WASHINGTON, 5 January 2008 — Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee registered stunning victories in their parties’ Iowa presidential preference caucuses — upsets unimaginable for either man just a few months ago.
One is the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas who entered the US Senate just two years ago. The other is a Baptist minister who is best known for losing over 100 pounds and tackling the issue of childhood obesity.
Obama’s sweep to victory in the Iowa caucuses Thursday night pushed Hillary Rodham Clinton to third place and helped give him a major step forward in a historic bid to become the nation’s first black president.
Huckabee rode a wave of support from Evangelical Christians to win the opening round among Republicans in the 2008 campaign for the White House.
Their win in Iowa left both parties suddenly without a clear path to their nominating conventions, let alone the November presidency.
Obama, 46 and a first-term senator from Illinois, told a raucous victory rally that his triumph showed that in “big cities and small towns, you came together to say, ‘We are one nation, we are one people and our time for change has come’.”
With all precincts reporting, Obama had 37.6 percent of the vote in the complicated caucus process, compared with 29.7 percent for former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and 29.5 percent for Hillary, the former first lady. Huckabee with 34.3 percent celebrated his own victory over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 25.3 percent and a crowded Republican field. “A new day is needed in American politics, just like a new day is needed in American government,” Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, told cheering supporters. “It starts here but it doesn’t end here. It goes all the way through the other states and ends at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
After spending nine months near the bottom of the pack, and despite a barrage of negative ads from Romney’s methodically built and well-financed operation, Huckabee surged to become the front-runner in Iowa in December, and never lost his position.
The Iowa GOP contest between Romney and Huckabee was dominated by the issue of immigration and the spectacle of a Baptist minister taking on a Mormon in a state with a large population of Evangelical Christians.
Victories of Obama and Huckabee came after the longest, costliest and most intensely fought campaign in the history of the Iowa caucuses.
The yearlong competition produced a huge turnout that reflected the energy and enthusiasm among Democratic voters determined to recapture the White House in November.
As the 2008 presidential candidates made their quick pivot into New Hampshire, where a presidential primary will be held next Tuesday, residents there have already been inundated with negative messages from campaigns and outside groups hoping to sway the primary’s outcome. The atmosphere there is expected to be more intense than in Iowa, with passionate opinions from labor unions and other outside political groups jamming phone lines and stuffing mailboxes.
Obama has resisted responding to personal attacks against him. He took some jabs at Hillary over her foreign policy and her waffling on such issues as Iran, social security and driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, but the Obama camp has avoided outright attacks over the airwaves, like those that dominated the closing weeks of the Republican campaign.
With his win last night, Obama became the first African-American candidate in either party to win the first-in-the-nation balloting. Obama went to a state of three million people, just 2 1/2 percent of whom are black, and cleaned up.
“A young, 46-year-old black man, with a black family, before an all-white crowd, hailing his victory — that’s a remarkable image,” said Rep. Artur Davis, D-Alabama, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and an Obama supporter.
Obama said his message of hope and change resonated with young people and sparked record numbers to help propel him past front-runner Hillary to win Iowa’s Democratic caucus.
Obama said there had been skepticism that many people would actually participate in the caucus. But lots of young people, independents and even Republicans did take part, helping him win. “So it really was a victory for the people of Iowa,” Obama told reporters on a flight from Iowa to New Hampshire.
As tight as the race in Iowa was, it will be no easier in New Hampshire. Obama is neck and neck in polls there with Hillary who, despite her third place finish in Iowa, has the resources to confront him head-on. Will Obama, like Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, use his Iowa victory to catapult himself to victory in New Hampshire? Or will Hillary manufacture a turnaround like her husband did in 1992?
Huckabee faces even bigger questions. He has hardly campaigned in New Hampshire where a Republican contest is already in a dead heat between Romney and John McCain. He enters the state with little money and little time to mount an adequate come-from-behind surge.
