IowaPolitics.com: Caucus Countdown Blog

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Iowa's secretary of state announced today that he expects final tallies to show more than 100,000 party registration changes on caucus night.

Democrat Michael Mauro said more than 52,500 party changes have been registered so far, with more than 43,000 of them changing their registration to Democrat.

County auditors continue to sort through the voter registration forms filed on Jan. 3, when nearly 350,000 Iowans cast their support for a presidential candidate. Mauro also said auditors have processed nearly 7,000 new registrations so far.

Pundits and political insiders surmised on caucus night that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was the beneficiary of a heavy independent vote because of his margin of victory. Pre-caucus polling had him in a head-to-head battle among Democratic voters with Sen. Hillary Clinton.

With the excitement generated by the caucus, Mauro said he hopes the energy level continues through the year leading up to November's general election.

"From the significant turnout numbers at the caucuses, it is clear Iowa voters have taken their first in the nation caucus status seriously," Mauro said. "I anticipate continued high voter turnout all the way to the general election."

See Mauro's press release

Nearly 80 people entered the IowaPolitics.com caucus prediction contest, but only one correctly picked the top three finishers in each party. The key was correctly picking Fred Thompson's third-place finish on the GOP side; twelve people picked the top three Dems and top two Republicans correctly, but only the winner correctly placed Thompson in third.

That winner, Brian Sears, is a 17-year-old high school senior from a town in the mountains of western North Carolina.

Here's the bio he sent in after being contacted about his win:

"I've been involved in politics since 2001, serving on various campaigns, putting out voter guides, managing voter registration drives, and promoting citizen activism. This past summer, I represented North Carolina at 2007 American Legion Boys Nation; past attendees include former President Bill Clinton, Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator Joseph Lieberman. Other activities include Air Force Junior ROTC, Chamber Choir, global missions work, writing newspaper columns and church activities. After graduation, I plan to attend either the United States Military Academy, the Citadel, or the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. After college, career possibilities include the military, Christian ministry, and public service."

Sears wins a free one-year gold level subscription to IowaPolitics.com.

IowaPolitics.com subscribers each week receive a Political Stock Report tracking the ups and downs of major political figures and issues, using views from insiders and observers.

Here is a special post-caucus edition of the IowaPolitics.com Political Stock Report.

POLITICAL STOCK REPORT
Post-caucus edition

RISING

Barack Obama: The first-time national candidate touting a message of unity and hope showed his stuff Thursday night, pulling off an impressive win in part by drawing the kinds of caucus turnout numbers -- newcomers, young people and women -- that most doubted were possible. Anecdotal reports of scores of party-switching Republicans -- perhaps independents, at heart -- show Obama more than lived up to his campaign's expectations. Now pundits wonder whether the frontrunner can stand up to the scrutiny.

Dave Loebsack: The freshman U.S. rep backed Obama, making him the only member of Iowa's congressional delegation on either side of the aisle to back a winning candidate.

Mike Huckabee: National political reporters said Huckabee's not-quite-negative press conference Monday spelled doom for his campaign, but Iowa's Republicans didn't listen. Huckabee followed up on weeks of upward-trending polling with a decisive victory that news networks called quickly -- about the same time Mitt Romney was exhorting a West Des Moines caucus to help him to victory. But Huckabee still needs money to be competitive in the long run, as was evident from the 12:45 a.m. fundraising missive he sent to backers just hours after the caucuses closed. And he's on his way to New Hampshire, where he's behind and without the strong bloc of evangelical Christians that helped him to victory in Iowa. Still, Huckabee proved to be an inspirational and engaging candidate -- assets that could work with independent-minded New Hampshire voters.

Dwayne Alons, Carmine Boal, David Hartsuch: These state politicians who backed Mike Huckabee watched as Mitt Romney, John McCain and Fred Thompson all attracted the backing of greater numbers of legislators. But they bucked the tide and ended up in the camp of the caucus-night winner.

Evangelical Christians: They showed themselves again to be a force in Iowa politics as they comprised 60 percent of the total GOP caucus-goers, according to surveys. Then 46 percent of them picked Huckabee, ushering him to his comfortable victory, the sampling indicated.

Fred Thompson: His low-energy campaign raised eyebrows, but it also lowered expectations enough that his third-place finish was enough to keep him in the race. Instead of dropping out, as some had speculated, his campaign moved on to New Hampshire.

Ann Selzer: The Des Moines pollster who does the Register poll got a lot of heat for the final pre-caucus poll. But Thursday's results were a vindication for her methodology and the state's most watched poll.

MIXED

John McCain: The candidate who was given up for dead in the summer recovered enough to pull off a near-tie for third. He was helped by several newspaper endorsements in the closing days of the campaign and an unsettled Pakistan that focused attention on his experience. Where Hillary Clinton's narrow loss to John Edwards was portrayed as a decisive rejection, pundits were eager to label McCain's razor-thin loss to Fred Thompson as essentially a third-place tie. He could be rising after New Hampshire.

John Edwards: The second-place finisher in 2004 needed a first-place finish to really give himself a strong chance at the nomination, insiders said. But he had to settle for another second. He barely defeated Clinton, but seems to have been able to spin that into enough of a victory to carry him into New Hampshire with momentum.

Mitt Romney: After heavily investing in Iowa with commercials, advisers and paid staff, he was only able to gain a second-place finish. But pundits labeled his self-proclaimed "silver'' damaged goods on his way to New Hampshire, where he's battling McCain and Huckabee.

Ron Paul: The Texas congressman ended up right about where the polls said he would -- reaching double-digit support and finishing ahead of Rudy Giuliani and Duncan Hunter but behind the other top contenders. He was even able to pull off a win in southeastern Iowa's Jefferson County, making him the only candidate other than Huckabee or Romney to win a county. His strident online support and his fourth-quarter fundraising numbers are enough to keep his campaign viable through more early contests.

FALLING

Hillary Clinton: An Obama backer said Clinton's campaign went from inevitability to "survivability" as the campaign drew to a close here. It appears her campaign may have expected this result in the final days, as surrogates tried to temper expectations. She didn't have the advantage some had expected her to have among women voters -- entrance polls showed that women made up 57 percent of the total Dem vote and 35 percent of them favored Obama, compared to 30 percent for Clinton. But she has the money and the organization to keep moving forward, and insiders were cautioning that it's dangerous to count out the wily Clinton machine.

Bill Richardson: The fourth-place finisher didn't make much of an impact in the face of the top three candidates' juggernauts. But he vowed to soldier on, even as the fifth- and sixth-place finishers dropped out. To many observers, his effort now looks like a campaign for a Cabinet or veep spot.

Rudy Giuliani: He didn't really try too hard in Iowa and it showed, as the former New York mayor finished behind Ron Paul for the second time in Iowa (he also lost out to Paul at the Ames Straw poll he skipped in August). Speaking from Florida on caucus night, Giuliani defended his strategy. Observers remark that past candidates who have skipped Iowa have had trouble recovering; Giuliani's looking to prove them wrong with solid performances in the next month of primaries.

Foreign policy: After former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, observers thought the candidates who had emphasized foreign policy would benefit. But that wasn't the case as Dems watched Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Bill Richardson underperform, and the GOP saw John McCain finish fourth.

Iowa detractors: The criticism of this year's early, front-loaded primary schedule may be just a small preview of what will come four years from now. But Iowans made a strong case to keep their spot at the front of the line. Critics had said caucuses were problematic because of low turnout; the 350,000 Iowans who waited in line to set turnout records for both parties did their best to shoot down that argument.

Chris Dodd and Joe Biden: The two veteran East Coast senators ended their campaigns on caucus night after finishing out of the top four. It was Biden's second trip through the Iowa wringer. Dodd, who had hoped that the fire fighters' endorsement would make him into a John Kerry-esque comeback story, found that even moving to Iowa for the final months of the campaign wasn't enough to net him significant support.

Special interest groups: Top unions backed Clinton and Edwards, but AFSCME and SEIU, respectively, were on the losing side. The pro-Clinton EMILY's List, likewise, failed to get Hillary the female voters she needed. On the Republican side, the Club for Growth attacked Huckabee for being a taxer, but the former Arkansas governor talked and charmed his way around those charges with his own tax reform plan.

Republican Alan Keyes' campaign is complaining about the way votes for its candidate were handled Thursday night.

"I personally traveled with Alan Keyes across Iowa, and we met scores of Keyes voters. It's totally unfair these citizens' votes are now being withheld from the public," said Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt in a Keyes campaign press release. "This is tantamount to election fraud."

"This resembles a 'communist-style' approach to electoral politics," Stephen Stone, chairman of Keyes' campaign said in the release. "In the former Soviet Union, political officials limited voters' choices in a way that created merely the illusion of democracy, without the reality. Any undue interference with free and open elections, of the sort we think we just witnessed, is un-American."

Labels: Republicans

Members from the non-partisan Divided We Fail group spent six hours at the Des Moines International Airport today handing out goodies to media, campaign staffers and volunteers leaving Iowa for other presidential nominating states.

A lot of campaign cell phone numbers were turned off Friday after the caucus came to an end Thursday. Some Iowa staffers have been dispatched to other states, mostly to New Hampshire.

Eric Woolson, who directed Mike Huckabee's Iowa campaign worked today on shutting down the state office and said he may be headed to South Carolina soon.

Jen O'Malley Dillon, who directed John Edwards' Iowa campaign, has been named a deputy campaign manager.

Several notables were heading to the East Coast to work on the closing days of the New Hampshire primary

They include:
-- Huckabee's Iowa co-chair Bob Vander Plaats;
-- Mitt Romney's Iowa spokesman Tim Albrecht;
-- Hillary Clinton's Iowa spokesman Mark Daley;
-- Edwards' Iowa communications director Dan Leistikow;
-- Edwards campaign director Jen O'Malley Dillon;
-- Edwards Iowa political director Pat Maloney;
-- Edwards assistant communications director Mark McCullough

Hillary Clinton's campaign moved to downplay the significance of her third place finish as soon as the campaign's press plane was in the air to New Hampshire.

The Wall Street Journal's Amy Chozick reported that a campaign staffer on the plane said Iowa hasn't been a reliable indicator of candidate performance:

"The worst thing would be to over count Iowa and its importance," said chief strategist Mark Penn, just hours after the New York senator finished in a disappointing third place, behind Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

"Iowa doesn't have a record of picking presidents. We're in a strong position to move forward," Penn told a handful of reporters on board a chartered midnight flight that took Clinton staffers and such high-level supporters such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright from Des Moines, Iowa, to Manchester, N.H.

The message continued on the ground in New Hampshire.

"Iowa does not have the best track record of determining who the parties nominate," Clinton later told reporters in New Hampshire.

On the Democratic side, six of the last eight top Iowa performers have gone on to win the nomination. See the IowaPolitics.com caucus history page for more.

Labels: Democrats

It's all about trust. That's how Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's state co-chair Bob Vander Plaats explained Thursday's caucus victory. Vander Plaats said Iowans sensed they could trust the former Arkansas governor.

"I think the deciding factor was the people of Iowa trust Gov. Huckabee," Vander Plaats said. "I heard that over and over again. They said we may not agree on everything, but we trust him. When you are looking for a leader, that is a non-negotiable variable."

Huckabee Iowa Campaign Director Eric Woolson said he had listened to the media discuss how the governor didn't have the organization of fellow GOP rivals, including Mitt Romney, the second-place finisher. But he said the organization was there Thursday, and Vander Plaats agreed.

"Passion produces organization," Vander Plaats said. "We had people genuinely energized. People knew Gov. Huckabee was outspent, and they knew every vote mattered."

Both Woolson and Vander Plaats participated in their caucuses before returning to the Embassy Suites in Des Moines to watch as the results were phoned into the tabulation center.

Vander Plaats will continue to help Huckabee and is shipping out this weekend to New Hampshire. Woolson, who said he could be dispatched to South Carolina, is in the process of closing down the Iowa office.

"We will have that conversation soon," he said. "I could go on to South Carolina. Whatever it is I will be just fine. I certainly would like to continue in some role."

Huckabee was polling at less than 1 percent in May, and caught fire in the closing weeks leading up to the caucus. Woolson attributes much of that success to Huckabee being a strong candidate.

"It is a historic win," Woolson said.

Labels: Republicans

It appears the independent vote in Iowa may have propelled Sen. Barack Obama to a Democratic Iowa caucus victory Thursday -- entrance polls 57 percent of Dem caucus-goers were there for the first time, and 41 percent of those first-timers went for Obama.

That's good news for a campaign that now will rely on that same voting bloc for a similar outcome in New Hampshire.

"Wins in Iowa and New Hampshire would be a great start," Obama's Iowa co-chair Gordon Fischer said. "If you can win those states back-to-back, that is something to feel good about."

The Obama camp was still reveling in its Iowa victory today. Not only were they celebrating the win, but there was also an excitement created by the senator's margin of victory (nearly eight points ahead of John Edwards and Sen. Hillary Clinton).

"The Clintons aren't going down without a fight," Fischer said. "They never have, and they never will."

But at least for one night, that is a fight Obama, who energized caucus-goers for more than 11 months, will relish and savor.

"We went up against excellent candidates and won big," Fischer said. "Hillary Clinton is so established and has so much support, and John Edwards has lived here for six years."

Though Fischer admits he wasn't privy to internal polling, at his wishes, he noticed a change from the Clinton camp in the days leading up to the caucus coming.

"The Clinton campaign went from the inevitability candidate to tampering down expectations. I have never seen anything like it. It was a case of going from inevitability to survivability. It is difficult to change on a dime like that."

Labels: Democrats

Caucus turnout reached record levels Thursday as nearly 350,000 Iowans waited in long lines and experienced parking difficulties to cast their support for the candidate of their choice.

Democratic turnout reached 239,000 while nearly 120,000 Republicans caucused in the first presidential nominating event of 2008.

"These candidates came to Iowa and engaged in retail politics," Republican Party of Iowa Executive Director Chuck Laudner said. "They sought out the leaders in the Republican party at the grassroots level, visited every corner of the state, and shared their vision for America," Laudner stated. "This is the kind of presidential campaign our nation deserves – not a television ad battle focused on the coasts. Voters learn more about the candidates by engaging them personally in cafes and community centers than could ever be judged by slick ads and speeches in arenas."

Laudner said the turnout spoils the notion -- nationally -- that Iowans don't take their caucus responsibility seriously.

"I think Iowans proved that last night," he said.

Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Scott Brennan also praised Iowans for their efforts.

"It was an amazing night for Iowa and especially for Iowa Democrats," Brennan said. "Iowa Democrats showed up in record numbers to caucus and demonstrated that the role Iowans plays as first in the nation caucus goers is something they take very seriously."

The International Association of Fire Fighters, who had backed Chris Dodd in the caucus campaign, is now holding off an another endorsement until March.

See the story from The Hill: With Dodd out, fire fighters say they will wait until March

Harold A. Schaitberger, general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said the organization's choice of Dodd "was never about picking the winner in a horse race."

Schaitberger also said the group never considered backing a second-choice pick.

"We made our original endorsement based on our strong principle and after considerable internal discussion. That's why we didn't ask our members to prepare a Plan B for another candidate if Chris Dodd did not reach his 15 percent threshold at the Iowa caucus. Fire fighters had good reason to support Chris, and we remained with him for as long as he was standing."

Dodd dropped out of the race Thursday night after getting 0.02 percent of state delegates. That finish comes despite the union reporting that it had twice as many members attend the caucuses this year than in 2004.

See the IAFF press release: Fire Fighters Thank Dodd for His Commitment

Labels: Democrats

Entrance polls on the Democratic side show Barack Obama won decisively among first-time caucus goers, who made up 57 percent of those attending caucuses. Forty-one percent of those first-timers went for Obama, while 29 percent picked Hillary Clinton. John Edwards was the top pick among those who had caucused before, winning 30 percent of their vote.

See more Dem entrance poll data from CNN

On the GOP side, Mike Huckabee did well among voters who defined themselves as born-again or evangelical Christian, picking up 46 percent of their vote compared to Mitt Romney's 19 percent. Overall 60 percent of those surveyed by CNN identified themselves as born-again or evangelical.

See more GOP poll data from CNN

Read what Iowa political bloggers are saying about last night's caucus results in BlogWatch:
http://blogs.iowapolitics.com/blogwatch/index.html

At Merrill Middle School on the west side of Des Moines, 113 Democrats gathered in the school's library where a Biden volunteer from Fort Lee, New Jersey, (who did not participate in the voting process Thursday night), said she was quite surprised when Chelsea Clinton, daughter of Hillary and Bill Clinton dropped in for a 15-minute visit.

"She (Chelsea) walked in to the room, no cameras, no national media, and I looked at her and said to myself, why, that's Chelsea Clinton," Erin Medlicott, Biden's online communications volunteer manager, said. "I told her, I wish your Mom luck tonight, but not too much luck."

Medlicott said she then looked at Chelsea and pointed to the Biden sticker on the lapel of her own jacket. She said Chelsea remarked, "I like Joe."

Medlicott said she made it a point to pay Chelsea a compliment and she told her that "her hair looked great." She noted that Chelsea was "very friendly" but wasn't sure if her appearance had an impact on results of the delegate selection process at the precinct. She said Clinton ended up with 2 delegates to the Polk County Convention, where Obama and Edwards each received 1 delegate.

Medlicott said she was disappointed in Precinct 60 that there were only 3 people supporting Biden and no one supporting Dodd. "It's the money and the media," she said, assessing Biden's stance in the caucuses. "They concentrated on targeted candidates and Biden was left out."

Labels: Democrats

From the inbox, sent at 1:45 a.m. Friday by Mike Huckabee's campaign:

Thank you Iowa! Thank you to the people that turned out to caucus for our campaign. We succeeded tonight because of your confidence in our campaign, your support of our ideas and because of the support of tens of thousands of Americans not just in Iowa but across the country that went the extra distance and believed.

We are off to New Hampshire tonight where we will campaign until the primary next week. You can be confident we will be working through the night as we prepare for the next steps forward.

Tonight I ask you to do three things to help us build on our momentum:

1. Make an immediate contribution of $10, $25, $50, $100, or $500 tonight. We have proven tonight that we can win, and that we know how to effectively invest your contribution. Will you make a contribution tonigh t and show the world, the pundits and voters across this country that we have the momentum and it is sweeping us onward.

2. Share the Iowa results with friends and family. If there are friends or neighbors that doubted our campaign or are undecided please encourage them to visit our website tonight, tomorrow and over the next few days and learn more.

3. Consider becoming more involved in our campaign: Volunteer, Join a Meetup or start a Grassroots Meetup Team, Join our Myspace group, our Facebook group and our LinkedIn group.

Labels: Republicans

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told IowaPolitics.com he thinks the large turnout by caucus attendees sends an important message to those who want to reform the nation's primary system and prevent Iowa and New Hampshire from remaining the first states in the nation to begin the election process.

"It sends a strong signal that Iowans take this very seriously and it sends a message to the rest of the nation to maintain Iowa and New Hampshire as the first in the nation," Grassley said from the Convention Center in downtown Des Moines.

Grassley was asked if Huckabee's win in Iowa indicates that the Republican party is leaning more to the right.

"Whether it's the Democratic Party, and 10 percent on the left, or the Republican Party, 10 percent on the right, caucuses tend to emphasize the extremes of both parties and when you get beyond the convention and you get in the November election, you're going to find most of the Democratic candidates and Republican candidates going for votes toward that center 80 percent."

He added: "You're going to find both Democrats and GOP candidates going for votes from the center."

Grassley said he does not believe there was a significant amount of Republicans who caucused for Obama.

"I think if they went there it's because they are committed and I don't know of a lot of Republicans that would be for Obama. I think it would be a case of Independents that I'd worry about rather than Republicans.

"Just like in the 2006 election, a lot of people said well there was a revolt against Republicans. There wasn't a revolt among Republicans. We lost the independents in the 2006 election. Our base came out -- they didn't come out quite as much, but they didn't vote Democratic, either, ya know. "

Grassley has not endorsed a GOP presidential candidate and said the only way he'd get involved is it the GOP presidential race is narrowed to a couple of candidates. "There's a big difference between the candidates and if one person really wants me to campaign someplace else in the country, I might do that, but I'm going to do that based upon their request of me," he said.

Labels: Republicans