Analysis of the Iowa Caucuses:
Barack Obama
A perfect night for the Obama campaign. He didn’t just squeak out a victory but took a commanding lead, leaving Clinton tangled up with Edwards in the battle for a distant second. Then there was the victory speech. Wow. Inspirational, confident, and even a bit defiant—the exact right mix to keep your troops energized and make undecideds want to jump on your bandwagon. The only question is if Obama’s victory was over-dependent on a youth vote that won’t necessarily show up at the polls in other states.
John Edwards
If he can’t win Iowa, where can he win? Edwards is destined for a string of second and third place finishes until he drops out. He took an interesting approach in his victory/concession speech last night—presenting Iowa as a win for his message if not for himself. (The title line comes from his speech.) Obama has a better chance of winning the nomination the longer Edwards stays in, and after listening to Edwards last night I wonder if that’s not Edwards’ entire strategy from this point out. He clearly has no love for Clinton.
Hillary Clinton
There are plenty of national frontrunners who have finished third place in Iowa, so don’t let the media convince you this is some huge embarrassment. Remember: six months ago, Clinton wasn’t suppose to win Iowa (Edwards was way ahead). But then her commanding performances in the debates and mastery on the campaign trail suddenly (and surprisingly) thrust her into the lead in the Hawkeye State. So the Clinton campaign changed its strategy and attempted to deliver a knockout blow to her competitors in the first two rounds, rather than crushing them on Feb. 5. Obviously, that plan backfired and her defeat in Iowa will be damaging. But Obama will have to win both NH and SC before he’s truly the frontrunner. If Clinton wins either one (and odds are she will), then she’ll remain in the dominate position to rake in delegates on Super Duper Tsunami Tuesday.
Bill Richardson
The Iowa Democratic Party’s peculiar rules requiring voters to name a second choice if their candidate doesn’t reach 15% in that particular caucus location makes Richardson’s fourth place finish look worse than it was—2% instead of the 7-9% support he actual had—but still. He’s not ever going to finish above fourth place in any state, except possibly New Mexico. It’s hard to see why he stays in the race except that he has enough money to do so.
Mike Huckabee
Was Mike Huckabee’s victory speech written by John Edwards? His unabashed populism has all the establishment Republicans running scared into the arms of Mitt Romney this morning. It’s great to see that at least 50% of Republicans are going to be deeply unease about whoever gets the nomination—Huckabee, Romney, or McCain. The good news for Huck is that Iowa was everything he could hope for and more. He thumped the competition. The bad news is that he’s nowhere in NH or MI, and Romney’s money and attack ads will work better in SC than they did in Iowa. By the way, have you ever heard a winning candidate from the incumbent party talk so desperately about change?
Mitt Romney
Spending that much time and money on a state and then losing is a real humiliation, but a big business New England Mormon was never a good fit for Iowa Republicans. And that’s the heart of Romney’s problem: his strongest demographic would be independents, moderates, and fiscal conservatives—but he is scared to death to reach out to them because the social conservatives already doesn’t trust him, and they’ve got the numbers to determine who wins. This leaves Romney without a base, without an identity, and completely without direction. New Hampshire and Michigan are much more to his liking, but the damage from Iowa may give McCain the edge in both states.
Fred Thompson
Do you think Fred Thompson is disappointed with third place? Not that he didn’t do better, but that he didn’t do worse so he could go ahead and drop out already? He’s headed for a sixth place finish in New Hampshire, and it doesn’t look like he has the money to last all the way until South Carolina—where he is looking at a humiliation anyway.
John McCain
There are still some precincts unreported at this point (what is wrong with the Republican Party up there?) so it’s not technically impossible that McCain slips into third place, he’s so close. But the media is treating him as the third place finisher, and that may be good enough to give him a bump in NH, especially if Romney is damaged.
The big surprise:
Iowa went for Bush in 2004, but twice as many voters showed up at the Democratic caucuses as the Republican one. If you look at the total number of votes cast yesterday, the results look like this:
24.5% Obama (D)
20.5% Edwards (D)
19.8% Clinton (D)
11.4% Huckabee (R)
- Rick Lewis
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