Huckabee and Obama Take Iowa by Storm!

Today's results in Iowa shouldn't be surprising, at least not if one trusts public opinion tracking polls.

Still, the victories for Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama are startling, given the come-from-behind triumph for the former Arkansas governor, and the taking-on-Goliath feel to Obama's win over Hillary Clinton.

Adam Nagourney, over at the New York Times, takes a look at the Iowa results from this perspective:

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a first-term Democratic senator trying to become the nation’s first African-American president, rolled to victory in the Iowa caucuses on Thursday night, lifted by a record turnout of voters who embraced his promise of change.

The victory by Mr. Obama, 46, amounted to a startling setback for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, 60, of New York, who just months ago appeared to be the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. The result left uncertain the prospects for John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, who had staked his second bid for the White House on winning Iowa.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards, who appeared to edge her out for second place, both vowed to stay in the race.

“They said this day would never come,” Mr. Obama said as he claimed his victory.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who was barely a blip on the national scene just two months ago, defeated Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, delivering a serious setback to Mr. Romney’s high-spending campaign and putting pressure on Mr. Romney to win in New Hampshire next Tuesday.

Mr. Huckabee, a Baptist minister, was carried in large part by evangelical voters, who helped him withstand extensive spending by Mr. Romney on television advertising and a get-out-the-vote effort.

“Tonight we proved that American politics is still in the hands of ordinary folks like you,” said Mr. Huckabee, who ran on a platform that combined economic populism with an appeal to social conservatives.

Mr. Huckabee won with 34.4 percent of the delegate support, after 86 percent of precincts had reported. Mr. Romney had 25.4 percent, former Senator Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee had 13.4 percent and Senator John McCain of Arizona had 13.2 percent.

On the Democratic side, with 99 percent of precincts reporting, Mr. Obama had 37.5 percent of the delegate support, Mr. Edwards 29.8 percent and Mrs. Clinton had 29.5 percent. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico was fourth, at 2.1 percent.

Two Democrats, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, dropped out of the race after winning only tiny percentages of the vote.

The first thing that strikes me when reading this account is how Nagourney notes how both Edwards and Clinton "vowed to stay in the race."

Hello!

Iowa helps build momentum, sure, but this election's still wide open by any definition of the phrase.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads in public opinion polls in New Hampshire and nationally (by a 22 point margin). Of course, Obama's win and the resulting "big mo" this weekend will certainly change some of these numbers, but it's way too early to call it a day for any of the top tier candidates. New Hampshire will be a real test for Clinton - if she doesn't win there I'd definitely argue her frontrunner inevitability throughout 2007 was the biggest campaign ruse since Howard Dean's screaming collapse in 2004.

On the Republican side, while the Huckabee win is pretty amazing - considering how recent his rise to the top tier has been - it's Romney's collapse that's probably the most astonishing development. Even more so than with Clinton, Romney's got to win New Hampshire next Tuesday (a neighboring state to Massachusetts, where Romney held the governor's mansion).

I think Fred Thompson's got to be relieved a bit by a third place showing, and for McCain to take over 13 percent of the vote nary an effort in the Hawkeye State may be one of the best performances of the night.

I'll have more analysis over the next couple of days.

Photo Credit: New York Times