By Brendan Loy
Obama is the clear Democratic winner in Iowa, with between 37 and 38 percent of the vote. Clinton and Edwards are in a dogfight for second, with just under 30 percent apiece. No one else got any significant support. Dodd, who earned a whopping 0% and one delegate to the state convention, and Joementum Biden (1%) are dropping out, according to CNN. You gotta think that Richardson (2%) will probably follow suit.
Obama is speaking now: "Thank you, Iowa. You know, they said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose. But on this January night, on this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do.
"You have done what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days. You have done what America can do in this new year, 2008. In lines that stretched around school and churches, in small towns and in big cities, you came together as Democrats, Republicans and independents, to stand up and say that we are one nation, we are one people, and our time for change has come!
"You said the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger that's consumed Washington, to end the political strategy that's been all about division and instead make it about addition, to build a political coalition that stretched through red states and blue states, because that's how we'll win in November, and that's how we'll finally beat the challenges that we face as a nation.
"We are choosing hope over fear. We are choosing unity over division and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America."
I gotta admit, I'm getting goose bumps listening to him. He's good. I feel like I'm watching something historic here.
The only bad news for Obama is that Edwards is still very much in the race, so this doesn't immediately boil down to Barack vs. Hillary, as he would prefer. But I think Obama's momentum is going to become an unstoppable freight train pretty quickly. If John Kerry -- John Kerry -- could seize the momentum of an Iowa win and translate it into an out-of-nowhere nationwide victory, Obama should have no problem doing the same. I bet he wraps up the nomination on Super Duper Tuesday, February 5.
UPDATE: Obama just finished talking. I haven't watched him on the stump much, but: wow. Like I said, he came across really, really well. Inspiring, even. He's got a little bit of the old-style black preacher in his voice, but without the divisiveness of Jackson, Sharpton, et al. in his message.
By the way, only 3 percent of the voters in Iowa were black. CNN analyst Roland Martin says "Iowa has never elected an African-American to anything." So this is huge for Obama.
P.S. David Gergen says Obama's victory speech was one of his best ever. "There were echoes of Martin Luther King of that speech." I thought the same thing.
UPDATE 2: I just e-mailed my parents the following:
Did you watch Obama's speech? I just caught it, having just woke up from a nap about 15 minutes before he spoke. I thought it was amazing. I'm a pretty cynical man, senator -- well, no, "cynical" isn't the right word, but I'm a political junkie, not easily swept off my feet by rhetoric -- but Obama was giving me goose bumps. I really felt like I was watching something historic, which is exactly the feeling he was trying to instill. Everything about the speech was perfect. Really a transcendent political moment.
Barring a major stumble in the next month, I think Obama's momentum very quickly becomes unstoppable -- if Kerry, with his limited political skills, could catapult to victory from early momentum, Obama certainly can -- and both Hillary and Edwards drop out of the race after an Obama near-sweep on Super Duper Tuesday. And unless McCain wins the GOP nomination, Obama becomes the first black president with relative ease. McCain is the only one who can make it a race (and possibly only if homeland security/foreign policy issues rear their ugly head due to "facts on the ground" between now and November).
P.S. If Huckabee wins the nomination (heaven help us), Obama wins in a Reagan-like landslide.
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