Iowa....Once Again Shaping A New Political Reality

By Joe Rothstein
Editor, USPolitics.einnews.com

January 4, 2008

Let's put things in perspective.

Barack Obama just won 18 delegates to the Democratic Party's national nominating convention. A total of 2025 are needed to become the party's presidential nominee. John Edwards just won 17 delegates. Hillary Clinton won 16.

On the Republican side, if Iowa apportions according to yesterday's vote, Mike Huckabee will get 14 delegates. Mitt Romney will get 10. John McCain and Fred Thompson will get 5 each. A total of 1191 delegates are needed to win the Republican presidential nomination.

The way people get nominated for president is to win the majority of delegate votes at national conventions. Measured against the number of delegate votes needed, what happened yesterday was a small blip on the scoreboard. Obama won 2 more delegates than Clinton. Huckabee won 4 more than Romney.

But Iowa happens to be in the center ring of a gigantic media circus. And so it becomes the main act, well beyond what all rationality and common sense would dictate.

And because of what happened yesterday, Dodd and Biden are dropping out of the race, Clinton and Edwards are being portrayed as being on the ropes, and Obama and Huckabee are seen as wunderkinds.

As in past years, media coverage of Iowa has shaped a new reality for the presidential race.

The most likely sequence of events now is for Obama to defeat Clinton in New Hampshire, and then again in South Carolina where black voters are energized for him as he chalks up victories. The service employees union, which will be a big factor in Nevada's caucuses, will probably endorse Obama now, giving him a big edge there.

Obama needs these wins to survive February 5 when New York, California, New Jersey and 17 other states vote. Clinton has been counting on this quasi-national primary to deliver a knock out punch. But if she staggers into February 5 after a string of defeats she could be the one who gets decked.

For Huckabee the road ahead does not seem promising. McCain and Romney should beat him in New Hampshire, and most likely in Michigan (January 15) and Nevada (January 19). He's likely to reach February 5 seeming more like one of the pack than king of the hill---and without the money to compete effectively in 20 states all on the same day.

If Romney had carried Iowa, and then New Hampshire and Michigan he might have run the table. Now the race for the Republican nomination looks more like a marathon than a sprint. Nothing happened in Iowa to discourage McCain or Thompson from campaigning on. And Ron Paul isn't going away, either. Giuliani should be a big factor on February 5.

Looking ahead, some interesting tea leaves can be read from the Iowa caucuses.

One of the most interesting is the generational gap on the Democratic side. One quarter of Iowa's Democratic caucus attendees were aged 17-29, and they voted 57-11 for Obama over Clinton. Going up a notch, those aged 30-44 chose Obama over Clinton 42-23. But voters 65 and older went for Clinton 45-22.

Twenty per cent of those voting at the Democratic caucuses were registered independents. They went for Obama 41-17.

Obama crushed his opposition in the change game. Fifty-two percent of those voting said the top candidate quality they were looking for was the ability to bring change. Obama got half their votes. Clinton got only 19%. She convinced voters that she was the most experienced candidate. Of those who thought experience was the most important candidate quality she won 49% of the vote to Obama's 5%. But only 20% of the Democrats voted on that basis.

And for all the talk that the Democrats in Iowa were desperate to nominate someone who could win in November, only 8% said that was the most important factor in their decision. And of those who did, Obama finished behind both Clinton and Edwards.

Republicans didn't vote for electability, either. Only 7% said it influenced their decision, and among those who did, Huckabee finished behind Romney and McCain.

Huckabee won the day among voters who believe he shares their values (45% of the total). He won 44% of their votes compared with 26% for Romney. McCain only scored 4% here.

For those basing their votes on finding a candidate they could trust to say what he believes, Huckabee won 33% of the vote. McCain, whose "Straight Talk Express" was the symbol of his 2000 campaign, won only 16% support from this group.

The independents (13% of the total) who voted in the Republican caucus preferred Ron Paul. Those who identified themselves as born again Christians (60% of the total), as advertised, supported Huckabee with 46% of their votes.

What do we learn from all this?

Given a multiplicity of choices, Iowa voters favored for president a black man with a strange name and an Arkansas preacher who doesn't believe in evolution.

By any measure, such decisions signal an electorate in a mood for dramatic change. If Washington experience were seen as a big asset, Biden and Dodd would still be in the race and Clinton would have won hands down. But the fact that Obama won the change battle, and not Edwards, tells us that Iowa voters think change should come through working together and not trench warfare. That message won't be missed as the primary election circus packs up and moves down the road.

Linn County Iowa's precinct 41 held its caucuses last night at Washington High School, Cedar Rapids. A total of 451 Democrats met in the cafeteria. Obama got 233 of their votes. Republicans, 206 of them, met in the school's auditorium. Romney beat Huckabee 82-21. For both parties, things went smoothly and uneventfully. Caucus attendees heard speeches, voted and went home. Not much fuss.

That's the way we all should be looking at Iowa. Not much fuss. A few delegate votes were decided out of thousands needed to nominate candidates for president.

But somehow we've reached a point where what those Iowans do in precinct 41, and 1781 Iowa precincts like them, shakes the political ground we tread. That's the reality. And we will live with it for the next four years.

Joe Rothstein, editor of US Politics Today, is a former daily newspaper editor and long-time national political strategist based in Washington, D.C.

See all previous articles by Joe Rothstein here.