Okay, so my predictions were mostly wrong, but there were a lot of genuine shockers last night.
Obama – Despite any pre-caucus polls predicting a victory, his win was a remarkable achievement. I’m still shocked that he was able to drag his coalition of young people and undecideds to the caucuses.
Amazing speech, but I’m still leaning towards…
John Edwards – A strong finish, but he wasn’t able to sneak up the middle between Obama and Clinton. His campaign gambled so much on Iowa that even with a strong second place finish the lack of a win pretty much ends his campaign. He’ll definitely try to use his victory over Clinton to gain some momentum going into New Hampshire, but Edwards’ chances of winning are all but dead. With Obama’s victory, I thin Edwards is going to start bleeding support, which will be more bad news for…
Hillary Clinton – Yikes. What a disaster. Front runners aren’t supposed to come in third place in a two-person race. Though Edwards beat her by a hair, a mathematical fluke adds insult to injury by making her loss seem worse at first glance, even though there aren’t that many delegates between the 29% and 30% showings of Clinton and Edwards. She needs to destroy Obama to regain her footing, but Obama’s got the momentum now and doesn’t have to worry about retooling his campaign strategy in the next four days. To be honest, I’m relieved to see her lose because I think she’d have the hardest time beating…
Mike Huckabee – It was an easy call, but I still can’t see him winning the nomination. The campaign against Huckabee by the GOP establishment is going to be nasty and he doesn’t have the rural, conservative voters to fall back on in New Hampshire. It was easy to see why Iowa Republicans preferred his folksy personality to the robotic Ward Cleaver of the race…
Mitt Romney – He did better than I expected, but considering the amount of money he’s sunk into this race, his loss was a huge blow. I could still see him turning things around in NH, but mostly because the Republican establishment wants a candidate who won’t rock the boat and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be…
John McCain – He should have been the “not one of those religious nuts” candidate, but couldn’t catch up in time. I predicted he would win mostly because I expected a bigger loss by Romney and never in a million years would have guessed that McCain would be splitting the “not a front-runner” support with a surge from….
Fred Thompson – Where the hell did that come from? Were the second rounds in the caucuses filled with people saying “He’s an actor like Reagan!”. Very weird. Speaking of weird…
Ron Paul – Impressive finish. He even kicked Rudy’s ass. When I saw that he came in fifth place, the first thing I thought of was Joe Lieberman’s boast that he was in a “three-way tie for third place”. So it looks like Paul’s got some “Joementum” now.