Lessons From Iowa

I realize the world has moved on to New Hampshire, but I’m just now getting to Iowa, so there. A few quick lessons we learned from Iowa.

First, the Republican side. Romney’s in trouble. Huckabee is very unlikely to win the nomination because there isn’t the same proportion of evangelicals in most of the more populous states that he needs to win to get the delegates required for the nomination. The evangelicals are the ones who gave Huckabee the win. It’s looking like Romney’s going to lose New Hampshire to McCain. If he does, this will give McCain a boost going into Michigan, which will further snowball, positively for McCain and negatively for Romney. Mitt needs to start donating to Fred Thompson’s campaign so he’ll stay in the campaign as long as possible. If Fred drops out, he is widely expected to endorse McCain; more bad news for Romney. Obviously, Mitt Romney’s not out of it yet, but I do think he’s more wounded then most people seem to. I think Giuliani’s out, but I could be wrong. His “National Campaign” strategy worked well until we got into the actual primaries. People want to go with a winner. Once the results start coming in from the early primary states where Giuliani is coming in fourth or fifth, people are going to start abandoning Giuliani, continuing his recent slide…

As for the Democrats, this is a big win for Obama. To go into a state with no appreciable black population and beat the Clinton machine is no small feat. I really think his win in Iowa will sweep him to the nomination. If he wins New Hampshire, which I think he will, Clinton is done. She won’t drop out, but she’s finished and the Clinton era is over. Honestly, there’s not much else to say about the Democrats. I really think Obama has just about sewed things up with his win in Iowa and his resultant surge.