So we have our first round winners - Mike Huckabee, former Governor of Arkansas and Baptist Minister, and Barack Obama, Senator from Illinois and the first African-American who has a serious chance of grabbing the nomination (with apologies to Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Alan Keyes.)
I'm listening to Larry King Live right now, and it's funny that pundits are now talking about 'cold showers' about the real effect of Iowa on the nomination contest - 'this is just the beginning' and seeing the candidates who under-performed start talking that way too. It's also the time when under-performing candidates attempt to spin their defeat into some sort of win (looking at you, Romney.) Let's take a brief look at the numbers and then engage in a little review of the results.
DEMOCRATS
Barack Obama - 38% - As I said yesterday, having pulled off a win in the Iowa Caucus, Obama has a chance of doing it. The sheen has been taken off Clinton's inevitability, and perceptions matter a lot (particularly how the MainSteam Media MSM reports them). He won big amongst voters claiming that change was the most important factor in how they voted - smashing the Clinton strategy to paint herself as the candidate most able to bring change because of her experience. Let's be clear, it's still a long way for Obama to go to get the nomination, he has yet to overcome Clinton's national front-runner status, however this was the best first step he could have possibly hoped for to achieve that. There's nothing inevitable about this, but Obama *could* pull it off.
John Edwards - 30% - Whether he can translate his second place into New Hampshire and future states remains to be seen. He has essentially been campaigning in Iowa for six years, since he started running for the 2004 nomination, and has retained significant organisational strength in Iowa throughout that whole period. It is strength that he hasn't shown in other states, so it's even tougher for Edwards to go from this to the nomination than for Obama. I think Edwards is going to place a hard-fought third place at the end of the contest, just for the reason that he's going to be swamped by the Obama/Clinton, first African American, first woman contest.
Hillary Clinton - 29% - A close third, but third nonetheless. Wow, I know a lot of the talking heads were discussing this possibility, but I thought they were just filling air-time with pointless 'What If?' exercises to cash their paychecks. But apparently it's come true. The Clinton nomination is now no longer inevitable, that's for sure. It's not all bad for the Clinton camp though, as already discussed, because let's not put too much weight on the Iowa results. She still leads in the national polls, and come February 5th she may have the kind of resurgence Giuliani is hoping for, at which point we'll write these early contests into the same categories as former Iowa upsets. She can come back if she wins New Hampshire. If she comes second or below there, though, then it could be a real race. Of all the post-caucus reactions, the Clinton campaign's has been the stupidest of the Democrats - painting it as though she was the underdog who couldn't overcome the front-runners. What a load of hokey.
Bill Richardson - 2% - He's staying in it until New Hampshire, but it's basically over for Richardson. He came fourth, but that's not saying much looking at the percentages.
Joe Biden and Chris Dodd - Both candidates have withdrawn in the hours after the caucus results have become known. It's a shame that neither of these candidates were allowed more air time, because I liked both of them, particularly Biden, but in a field of excellent candidates the good candidates become Joe Biden and Chris Dodd.
Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel - Zero for both. Nothing of anything, but no word from either campaign as to their future.
REPUBLICANS
Mike Huckabee - 34% - First place and convincingly so. Huckabee came first despite being enormously out-spent by Mitt Romney. Some momentum probably comes from this, I think, but are we seriously looking at a Huckabee nomination? I'm not sure. He moves into New Hampshire, where his main support core in Iowa, religious voters, play far less of a role. He probably won't win New Hampshire, and after that it comes down to South Carolina. That's where Huckabee needs to do well again in order to retain a serious contender for nomination. He's setting himself up well for a VP ticket as VP candidate to everyone except Romney. I doubt Huckabee would even support Romney if he received the nomination.
Mitt Romney - 25% - Silver is disappointing for Romney. His post-caucus reaction was the stupidest in the Republican field, and probably the stupidest of the field as a whole. After having spent millions upon millions of dollars, and having been the presumptive favorite since May in Iowa, he claims that it was a big deal to come second considering when he entered the face he was fighting 'household names' Giuliani, McCain and Thompson. Maybe if the vote had been held in April. But now it's January. He has to win in New Hampshire to remain a serious contender, and his national poll ratings are still pretty terrible. For that reason, I don't think Romney will win nomination, and I hope he gets beaten come next Tuesday.
Fred Thompson - 13% - Enough to stay alive, but he lacks the spark to translate into anything more than a third place candidate. His campaign isn't resurgent, insurgent, front runner or underdog. It doesn't have any of those narratives, and so it's poll movements have only a small hope of change. He's not got long left in this contest.
John McCain - 13% - John McCain on the other hand, has a resurgent theme to his campaign. He came joint third with Thompson, having been written off as a candidate in the summer and also having not put in much effort in Iowa. New Hampshire is where the McCain campaign is made or broken, though. He needs to come first to truly be resurgent and not just performing better than expected. More about McCain later.
Ron Paul - 10% - He's going to be in this race at least until February 5th. He has enough people who vociferously support him that he'll always be a player in these contests, though not a big one (as I explained yesterday.) But he's never going to do much better than that.
Rudy Giuliani - 4% - Yes, his strategy does not include Iowa, but counts upon the compressed calender to not allow time for Iowa insurgents to overcome his February 5th firewall. He expects to win big on February 5th and take many if not most of the delegates, to sweep him to nomination. He may just do it as well, but for now noone's talking about Giuliani and that's a small problem, because if he gets shut out of coverage he slips to the back of voters' minds and they may start considering alternatives. But we'll see. Giuliani is definitely testing the conventional primary wisdom with his strategy, but we'll have to wait until February to see how successful it is (and it may shake up primary dynamics for future contests in the same way that Jimmy Carter did for that primary contest paradigm in 1976.)
Duncan Hunter - 1% - He's staying in the race, but who knows why? Oh, that's right, publicity.
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