By wplog

Published Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008 | 11:58 p.m.

Updated Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2008 | 12:41 p.m.

Iowa roundup.

To start off, it's impossible to overstate how significant last night is to American politics. And also Nevada politics (though you'll have to wait for the Sun print edition for that analysis.) Voters in Iowa roundly rejected their respective party establishments, as noted in this New York Times analysis.

People want something different.

What is it they want? For snap analysis, this column from David Brooks, The Times token conservative, is unbeatable. Brooks seems to get what's happening in American politics right now, even though it's basically working against the old Reagan coalition of which he is a part.

Some key paragraphs, on Obama:

This is a huge moment. It’s one of those times when a movement that seemed ethereal and idealistic became a reality and took on political substance. Iowa won’t settle the race, but the rest of the primary season is going to be colored by the glow of this result. Whatever their political affiliations, Americans are going to feel good about the Obama victory, which is a story of youth, possibility and unity through diversity — the primordial themes of the American experience.

And Americans are not going to want to see this stopped. When an African-American man is leading a juggernaut to the White House, do you want to be the one to stand up and say No?

On Huckabee:

Huckabee won because he tapped into realities that other Republicans have been slow to recognize. First, evangelicals have changed. Huckabee is the first ironic evangelical on the national stage. He’s funny, campy (see his Chuck Norris fixation) and he’s not at war with modern culture.

Second, Huckabee understands much better than Mitt Romney that we have a crisis of authority in this country. People have lost faith in their leaders’ ability to respond to problems. While Romney embodies the leadership class, Huckabee went after it. He criticized Wall Street and K Street. Most importantly, he sensed that conservatives do not believe their own movement is well led. He took on Rush Limbaugh, the Club for Growth and even President Bush. The old guard threw everything they had at him, and their diminished power is now exposed.

Third, Huckabee understands how middle-class anxiety is really lived. Democrats talk about wages. But real middle-class families have more to fear economically from divorce than from a free trade pact. A person’s lifetime prospects will be threatened more by single parenting than by outsourcing. Huckabee understands that economic well-being is fused with social and moral well-being, and he talks about the inter-relationship in a way no other candidate has.

In that sense, Huckabee’s victory is not a step into the past. It opens up the way for a new coalition.

A conservatism that recognizes stable families as the foundation of economic growth is not hard to imagine. A conservatism that loves capitalism but distrusts capitalists is not hard to imagine either. Adam Smith felt this way. A conservatism that pays attention to people making less than $50,000 a year is the only conservatism worth defending.

....

Huckabee probably won’t be the nominee, but starting last night in Iowa, an evangelical began the Republican Reformation.

As Josh Marshall noted last night, it's hard for people who don't follow politics to understand how an election in a small, unrepresentative state would shape an election and change politics.

At the nuts and bolts level, there's money, political support and media. Clinton had all of it, and 70 percent of Iowa caucus goers rejected her, despite all her advantages (or maybe because of them.) Now she'll have more trouble obtaining those things.

More abstractly, as Marshall notes, we're social creatures -- we follow crowds. (Not all of us, obviously.)

In other words, as Brooks noted, who will want to look back on whatever this sensation that Barack Obama is, 20 years from now, and say, I'm glad I said 'No' to that?

The key number from the Iowa caucus was the turnout: 240,000. That number crushed everyone's model, which was closer to 160,000. He said he would bring people into politics, and he did.

Obama's speech, which brought tears to the eyes of supporters at parties here in New Hampshire and, I'm told, in Nevada, will only magnify this effect.

This will all be amplified by the incredible media sensation that is about to be Barack Obama, and, to a lesser extent, Mike Huckabee. (This is good and bad for Obama, who will face a new round of scrutiny.)

It's also just different speaking on a stage when you've just won.

Speaking from strength was evident in both the Huckabee and Obama speeches. They're both master communicators, but tonight felt different.

Scroll down to read Obama's speech. (Found it on Google. Not a regular Kos reader.)

Some key lines:

They said this day would never come.

They said our sights were set too high.

They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose.

But on this January night at this defining moment in human history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn’t do.

Grandiose? Yes, but hearing and seeing it on television, it was impossible to question its raw power.

So what now?

The Clintons are much beloved in New Hampshire, and it's always been seen as their strongest early state. They have the entire party apparatus behind them and deep ties in many communities. She must re-focus, and quickly, because momentum is rushing behind Obama as we speak. If he wins New Hampshire, the Clinton campaign must make a final stand in Nevada.

Clinton is strong in Nevada, but the Culinary Union endorsement has always been the key development in the Nevada caucus.

Clinton's Iowa failure does not help her quest for that endorsement.