10:20 EST: That's all for me tonight. For most of the candidates it's on to New Hampshire, for some, its time to go home, and for me, it's time for vacation. I'll be back in a week and a half.

Tonight belongs to:

And

10:10 EST: Getting ahead of myself just a little bit , here is how a Huckabee administration might work, should he win the Presidency (interview with RealClearPolitics.com on September 25, 2007):

If you're going to try to sell things, you have to do two things: One, build relationships with the reasonable, responsible people that will work with you, and when they do work with you, go out of your way to extol their efforts as true statesmanship. In other words, don't hog all the credit for what success has happened. The second thing is, you have to make your case directly to the people. And when you can't sell your program to a partisan legislative body, you sell it to their bosses; you go out and sell it to the people… not just to people of your own party, but to people who aren't in your party, to the constituencies that don't normally support you.

Side Note: As Governor, Mike Huckabee wrote his own speeches, except for speeches outlining policy.

10:00 EST: Huckabee and Obama have First-Class plane tickets out of Iowa. We know where Romney is sitting, but who's sitting in coach? McCain or Thompson? For the Democrats, is it Clinton or Edwards? I'm hoping Edwards...

9:48 EST: Congratulations to Chris Dodd who has won exactly 1 precinct... so far.

9:45 EST: Inspirational Politics Takes the Day! Mike Huckabee, of Hope, Arkansas, and Barack Obama, author of The Audacity of Hope, have each won their party's caucus in Iowa.

Hope is an intoxicating idea. It empowers people the way that nothing else can and that is precisely why each has won. Each has been able to find the new "Uniter, not a Divider" phrase.

Here is Barack Obama:

America is a land of big dreamers and big hopes. It is this hope that has sustained us through revolution and civil war, depression and world war, a struggle for civil and social rights and the brink of nuclear crisis. And it is because our dreamers dreamed that we have emerged from each challenge more united, more prosperous, and more admired than before.

Here is Mike Huckabee:

"Ultimately, people don't care whether an issue comes from the left or the right, what they want to talk about are ideas that lift America up and make us better. It's what I call vertical politics."

9:30 EST: Within seconds of each other, CNN and Fox News (CNN first) have projected that Barack Obama has won the Iowa Caucuses.

9:18 EST: All we have left in Iowa are two victory speeches, several concession speeches (maybe a Howard Dean-esque speech!?), and a projected Democrat winner. In a couple of hours, Iowa will no longer matter for another 4 years.

9:10 EST: Thank You, Haskell Jones! 10 months ago Mike Huckabee, the Republican winner of the Iowa Caucus spoke to a bunch of conservative activists in Washington D.C. This is what he said, in an oft-overlooked speech:

My becoming a Republican as a teenager was because of a gentleman whose name was Haskell Jones. He was the manager at the Hope, Arkansas, radio station. And hen I was 14 years old, Haskell Jones gave me a job. He put his trust in me. I worked hard for him. I did my best to prove that I would be reliable. He, in turn, gave me unlimited opportunity, much like this country has given people like you and me unlimited opportunity.Haskell Jones was one of the few Republicans in Hope, Arkansas. There weren't many, and most people said there weren't any, except the ones who had either moved in or had been messed with. Well, Haskell had moved in. I got messed with. Messed with in the sense that I came to realize that it's about individual responsibility and that we are far better off as a nation when we understand that our strength is not who we are because of some group that we didn't have any choice about belonging to.

It's about what we do with our God-given freedom, and whether or not we stand on our own two feet, and whether we use the resources that are around us and make things happen, and whether we believe that in this country anything is possible with people who do their very best to remember that every right that we have has to be balanced with the responsibility to achieve and to be honest.Haskell Jones turned a radio station over to a kid. (Applause)And I want you to think about this. He gave me the key to a radio station at age 14.

And I would go and unlock it, do sports, weather, play records, all sorts of things. I look back, and I'm thinking I wouldn't give the keys to a 14-year-old to unlock a broom closet, much less operate a radio station.But he rubbed off on me in more ways than just giving me a job. He was the ultimate American patriot, a hard-core solid conservative and Republican, who believed that this country was worth fighting for, worth standing up for, and that the principles that made it great were the principles of faith, family, freedom.When I graduated high school, I was the first male in my entire family lineage to even do that. For me to go on to college meant working 40 hours a week in a radio station and carrying as many class hours as I could so I could get through in two and a half years rather than four, because I couldn't afford to stay there four. I don't tell you that because I want you to say, "Gosh, what a story." I want to tell you that because I want you to say, "Gosh, what a country."

8:55 EST: It looks like Huckabee is going to decisively win the Republican caucus... Fox News Channel has just called the Iowa Caucuses for Mike Huckabee... though Democrats are still unclear and will be for quite some time.

8:30 EST: If you go to Politico's homepage, they have a running tabulation of the Iowa precincts that have reported and the percent vote that each candidate has received... McCain is leading.

8:10 EST: CNN is broadcasting a live feed from one precinct of the Iowa caucus... I'm unsure if it is a Democrat or Republican caucus. But I do know that it is much better than watching Bill O'Reilly on Fox News. Wolf Blitzer is reporting that Obama and Clinton are close together with John Edwards lagging in the "Entrance Polls."

8:00 EST: Let the caucus-ing begin! Here's a video that seems like it debuted ages ago:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cWvHbOoG3tI

7:49 EST: Earlier today on Fox News (2pm-3pm) Mike Huckabee was interviewed by Shepherd Smith and said that his campaign is in first place in South Carlina, Texas and Delaware. I'm not sure how accurate this is, and I'm trying to find polling that supports Huckabee's statements but if it is true that he is leading in Delaware than this is a huge loss for the Giuliani campaign - not so much because of the loss of Delaware's delegates, but because this could be a harbinger of things to come. Giuliani is the only Republican campaign active in Delaware, having a paid staffer and a long list public officials that have endorsed Giuliani.

7:11 EST: Less than an hour to go before the caucuses begin. Ed Rollins, Huckabee's campaign chair, delared that Huckabee will win Iowa and Obama's campaign is quiet but confident. This according to the Fox Report w/ Shepherd Smith.

I'll be blogging all night, feel free to leave comments, opinions, analysis, or questions.

Labels: 2008 Watch, Barack Obama, Huckabee, liveblogging, Pinstripe Politics

Posted by Gary on Thursday, January 03, 2008 at 7:11 PM | Permalink |