More on the results from Iowa

Good collection from Turkana:

Ken Silverstein, of Harper's:

On the Democratic side, Edwards is finished. His only chance, remote even if he’d been successful, was winning Iowa. He didn’t and his campaign is done.

I’m not a big fan of either Obama or Hillary. The former is charismatic and intelligent, and that certainly counts for something. But if you look at his voting record, his campaign donors and his key advisors, he certainly doesn’t have the profile of a politician who intends to be a force for “change.” It was easy for him to make his famous anti-war speech in 2002 from Illinois, but would he have opposed the invasion if he’d been in the U.S. Senate at the time? I seriously doubt it. The only reason I can find to feel positive about Hillary (and it’s not a bad one) is that I have a
13-year-old daughter who is rooting for her.

As for the race, I don’t think Hillary Clinton is dead yet. In fact, the strongest thing in her favor may be that the same collective media wisdom that for so long decreed her the nominee has now decided that Obama is all but a shoo-in. Hillary has too much money and too much support from the Democratic political establishment to crash and burn just because of yesterday’s vote. And while Obama will get his “bump” from winning Iowa, I suspect there are also large numbers of voters in New Hampshire (and elsewhere) who don’t like the idea of Iowa deciding the whole race.

All of that said, if Obama wins New Hampshire Hillary really starts smelling like a loser. If Hillary wins next week, I’d bet that she’s the Democratic nominee. . . .

Walter Shapiro, Salon:

There will be many attempts in the next few days to define Obama's magnetic appeal -- and to explain why Iowa, one of the most monochromatic states in the nation, turned its love light on a candidate whose grandmother lives in a village in Kenya. It may be a case where emotion (the bring-us-together hopes projected onto Obama) trumps clear-eyed rationality (Clinton's here-are-my-programs approach to politics) and populist fervor (Edwards' crusade against "corporate greed").

It is striking how Obama's rhetoric differs from standard political oratory by being a statistic-free zone. In the closing days in Iowa, Obama might talk for 40 minutes in a tiny town like Perry while citing only one or two numbers. In contrast, Clinton on the stump is a human pocket calculator, constantly telling voters how much purchasing power they have lost under Bush (about $1,000) and how many jobs were created under Bill Clinton (lots!). Even Edwards spices his talks with a burst of numbers about the extent of poverty in America.

But for Obama, the only number that matters is his comfortable 8 percent victory margin over Edwards and Clinton. With the (winter) wind at his back heading into New Hampshire, Obama is now the favorite in a contest almost certain to give the Democrats either an African-American or a woman presidential nominee. But Hillary Clinton may soon be reminding voters that one candidate managed to make it to the White House despite losing both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary -- and that late bloomer was none other than Bill Clinton in 1992. . . .

Turkana said this about the Iowa caucuses here.

Realistically, the Iowa Caucuses are a ridiculous measure of the electorate. It's a massively flawed system in an absurdly unrepresentative state. But none of that matters. What matters is how the media spin it, and what happened tonight will be easy for their simplistic framing: Obama won big, Hillary sputtered to a weak third place, not even breaking 30%. Edwards really needed to win, and didn't. . . .