Iowa is Over...

Well, almost.

At the moment about 94% of the precincts are reporting and Barack Obama is the clear Democratic winner with 37% of the vote. The Loser? Hillary looks set to come in third, about half a percentage point behind Edwards. In a state that borders Illinois, it's not surprising that Illinois Senator Obama had a small home field advantage. That doesn't account for a seven point victory. Obama clearly benefited from mobilizing new caucus goers. So the question becomes one of how much momentum her gains from this and whether he can keep bringing new participants to the caucus and primary process.

The last I looked, Hillary had a small lead in New Hampshire. And I believe NH is a winner-take-all state, unlike Iowa...

Iowa's Democratic Party uses the caucus process to pick delegates that go on to another caucus to vote on who to send to the nominating conventions. At the moment, CNN reckons that Obama will get 16 delegates sent on to the next level. Hillary will get 15 and Edwards 14, even though Edwards finished ahead of Hillary. Thus are the eccentricities of the system. there are 12 "super-delegates" that are uncommitted; so it's still anybody's guess ow tonight will effect the actual nominating process.

The GOP results seem to only be available through CNN. Even the GOP's Iowa Website doesn't seem to know how the vote is going. (The Iowa Democrats have had a very nice site updating numbers every 30 seconds since shortly after the caucuses started.)

Fred Thompson said that he needed to finish second in this race; he looks set to finish third, with McCain in fourth. But there's still about 15% of the GOP vote out and I'll probably go to bed before the count is complete.

And while the Dems seem to split their delegates, the GOP is closer to a winner-take-all format; Huckabbe, according to CNN, will get 37 of the 40 delegates from Iowa to the GOP nominating convention.

Giuliani is in last place; but considering he didn't really run in Iowa, that's no surprise. Ron Paul, in fifth, is probably the GOP's biggest loser; perhaps the hype about Paul will go away now...

When it Comes to It, Electability is the REAL Issue for Dems

Reuters is reporting that if the 2008 presidential election were held today and Hilary Clinton was the Democratic nominee, Rudy Giuliani could beat her.

So could Mitt Romney.

And John McCain. And Fred Thompson. And even Mike Huckabee.

I the same poll in July, people were unfamiliar enough with the most of the GOP candidates that Hilary would have won by a small margin. Not as big as the margin that Barack Obama or John Edwards would have won by, but she would have won. But people have had time to think about it.

The campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination has been about influence and money until now. Many Democratic women want a woman to be president. And Hilary is easily the most well connected of the candidates running for the Democratic nomination. Hillary has led until now. She still leads the other Democratic candidates in polls that ask Democrats who they plan to vote for.

There is a danger for the Democrats, a danger that they could lose sight of the real goal of the nominating process. The goal is not to find out who is most popular with other Democrats. The goal is to nominate a candidate who can become President. The concern has consistently been that Hillary Clinton may not be that person, regardless of her influence and popularity with the party.

The choices are really at the party level:

• Almost every Democrat wants universal health care administered by the Federal government; almost every Republican believes that it can be left in the hands of private insurance companies and employers.
  
• Almost every Democrat wants to get out of Iraq; almost every Republican want to stay in Iraq.
  
• Almost every Republican wants to privatize social security and reduce benefits for future generations; almost every Democrat wants to extend the payroll tax so that the wealthiest one or two percent of Americans pay that tax on all (or at least most) of their incomes (like the rest of us) so that we can fund the system as it currently exists in the future.
  
• Almost all Democrats are pro-choice; almost all Republicans are pro-life.
  
• Almost all Republicans want to take our education system toward government financed private education; almost all Democrats want to strengthen public education and repeal many aspects of the disastrous No Child Left Behind law.
  
• Almost all Democrats want to simplify the tax code and make it more progressive; almost all Republicans want to simplify the tax code and make it less progressive (or do away with it and replace it with a federal sales tax).
  

So take your pick. Do you want a Republican or a Democrat in the White House in 2008. If your answer is that you want a Democrat, that person is probably not Hillary. And if we nominate her, there's a good chance that we will end up with eight more years of George Bush's policies and a President name Mitt or Fred....

Leading in Iowa: John Edwards

John Edwards is the Democratic Party's frontrunner in Iowa, according to a recent poll by the Des Moines Sunday Register. A win in Iowa could move Edwards up in the polls nationally. But the Iowa Caucuses are still about eight months away.

At the moment, 29% of likely voters in Iowa would vote for Edwards. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is second with 23% and Hillary Clinton is in third place with 21% of the vote.