NORMAN, Oklahoma, 6:20 p.m. — For assistant professor in Political Science Ange-Marie Hancock, Barack Obama’s resounding win over third-place Hillary Clinton LAW ’73 in Iowa last night is big news — it is a historical moment, she says — but it hasn’t made her decision as a voter any easier.
“Honestly, right now I am square in the middle between Obama and Clinton,” she says with a laugh during a phone interview.
NORMAN, Oklahoma, 10:45 a.m. — I didn’t think I would have a reading assignment while on winter break. Then again, I also hadn’t planned on interviewing Ted Marmor.
I wanted the School of Management and political science professor’s opinion on the presidential candidates’ positions on healthcare. Marmor, after all, has testified before Congress on healthcare reform, served on President Jimmy Carter’s Commission on the National Agenda and published reams of articles and books on the subject. If anyone is an expert, he is. But first I had to acquaint myself.
In ‘The Politics of U.S. Health System Reform,’ Marmor traces the history of the impact of politics on healthcare reform, calling it a story of “long-term aspiration and deep frustration.” The main obstacle to reform Marmor emphasizes is the limit of political feasibility: the harsh resistance of Republicans and the lack of commitment of Democrats.
Having earned my phone interview, Marmor and I spoke early on the Friday morning following the Iowa caucus elections. Are any of the three leading Democratic candidates capable of causing the necessary ideological shift in Washington to substantially reform the U.S. health system?
“All three of them — Obama and Edwards even more than Clinton,” Marmor says. “Obama and Edwards have a more powerful rhetorical voice on behalf of those people in trouble in America. [Hillary] is a more manipulative, less appealing moral leader.”
WASHINGTON, 9:50 p.m. — Illinois Senator Barack Obama and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee will both leave Iowa and head to New Hampshire tomorrow with the wind at their backs but facing vastly different political terrain as the Granite State’s Jan. 8 primary approaches.
Obama, riding a wave of support among first-time and college-age caucus-goers that put him over the top Thursday, will hit the stump well positioned to grab a second victory five days from now. Recent polls in the state have shown the senator in the lead or in a statistical tie with New York Senator Hillary Clinton LAW ’73, whose aura of inevitability may erode further if she fails to come out on top.
By contrast, Huckabee has much ground to make up in New Hampshire, where former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s second-place finish tonight leaves him and Arizona Senator John McCain in a horse race. More libertarian and socially liberal than Iowa and less populated by evangelical Christians — who make up Huckabee’s base — New Hampshire may prove difficult for the former Baptist minister.
Eric Thayer/Getty Images
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa, 7:32 p.m. — The first round of results are in: Before the critical realignment stage of the Democratic caucus in this precinct, here’s an update from West Des Moines, Precinct 111:
Joe Biden: 7
Hillary Clinton: 75
Chris Dodd: 9
John Edwards: 49
Barack Obama: 99
Bill Richardson: 22
They tallied 264 caucus-goers in attendance, so I’m missing 3, but you can see the trend here in West Des Moines. The viability threshold of 15% means a candidate must have 40 votes to remain viable. They’re realigning now.
-Zack Abrahamson
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa, 7:27 p.m. — The library at Hillside Elementary School in West Des Moines was packed. Outside the door, bright-eyed women wore bandoliers of Hillary stickers and handed out cookies to caucus-goers.
“Are you supporting Hillary? Supporting Hillary? That corner in the back, that’s where we are.”
The Iowa caucuses began at 7:00 o’clock tonight across the Hawkeye state, ending months of media and inside-the-Beltway speculation about which Democratic and Republican candidates would win the first voting of the year. In West Des Moines, however, Iowans acted as though they had simply gathered to chat about the neighborhood.
NEW HAVEN, Conn., 10:00 a.m. — Senator Barack Obama topped all other candidates by a two-to-one margin in a recent Yale Daily News poll. A commanding victory, right?
Well, sure — but nothing compared to the support he found among young voters in the influential Des Moines Register poll released Monday night.
A whopping 56 percent of likely caucus participants between the ages of 18 and 34 support the Illinois senator, according to the poll, considered the most important gauge of electoral support leading up to tonight’s caucus. That’s three-and-a-half times the support that any other Democratic candidate received from that demographic.
Sixteen percent supported former Senator John Edwards, and 11 percent backed Senator Hillary Clinton LAW ’73.
— Thomas Kaplan
INDIANOLA, Iowa, 11:30 p.m. — The scene this morning in Indianola’s First Methodist Church resembled a pep rally more than a town hall meeting as Yale’s sole representative in the race, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton LAW ’73, stopped here on her trek across the state.
That’s when the subliminal advertising began.
DES MOINES, Iowa, 5:22 PM – Would you like some creamer with that Richardson? How about a little sugar in your Huckabee? You say you want a half-caff skim peppermint Hillary latte?
Such is the scene at Zanzibar’s Coffee Adventure in Des Moines, on Ingersall Avenue, where the owners have set up a “Coffee Caucus” to gauge customers’ political leanings tomorrow. Customers asking for a cup of coffee will be asked to pick from any of fourteen pots of coffee labeled “Obama,” “Dodd,” “Romney,” (etc.) representing each of the presidential candidates. In 2004, the system accurately predicted the outcome of the Democratic primary.
Of course, there wasn’t any Republican primary back then, so there was just one big pot of coffee for George W. Bush. It was decaf.
Check back tomorrow for “exit polling” from Zanzibar’s.
-Zack Abrahamson
AMANA, Iowa, 4:26 p.m. — Bill Clinton is 26 minutes late. He was supposed to arrive in Amana at 4 o’clock to address a crowd of bundled-up Iowans at this small outpost 10 miles off I-80. So now we’re sitting in this corrugated metal structure that gets a degree colder every time someone opens the door. A cluster of twenty-something Hillary staffers stand in the corner in ankle-length coats, clutching clipboards and looking around nervously. One of them clearly looks like D.C., but a couple others are wearing enough Carhartt to pass for native Iowans.
Finally a voice breaks through an ambient Fleetwood Mac tune and announces the arrival of Chrissie Vilsack — the wife of former Governor Tom Vilsack — and President Clinton. The crowd rises to its feet.
“I was watching the football games on the way over,” the former president begins. “And I was watching this kicker in the fourth quarter of the game and thinking, ‘That’s how the Iowa caucus-goers are going to feel on Thursday.’ On caucus night, the whole future of the world is on your shoulders — don’t feel any pressure at all.”
IOWA CITY, Iowa, 11:33 a.m. — Mike Juntunen didn’t go home for Christmas. No, the 26-year-old University of Iowa freshman was busy spreading his own version of holiday cheer — the message of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards.
Juntunen is co-president of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes for John Edwards, which is responsible in part for marshaling Edwards’ student forces in the Iowa City/Johnson County area and doing outreach to surrounding rural counties. He’s optimistic about the former senator’s chances on Thursday night.
“A straight-up tie really means John Edwards wins Iowa by three or four points because that’s the proportion of the second-place votes we’re going to win,” he predicts.
IOWA CITY, Iowa, 9:34 AM – The buzz across Iowa this morning is the new Des Moines Register poll released last night. Matt is on Barack Obama’s text message mailing list, so when the results of the poll were released, we found out that the Illinois Senator had pulled ahead to a 32-25-24 lead over Sen. Clinton and former Sen. Edwards. That’s significant – the Register is calling Obama’s gains “the largest lead of any of the Democratic candidates in the Register’s poll all year.”
But Zogby International’s daily tracking poll isn’t showing any “O”-mentum. At least not yet: Zogby still puts Hillary in the lead at 30%, followed by Obama and Edwards at 26 and 25, respectively, in polling conducted between 12/28 and 12/31.
There are discrepancies between the two polls on the Republican side as well, but nothing as dramatic – both polls put Huckabee at the top of the list, followed by Romney and McCain.
We’re going to try to get some analysis here later. Check back soon.
-Zack Abrahamson