In running through the Iowa results by county (map here, alphabetical list here), it's clear Obama outdid Hillary the most in the more densely populated urban areas like those around Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Davenport. Comparing the counties where the vote numbers were in the thousands, like Johnson and Black Hawk, to Iowa as a whole using census results, there's some interesting numbers which could be bad news for Hillary in South Carolina -- an early voting state the media keeps saying will turn on the African American vote.

Iowa is mostly white, 95%. But the counties with thousands of voters and in which Obama trounced Hillary have higher percentages of non-white voters and fewer older voters.

For example, according to the census reports:

• Black Hawk County with 126,000 people is 8.1 percent African-American compared to the state wide African-American population of 2.1 %. It's white populaton is 89% compared to 94.6% state wide. 13.7% live below the poverty line (compared with 10.5% state wide). In yesterday's caucus vote, Black Hawk went 43% for Obama and only 28% for Hillary. Edwards came in third with 27%.

More....

I am not sure if this is for real or not but it does point to one of the biggest problems the Hillary Clinton campaign has - Mark Penn.

Instead of taking the obvious opening on the partisan Dem front, the Mark Penn contingent of the Hillary Clinton campaign apparently wants Hillary to attack Obama from the right. Not only would that be engaging in Right Wing politics, it is immensely stupid politics. In case Mark Penn does not know this, Hillary is running in a Democratic primary. Obama's vulnerability is with Democratic partisans.

As far as I can tell, these stupid tactics did not seep into Hillary's own campaigning or in any official campaign statements. It was just offered in background discussions with reporters. But that is bad enough.

If people are looking for a good reason to oppose Hillary, the association of Mark Penn with her campaign is as good a reason as any. He is horrible. He is bad for Democratic values. He is a terrible political consultant. His demise in the political world will be a good thing for Democratic politics.

Barack Obama got more of the vote in Iowa, but he didn't get much of a delegate bump. The delegate numbers work out to be:

• Obama 16
• Hillary 15
• Edwards 14

By contrast, Huckabee's Iowa vote win also translated into a big delegate win:

• Huckabee 30
• Romney 7

John Edwards has been touting his victory over Hillary today. The actual vote tally, with 100% of Iowa precincts reporting, shows he got more votes than her but by percentages:

• Edwards 29.7%
• Clinton 29.5%

I thought anything over .5% got rounded to the next number. Why aren't both Edwards and Hillary at 30%?

Comparing the Iowa county vote maps (same link as above, scroll down) it looks to me like both Hillary and Edwards had deep pockets of support in geographic areas -- they each won a lot of counties -- while Obama's support,although he won more counties than the other two individually, was more scattered around the state and included the more largely populated areas around Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Davenport. (Alphabetical county list with vote tally here.) The Republican map on the other hand shows Huckabee decimated Romney all over the state, with the exception of a pocket on the east and west side of the state.

I don't think Obama ran away with Iowa. Hillary and Edwards did really well and if you put their numbers together, they surpass Obama's. Obama won, to be sure, but it's far from a mandate or a landslide like Huckabee got. And he did it without second choice voters like the Dems allowed.

Kevin Drum explains it well:

As long as we're laying our cards on the table, this is one of the things that keeps me on Hillary's side regardless of anything to do with issues or tactics or rhetoric or anything else. I just hate the idea that the fever swamp has been able to turn a perfectly decent liberal woman into such an object of malign loathing. If she loses, then she loses. But by God, I don't want her to lose because millions of Schiffren's fellow travelers have carried on a 15-year vendetta of sick-minded smears and hatred. Enough's enough.

Be against Hillary. Criticize her stances, actions and political style. But by gawd, the libelous things that get said about her, not just by Republicans, but by Democrats and especially, by the Media (See Tweety) just set my teeth on edge.

It is terrible that she will be defeated because of this. I did not want her to win for many reasons. Most of them due to her cautious approach to politics. But that is not why she is going to lose. It will be due to just plain untruths. And that is not right.

I know I am boring everyone to death with this but here is Ezra on Obama's stump speech in New Hampshire on the theory of change:

Spent the morning at an Obama rally in Concord. It was the first time in awhile that I've seen his stump speech, and it's much improved since my last exposure. There are long passages devoted to the sorts of criticisms I and others have made of his theories of change, and he now speaks much more concretely of a Mark Schmitt like approach: Occupying the moral high ground of unity and constructive outreach, converting individuals open to persuasion, and using those advantages to battle interests intent on protecting their privilege. The insurance, pharmaceutical, and oil industries get called out by name, as groups who Obama is aware will "protect their profits." He argues, explicitly, that we need to expand our public numbers to overwhelm such private intransigence. For those skeptical of the rhetoric of unity, it's a much more confidence inspiring stump.

Anyone know if the new stump speech is on YouTube somewhere? I'd love to see it. I have two observations on Ezra's observations.

[More....]

Nathan Newman writes:

My worry is whether [Obama] is really mobilizing them on the content of his substantive message or just the vagueness of "change" in a time when people are angry and distressed. I'm not annoyed like some at his "post-partisanship" message, since the best way to build a big partisan majority is to assert this kind of non-partisan inclusiveness. No, the concern is that the ideas and policies filling his "change" message actually connect with people beyond momentary distress to shape a real analysis of what's wrong with the nation.

I am not sure I understand or agree with Nathan's distinctions here between message and partisanship. I believe that the way to make substantive change in policy is to get folks to agree with your message and policy by voting for you and your political party.

[More...]

Via Atrios and Kevin Drum, Charlie Peters argues Obama knows how to enact progressive policies:

Consider a bill into which Obama clearly put his heart and soul. The problem he wanted to address was that too many confessions, rather than being voluntary, were coerced — by beating the daylights out of the accused....The bill itself aroused immediate opposition. ....He responded with an all-out campaign of cajolery....The police proved to be Obama's toughest opponent, [but] by showing officers that he shared many of their concerns, even going so far as to help pass other legislation they wanted, he was able to quiet the fears of many. Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping.

Like Kevin, color me unimpressed. This was Illinois. This was a Democratic Governor. As Kevin says, the vote was 35-0 so how much opposition could there have been? Archpundit argues there was vehement opposition. Well, no apparently there was not VEHEMENT opposition. I'll go even further, who did Obama win over on S-CHIP? On Iraq? On anything in the Congress?

Heck, this gives me even more pause because he probably thinks he CAN do it in Washington.

ARG, which actually has a pretty good track record in New Hampshire, shows Obama AND Clinton up strongly from their previous poll:

Clinton 35 (31)
Obama 31 (27)
Edwards 15 (21)
Richardson 5 (5) (1/1 -1/3)

I expect Clinton to drop and Obama to continue to rise in the next days. The next big event is the debate tomorrow. that could change the momentum.

Edwards is toast imo, barring some kind of miracle in the debate. Richardson was toast long ago. Why is he still in the race? Go out gracefully Bill.

McCain (35) up 10 over Romney (25) who is on life support it seems. Huck in third with 12. Rudy is done. cooked. Finished.

The Iowa entrance polls demonstrate that Barack Obama had wide appeal across Democrats, Independents, Republicans, conservatives, moderates and liberals. What is most interesting is that his strongest appeal was with self indentified Independents, Republicans AND the liberal and very liberal.

What to make of this? Some say it shows that Obama was perceived as a strong progressive. Some say it shows that Obama is selling progressivism to Independents and Republicans.

I have a different take. I think it shows that Obama is able to convince people that he agrees with them or that his views are not anathema to them. How did he do it? I believe he did it by blurring his policy views, which are largely mainstream Democratic. Indeed, I find that Obama's views match up with my own more than any other candidate.

More . . .

Todd Beeton of MYDD is on the ground in New Hampshire and providing some excellent reporting. Here is his report from a Clinton event in Nashua:

More....

Bumped

Just had to post this. I hate Tweety and the I hate the trashing the Media gives Hillary. So I do not care for the smug joy the Media takes in her loss tonight.

Buuuuut . . . I DO love that the Broder/Bloomberg Unity 08 conference in Oklahoma next week is now in shambles. Think Broder will write it up?

Update [2008-1-4 13:31:39 by Big Tent Democrat]: Kevin Drum remarks on Iowa: [More...]

The candidates from both parties will debate in New Hampshire Saturday night. From ABC News (received by e-mail.)

On Saturday, January 5, 2008, ABC News, Facebook, and ABC affiliate WMUR will team up for a historic debate night. Republican and Democratic contenders for the White House will meet on stage in two separate events, both in primetime, and presented by ABC News.

Richardson is still in. The participants for the Democratic debate will be as follows:

Senator Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.
Former Senator John Edwards, D-N.C.
Senator Barack Obama, D-Ill.
Governor Bill Richardson, D-N.M.

The Republicans: [More...]