Taking a Closer Look at the Iowa Results

The story on the Democrat side of Thursday's results in Iowa wasn't so much that Barak Obama won but rather Hillary Clinton got 3rd behind John Edwards. Obama received 38%, Edwards 30%, and Clinton 29%. The rest of the Democrat ticket combined for only 3% of the turnout.

With Republicans, Huckabee and Romney broke away from the pack with 34% and 25% of the vote. The big shocker in this one was Guiliani only getting 3%.Guiliani came in 6th amongst GOP candidates trailing 5th place Ron Paul by a whopping 7%. Thompson and McCain tied for 3rd with 13%.

Democrats			Republicans
Obama	38%		Huckabee	34%
Edwards	30%		Romney	25%
Clinton	29%		Thompson	13%
Richardson	2%		McCain	13%
Biden	1%		Paul	10%
Dodd	0%		Guiliani	3%
Gravel	0%		Hunter	0%
Kucinich	0%		Tancredo	0%

Looking at the numbers the Clinton camp has to be a little worried about a snowball effect. Should Obama, Edwards, and Clinton finish in the same exact order in New Hampshire expect the spread to be larger with Obama taking from both candidates.

It is a troubling sign for a campaign such as Romney's to pour so much money into a primary and finish 9 points back. When asked about his thoughts on being beat by he said he was happy to cut Huckabee's lead in half. Sorry folks, when the money spent in the final week of a campaign is so heavy and so lobsided the campaign spending the money should only be 3 points from the lead in most worst case scenarios. His numbers should rebound in New Hampshire.

Guiliani knew he was tanking in Iowa a few weeks ago and deployed the cut-and-run tactic to try and get a head start on New Hampshire. This is a dangerous tactic because voters aren't always rational and as a mass are prone to further trends seen in recent primaries. That said I believe he will rebound in New Hampshire but will find things less inviting as he moves into states farther away from the Atlantic. The evangelical vote will eventually sink him.

By now most of you must be expecting me to declare Huckabee as the GOP Nominee. I'm not going to do that. I don't think we will have a truly clear picture until there is a more diverse set of results. However, Thompson, McCain, Paul, and Guiliani must put themselves within 10% of the leader over the course of the next two primaries. Those that cannot accomplish that are done and should drop out.