaigns are full of self-serving toadies that oversell their skill sets in order to put a job on their resume. It just is deliciously ironic that after years of screaming “Hillary won the popular vote, Russia Russia Russia!”, these former Hillary campaign staffers are now left holding the code on the app that was supposed to make sure the caucus votes were calculated correctly. And if they can’t do some fast quality control on this code and get some fixes done, Nevada is looking like a snowball at the top of a mountain right now.

UPDATE 3:30 PM ET
Nevada has said thanks, but no thanks, Shadow.

In a statement, state Democratic Party Chairman William McCurdy II promised that Nevada’s caucuses on February 22 will not be a repeat of Iowa’s.”

“We will not be employing the same app or vendor used in the Iowa caucus,” he said. “We had already developed a series of backups and redundant reporting systems, and are currently evaluating the best path forward.”

Next, the Nevada Democrat party should talk to Shadow about getting their money back. Same with the Iowa Democrats.

Featured image via Pixabay, Pixabay license