First Take on Iowa Caucuses

My laptop is acting up so I'll keep this short.

The votes are in and the winners are Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama. The Democrats will dominate the headlines with a black man winning an overwhelming white state and having over 230,000 voters participating. The Republican evangelical conservatives demonstrated their power within the Republican Party by turning out to vote for the Baptist preacher.

The big headline is Obama and the Democrats. It will be tough to stop him in New Hampshire and Clinton and Edwards need to find a place to win before February 5th. Obama also took advantage of the attention by giving the most polished speech I've ever seen this early in the process. He took advantage to spread his broad message to anyone who slipped into the news at 11 pm Eastern and 10 pm Central for a look at the winner. He appealed well beyond the next stop in New Hampshire, but made sure he had a few references aimed at the first primary in the nation. It was a very smart move from an campaign that must now deal with the slings and arrows of frontrunner status.