What Iowa Means

Obama wins, Edwards squeaks past Clinton for second. Not what I had hoped for, or expected, but much better new than I truly feared. The worst result for Democrats, in my opinion, would have been a Clinton win, confirming her front-runner status and solidifying the facade of inevitability she has worked so hard to create, and which has been slipping of late. Biden and Dodd are calling it a day. Don’t ask me why Gravel and Kucinich aren’t. I guess Richardson thinks he can build on his 2%… stranger things have happened.

This outcome confirms that Obama can play in Des Moines (we already knew he could play in Peoria, after all…) and that Edwards has surprising strength and appeal. It also confirms that Clinton is not inevitable and can be beaten. Keeping her from the nomination is still a tall order, however. No one should be fooling themselves that this means Clinton is done. Far from it.

She has the resources, name, key backers, and broad support (even if much of it is, in my view, soft and untested) to pull out the nomination in Tsunami Tuesday even if she sustains some losses early on. Placing third in Iowa certainly turns up the expectations that she must make a strong showing somewhere else. New Hampshire is the obvious place to turn things around, but it is still a very small state. What she needs is a win in a good-sized state where she would not be expected to perform very well – South Carolina would be an ideal place for her to win to show her strength.

The only way she is going to be severely crippled is if she can be prevented from scoring a win in all, or most, the early primaries. She needs to lose New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina, and especially Florida in order to ensure that she can’t sweep the delegates of the Tsunami. She might safely win one contest, perhaps, but any more starts to look like regathering momentum.

She is still the nominee of the Democratic Party establishment, and it will take some doing to claw the nomination out of their grasp. Perhaps the most important state in the Democratic primary now becomes Florida, despite its lack of delegates.

Neither Michigan or Florida will determine any delegates, but Florida’s size still makes a strong statement, and it is the first state on the calendar that is truly a swing state, not to mention its position as a preliminary to the Tsunami. In all, Florida is an absolute ‘can’t lose’ for Clinton. All the campaigns are already violating the spirit of the pledge by the Trioka not to campaign in non-compliant states with their shadow campaigns in Florida, but if Clinton doesn’t win in New Hampshire or Nevada and begins to look soft in Florida polling, I would guess that she’ll discard the pledge. If she can line up wins in South Carolina and Florida back to back, any earlier glitches can be easily spun down.

I expect that Obama, as well as Edwards, will get bumps in the national polls from Iowa. It will be interesting to see how polling in New Hampshire is affected by Clinton’s 3rd place finish. I don’t think she’ll lose much ground, but it could be enough to put her in second place to Obama there as well, and then the whispers of upset will start to get too loud to ignore.

In any case, I expect the gloves will start to seriously come off now and the lady is going to start showing her fangs more often over the coming week. Considering how badly her attempts at hardball have gone over in recent weeks, that has to be cause for celebration. Turns out those political infighting skills honed in the back offices of the White House don’t look so pretty in the full glare of a national campaign.

Remember that Iowa is only a fair predictor of the ultimate winner of the nominee of either party, but this is certainly a solid reason for Obama supporters to be very encouraged that he has what it takes to actually capture the nomination and upset the conventional wisdom in a astounding manner. I wouldn’t start picking out his cabinet yet, though.

Just in case you care:

Those GOPers in Iowa are crazy as bedbugs. Ain’t no way Huckabee is going to be the nominee unless gun-totin’ abortion doctor assassins take out all the other nominees. Though, I suppose that could happen…

Ron Paul’s 10% showing certainly beats expectations and keeps him firmly in the race and messing up the GOP fascist consensus – Go Paul! Duncan Hunter proves you can’t run on anti-immigrant hysteria alone – even in the GOP. Fred Thompson’s showing is almost as surprising as Paul’s. Next thing you know, Thompson will threated to quit unless he wins New Hampshire – and he will! As for Giuliani, those Iowans can sniff out an asshole from a mile away, even if they can’t smell a nut right under their noses. Go figure.