Obama Wins in Clinton County

OK, maybe that title is too clever by half. I'll try not to gloat.
The truth is, in Clinton County Iowa, Obama took 37% of the vote to Clinton's 33%.

Symbolic? Maybe.

Although the Clinton camp will try and trample on this victory in the next few days... they have to in order to salvage a prayer of winning New Hampshire, there are a few salient figures that should be mentioned.

1) Turn out - It is possible that turn out could be up as much as 85% as compared to 2004. Possibly 230,000 Democrats, Independents, and Republicans caucused as Democrats tonight handed Obama his victory. If this can be maintained in the general, this is a game changing strategy and will put half of the red states in play against the Republicans.

2) Women - Despite Hillary's appeal to older women, women as a whole supported Obama by 57%.

3) Young People - There was a youth vote this year, and it supported Obama by 46% to 17% for Hillary

4) Independents - 20% of the turn out were independent voters and without them, Obama's win would be only a point or two.

Together, these facts not only destroy the Clintonian claim of inevitability, but also to electability. Obama now clearly owns the electability crown. Through solid political organizing techniques that he honed as an organizer in the streets of Chicago, he is well on his way to winning this thing.

This is a historic day for American Politics. The final Iowa results are

Obama - 38%
Edwards - 30%
Clinton - 29%

My prediction some weeks ago was not that far off. I predicted the correct order of candidates, but the bunching of Clinton and Edwards is tighter than I thought it would be. Obama's win was also larger than I thought it would be.

An African American is now the leading contender to win the Presidency of the United States.