Iowa Caucuses Winners and Losers

Winners

Republicans

1) Mike Huckabee…Subjected to a thorough political beating over the last six weeks and he came up with the win, utterly smashing the well-oiled Mitt Romney Machine. Outspent 20-1, he can claim victory and one of the greatest feats in modern American politics. Huckabee is a force to be reckoned with.

2) John McCain…By all appearances he’ll finish extremely close to Fred Thompson, just barely out of 3rd despite barely having spent any time or resources here.  This primes him well for another New Hampshire Primary win.

3) Ron Paul…Ron Paul broke double digits in Iowa, which will help fuel his campaign efforts in New Hampshire. Could Paul beat Giuliani in back to back states.

4) Fred Thompson….It’s an expectations game and while Fred Thompsons to have held on to 3rd, this wasn’t the strong 3rd, his supporters had hoped for. It’s slightly weaker than Alan Keyes’ 3rd place finish in 2008. Thompson campaigns another day, but that’s it.

Losers

1) Mitt Romney

He poured money and resources into Iowa, he won the Strawpoll, he lost the caucuses. The strongest Romney strategy, a series of unbroken caucus and primary wins from Iowa to South Carolina that would overturn Rudy is now gone. In all reality, New Hampshire is his waterloo and he’s trailin gto John McCain.

2) Rudy Giuliani:

If Giuliani had spent no time in Iowa, a stunning rejection by 97% of the populous, after pulling in double digits for the past month might be understandable. In this case, it’s most likely the beginning of the end, barring a strong 3rd in New Hampshire in the 20% range.

3) Duncan Hunter

No real expectations here, but there’s plenty of reason why Hunter’s not expected to be in this past New Hampshire with his 0.4% of the vote showing.

Democrats

1) Barack Obama

With a series of clever horsetrading moves with opponents Kucinich, Biden, and Richardson, Barack was able to win Iowa with a wide margin over his top opponents, and establish that his campaign is for real.

2) John Edwards

Short on cash, Edwards narrowly beat Hillary Clinton and despite some pundits considering him an out of his league light weight, he’s now got to be considered on par with Hillary Clinton.

3) Hillary Clinton: A 9 point loss may look bad now, but she’s going to be able to spin in it down the road. It’ll be her comeback kid moment if she wins New Hampshire or down the road further somewhere else. She can say she experienced adversity and came back.

Losers:
Dodd and Biden. If Democrats were truly interested in experience as Hillary’s campaign model goes, they’d pick either one of these men with 34 and 36 years Congressional experience respectively. Now, they’re out of the race.