How you read the results in Iowa depends a lot on how you read the New Hampshire primary and other contests, in advance. See Fred Barnes:
Let's start with Obama. Pre-Iowa, polls showed him trailing Clinton in New Hampshire. He's likely to jump ahead of her now, though New Hampshire voters occasionally show a contrarian streak. If he wins the primary, Obama will become the prohibitive favorite for the nomination. For the past 36 years, a candidate, Republican or Democrat, who wins in Iowa and New Hampshire has always won the nomination.
That is one of those statistics that isn't very helpful without context. When a candidate wins both Iowa and New Hampshire, it usually means that all opposition has collapsed. Kerry represents the classic case. Going into Iowa, the 2004 Democratic side was a two man race: Kerry and Dean. Kerry's back to back victories meant that the establishment candidate was the clear favorite over the radical challenger.
Maybe that works in reverse for the challenger, Obama. If he wins big in New Hampshire, that certainly makes him the front runner and Hillary the underdog. The problem is this: Obama represents change. At least that is what everyone is saying. But change is an amorphous idea. It tells you what it isn't (the status quo), but not what it is. So far the press and, apparently, the Iowa caucuses, have focused mostly on the fact that Obama is young and beautiful. If he wins in New Hampshire, we will have to start asking what an Obama presidency would be like.
Senator Clinton, by contrast, is all compromise, contradiction, and recorded votes. But that is the stuff out of which real policy is really forged. We can guess what a Clinton 2 presidency would look like. I think that Kerry lost the last presidential election precisely because he could never quite say what he would do about the issue (Iraq) that as most in voter's minds. Bush's policy, popular or not, beat no policy. Senator Obama tells us what he would do about Iraq: bring the troops home, regardless of the circumstances. Maybe that's a winning position. But Iraq is no longer the key issue, and with the war going much better than it was, Obama may be forced to qualify his position is a Kerry-like way.
Like my colleague, Professor Schaff, I am by no means ready to count Senator Clinton out. Were it not for the fact that her personality comes across to many voters like finger nails on a chalk board, I would put good money on her nomination. But she does come across that way, and maybe that means that change will get its chance.
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