Obama beats Clinton in Iowa, Huckabee tops Republican side Agence France-Presse
January 04, 2008
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Democrat Barack Obama Thursday surged to victory in the first 2008 White House nominating contest, dealing a serious blow to Hillary Clinton's bid to become America's first woman president.
On the Republican side of the Iowa caucuses, former Baptist minister Mike Huckabee scored a sensational win, casting the national viability of his top foe in the state, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, into serious doubt.
Obama's triumph, projected by television networks, vindicated the 46-year-old senator's soaring message of hope and political change and boosts his own historic quest to be the first black president of the United States.
It also confirms Obama, son of a Kenyan father and white American mother, as a genuine threat for the Democratic nomination.
The former first lady, who was battling for second place with John Edwards, must now attempt to slow the Obama bandwagon in Tuesday's primary in New Hampshire -- the state which revived her Bill Clinton's campaign in 1992.
Clinton went into the fabled caucuses, which are seen as a key but not always decisive barometer of party presidential nominations, warning that Obama was too inexperienced to be president, and saying only she could spark change.
Supporters milled about at Clinton's campaign headquarters in Des Moines, after the television projections were announced, as a soundtrack of her campaign songs pounded, trying to invigorate them for her expected appearance.
There was no immediate reaction from her campaign.
Huckabee, who had surged into contention late in the race after catching fire among crucial evangelical voters, beat out Romney in the curtain-raising Iowa caucuses.
The result further splinters the Republican field, with other leading candidates like surging John McCain and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani lying in wait in bigger states further on in the nominating process.
Romney said he would fight on, despite losing to Huckabee after piling millions of dollars into Iowa, and New Hampshire which votes in a primary on Tuesday.
"I'm looking for the gold or the silver ... I'm going to continue battling and I will get the nomination. Congratulations to Mike and we'll go on to New Hampshire," Romney said on Fox News.
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor from the same town -- Hope, Arkansas -- as Bill Clinton, now faces a stiff task in converting his support among the Christian right, to a nationwide power base.
Obama, still in only his first term in the US Senate, appeared to have made good on his vow to drive young, idealistic supporters to caucus in record numbers.
His top adviser David Axelrod said earlier that huge turnout was being seen, with somewhere over 200,000 Democrats showing up.
Critics of the Iowa causues will still argue that even that is a tiny figure compared to the largely white state's three million population, making the contest a poor representation of US opinion as a whole.
Clinton goes into to the New Hampshire primary needs a convincing win in the northeastern state, where she has a clear but modest lead over Obama in the polls with Edwards trailing in third place.
An average of New Hampshire polls by RealClear politics had Clinton with an average of 34 percent to Obama's 27 percent and Edwards' 18. It has McCain at 31.3 on the average, Romney at 28.8, Giuliani at 10 and Huckabee at 9.5.
President George Bush, whose Iraq war-fueled unpopularity could be a drag on his party, has refused to anoint a chosen Republican successor but said he would do his utmost for the nominee.
Campaigns rolled out unprecedented statewide turnout drives to coax voters into the bitter Iowa cold, for a caucus process that usually draws barely 200,000 of the state's three million people.
Babysitting was on offer for caucus goers and young volunteers were ferrying elderly voters to meetings in 1,800 precincts in school gymnasiums, church basements, community centers, and even a tavern.
The Iowa caucuses, a fabled date on the US election calendar, have been known to turn almost unknown candidates into national figures, and to crush the White House dreams of others.
At the very least, they will offer a jolt of momentum for the victor, going into a frenetic and compressed flurry of subsequent primary contests.
The parties' champions are expected to be clear well before Democrats formally pick theirs at an August 25-28 convention in Denver, Colorado and Republicans choose at a September 1-4 convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
After New Hampshire, a series of other battles leading to February 5 when more than 20 states vote.
