Obama, Huckabee win in first test

THERE WAS a time in American life when the political news out of last night's Iowa caucuses would have been unimaginable.

On the Democratic side, the winner of the first-in-the-nation presidential test was U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois, an African-American, the son of a Kenyan, who pulled off an upset in a white rural state.

The Republican winner was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister who wasn't afraid to wear his religious beliefs on his candidate's sleeve, hailing "the birth of Jesus Christ" before what looked like a floating cross in a recent TV advertisement.

Philadelphia lawyer Mark Alderman, in Washington D.C. last night, where he was participating in a meeting of Obama's national finance committee, said Obama became the most famous man in the country last night.

"It's just an earthquake in American electoral politics," Alderman said. "This is an African-American man with a mother who is a Christian from Kansas and a father who is a Muslim from Kenya. This is the most different candidate who has ever run for office. For him to win, I think, is an international story."

Republican Iowans - as they did in 1988 when televangelist Pat Robertson finished a strong second - sent the GOP a message: The religious right is a force in the party.

More than half of Republican voters said they were born-again, or evangelical, Christians. Nearly half of them supported Huckabee, according to entrance interviews by the Associated Press and the television networks.

More than a third of Republicans said it was important to have a candidate who shared their religious beliefs, and a majority favored Huckabee.

But can Iowa momentum carry Obama and Huckabee to victory on Tuesday in New Hampshire, where the political landcape is very different and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Masschusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are ahead in the polls?

Up next: New Hampshire

Last night's Iowa results were dramatic, but experts say the results in the snowbound Granite State just four days from now could prove pivotal in the 2008 race.

"That election is still pretty fluid," said G. Terry Madonna, the Franklin & Marshall College political scientist and pollster.

He noted that Huckabee drew strength from rural Christians who may not be a factor in other states - while party stalwarts John McCain and Rudy Giuliani still have their strongest states to come.

On the Democratic side, Madonna - and other pundits as well - said Clinton, despite a disappointing loss last night, could also lose New Hampshire and still carry on, just as her husband did in 1992. But rival John Edwards, who bet the farm on Iowa, may not have much hope.

Here are thumbnails of where they stand going into New Hampshire:

DEMOCRATS

Obama: Throngs of young people swelled the turnout in Iowa's caucuses and were key to Obama's win. The same thing could happen in N.H., where he was once a long shot.

Clinton: Her husband was 1992's "Comeback Kid" in the Granite State, but for the former first lady, that may have to wait until Nevada or South Carolina.

Edwards: Live free or die? Ex-North Carolina senator will die politically without a miracle on Tuesday.

Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel: Wishing they were Edwards.

REPUBLICANS

Huckabee: Will New Hampshire Huckabee, the former Baptist minister? Seems unlikely.

Romney: The biggest loser in Iowa. He spent a fortune in the Hawkeye State, and is on brink of rejection from N.H. next-door neighbors.

John McCain: They loved him in New Hampshire in 2000, and history could repeat itself on Tuesday.

Fred Thompson: Third-place finish is life support for a lifeless campaign.

Rudy Giuliani: New nickname: "Mr. 4 Percent." New Hampshire not looking much better, but the New Yorker has placed all his chips on Florida.

Ron Paul: Money can't buy him love.

Obama: Good for Romney?

An unlikely group was quite happy with Obama's win last night - Romney supporters.

Romney finished secoond to Huckabee in Iowa.

Charles Kopp, Romney's Pennsylvania campaign chairman, said Obama's win makes New Hampshire an easier fight.

McCain, threatening in New Hampshire with a strong base among that state's independent voters, took a veiled shot at Romney on television last night, noting his rival couldn't "buy" a win in Iowa.

Romney outspent Huckabee in that state.

Independents can vote in either party's primary in New Hampshire. Kopp said Obama would draw strongly from independents, sapping McCain's strength.

"He'd be the hot guy," Kopp said.

Clinton: It's a long season

Philly lawyer Mark Aronchick was moving around Iowa yesterday, helping the Clinton campaign there before heading to New Hampshire for Tuesday's primary.

Aronchick said Clinton's third-place finish in Iowa is not fatal since Edwards had been campaigning there longer and Obama is from a neighboring state.

"We'll just move on to the places where she's running strong," he said.

Aronchick predicted that Clinton will have secured the Democratic nomination well before Pennsylvania's April 22 election.

Obama and Edwards are "the ones that need the 90-yard punt returns," he said. "They're not going to have them. They're going to get tackled before that happens."

Alan Kessler, another Philadelphia lawyer supporting Clinton, said: "None of us, nobody, knows what impact tonight has on New Hampshire. It's close enough, but it's five days. Five days in today's media world can be a lifetime."

Biden & Dodd: Outta here!

And then there were 12.

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, the only major candidate from this region, used his concession speech in Iowa last night to withdraw from the race.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd - who won praise from the political left for his stands on issues like warrantless wiretapping, but couldn't translate that into votes - is also leaving the 2008 race.

That news was broken by the popular political blog Talking Points Memo. No Republicans dropped out, although there were questions about how much longer Fred Thompson could stomach the race.

MSNBC reported that Democrat Mike Gravel, former Alaska senator, has also withdrawn.

Let's make a deal

Here's a political play that a South Philly ward leader could love.

The strange rules for Iowa's Democratic caucuses mean that participants in last night's two hourlong meetings who support a "nonviable" candidate - typically with less than 15 percent - then make a second choice in a kind of an instant runoff.

That means there's plenty of chances to make a deal.

The second-tier Democrats were more likely to steer supporters to Obama and Edwards than to Clinton.

Why? Pundits say that a Clinton win in Iowa would have led to a Clinton win in New Hampshire and ended the race, but an Obama or Edwards win would prolong the race and allow a longshot like New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson a slim chance to get back in.

Did Drexel debate chill Hill?

If the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, as the old saying goes, was the Battle of Iowa lost on the playing fields of Drexel University?

Prominent and well-connected blogger Arianna Huffington, of the Huffington Post, was reporting last night that Bill Clinton was privately telling friends that his wife, Hillary, lost the Iowa race after a bad debate showing here in Philly in late October.

It was on the Drexel stage, you may recall, where the once seemingly inevitable New York senator stumbled, particularly when she seemed to say she was both for and against drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants in the same answer.

Clinton placed third in Iowa, well behind Obama.

Obama Girl returns

Obama Girl, whose hot YouTube video is the brainchild of Temple senior Leah Kaufman, is back, training hard and ready to put a whuppin' on Hillary. For the latest, see www.barely political.com/obama-girl/

episode/BaRocky6_Orig

Music.

Kucinich's UFO sighting exposed!

The award for the best caucus-eve journalism goes to the Wall Street Journal for its probe of Dennis Kucinich's 1982 UFO sighting.

Kucinich refuses to divulge details of the close encounter, but the Journal found two eyewitnesses who were with him.

The sighting occurred at actress Shirley MacLaine's former home in Graham, Wash.

An excerpt: "The craft approached to within 200 yards, suspended over the field just beyond the swimming pool. Both witnesses say it emitted a quiet, throbbing sound - nothing like an airplane engine.

'There was a feeling of wanting to communicate something, but I didn't know what,' says [witness] Mr. [Paul] Costanzo."

That Kucinich is an alien?

Edwards: Skeletons or no?

Will the strong finish by former U.S. Sen. John Edwards in Iowa push the supermarket-tabloid stories about him into the mainstream media?

Last month, the National Enquirer screamed, "Presidential candidate John Edwards is caught up in a love child scandal, a blockbuster Enquirer investigation has discovered."

The woman is a 43-year-old filmmaker whose company produced videos for Edwards' campaign. All involved deny the story.

Pa. press has Iowa envy

While many pundits have hailed the Iowa caucuses as a snow-blanketed exercise in American democracy, there's one group out there that universally panned the kickoff of the 2008 election.

That would be the newspaper columnists, editorial-page editors and reporters of Pennsylvania - apparently angry that the Keystone State is so far removed from the '08 action. Check out these headlines from around the state yesterday:

Typical was the Carlisle Sentinel's "While Iowa Votes, Pennsylvania Waits." The paper talked with an Obama supporter from the mid-state community who was furious her primary vote would likely not count.

"With Pa. on the sidelines, Congress must fix primaries," was the headline on the main op-ed piece in the Allentown Morning Call.

If it's any consolation, the Carlisle article noted that the 2004 general-election candidates, President Bush and Sen. John Kerry, visited Pennsylvania - a fall battleground - more than they did any other state. And with the possibility that the primaries will be decided by early February, there's a lot of time for a lot of candidate visits in 2008.

Primary calendar

Here are the dates of the major primaries:

Tuesday: New Hampshire.

Jan. 15: Michigan

Jan. 19: South Carolina (Republicans).

Jan. 26: South Carolina (Democrats).

Jan. 29: Florida.

Feb. 5: Billed as "Super-Duper Tuesday" for 22 states, including the two biggest: California and New York, plus delegate-rich Illinois, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

April 22: Pennsylvania. The race will be over by then. *