Obama victory resounds across U.S.

By J. Patrick Coolican (contact), David McGrath Schwartz (contact)

Friday, Jan. 4, 2008 | midnight

The first sound of victory was a quick yelp, which was followed by a roar that filled a basement bar in Manchester, N.H.

CNN had just called the Iowa caucus for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. His supporters packed the room and they knew the journey to the presidency had cleared the first challenge in Iowa.

And then, the inevitable Obama rallying cry: “Fired up! Ready to go!”

In Las Vegas, across from the Hard Rock Hotel at the Paradise Cantina, a favorite of the Obama campaign, nervous chitchat and tentative sips of margaritas were replaced with cheers and high-fives.

Moments before, as Obama was bunched at the top with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, Mike Hottman, an Obama volunteer, stood by the door, drinkless, eyes glued to the TV.

“He has to do well in Iowa,” said the 51-year-old precinct captain. “Third would be a letdown.”

He had nothing to worry about.

The first clue that Obama would have a big night was that the other campaigns didn't have parties to watch returns.

Watching defeat is never festive.

“I'm too young to have worked for Kennedy, but this is what it must have felt like,” Hottman said, a statement echoed at the party in New Hampshire.

Alan Reische, a longtime Democratic activist in New Hampshire and a member of the Obama steering committee, said he voted for the first time in 1960. “Kennedy was the first candidate who lit me up, and Obama makes me feel that way.”

At the cantina in Las Vegas, Billy Vassiliadis, the Democratic lobbyist and advertising executive who took a big risk by backing Obama instead of Clinton, said the Iowa results knocked down Clinton's chief advantage: “One of the biggest challenges we faced was that Hillary Clinton was inevitable. She's not inevitable anymore.”

When asked about the significance of the Iowa victory in securing the endorsement of the 60,000-member Culinary Union, Vassiliadis demurred, but then he quipped, “They've got impeccable taste and like to be on the winning side, so I imagine this means great things.”

Even as Obama's Nevada campaign workers hugged and mouthed the words “We won” to each other, they were careful not to be seen as too cocky.

“At the end of the day, Nevadans will pick the winner of Nevada's caucus,” said Obama's Nevada spokeswoman, Shannon Gilson.

She paused as an Obama supporter screamed.

A woman in a red Obama sweat shirt said, “Excuse my scream.”