Could he be the one?

It's Obama Time: What Does His Stunning Iowa Win Mean?
By Eric L. Hinton
© DiversityInc 2007
When Barack Obama pulled off a stunning victory in Thursday's Iowa caucus, one of the whitest states in the nation, some hailed his victory as proof that a black man could be president.

Are we there yet?
In the past several months, Obama has successfully hurdled questions of "Is he black enough?" and "Is He a Muslim?" on his way to capturing 38 percent of support among Iowa caucus-goers. John Edwards gained 30 percent of the vote while Hillary Clinton, the prohibitive frontrunner in the months leading up to the caucus, finished a disappointing third with 29 percent.

Approximately 25 percent of the Democratic caucus-goers interviewed in entrance polls were younger than 30. Obama received 57 percent of their votes, compared with 14 percent for Edwards and 11 percent for Clinton, reports The Associated Press (AP). Obama also won the highest percentage of independents, first-time caucus-goers, self-identified liberals, and women, according to the AP.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee, who's been campaigning on a largely anti-undocumented-immigrant platform, won with 34 percent of the vote, followed by 25 percent for Mitt Romney.

So was Obama's victory in Iowa just a blip on the radar screen or the first step in a massive transformation in American politics? That's what the political pundits are trying to analyze this "day after" as campaign managers go into spin mode and the campaign trail moves on to New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Tuesday.

Obama's historic victory "proved that a black man running for president can have success among voters in a predominantly white state," writes BlackAmericaWeb.com.

"To his credit Barack Obama has carefully cultivated an image as a 'change' candidate who takes the higher ground, one that talks about race -- but not racism," writes New American Media columnist Roberto Lovato. "Iowa confirms that, in doing so, he can make even the whitest electorate feel like it's voting to overcome the catastrophic legacy of racial discrimination."

Obama's campaign seemed to kick into overdrive once he was joined on the campaign trail by Oprah Winfrey. It's hard to determine what impact 'The Oprah effect' actually had. But as the Des Monies Register reported in December after Obama received Winfrey's endorsement, he attracted more than 18,000 to a Des Monies event and more than 15,000 in Cedar Rapids. Newsweek says many pundits discounted Winfrey's endorsement despite her the largely female audience, which Obama was trying to capture, "but when MSNBC reported that Obama had won the women's vote in Iowa by several points, the crowd went wild," Newsweek reports.

How important was Obama's Iowa win? It may be difficult to believe with 49 states still unheard from that the first--particularly Iowa which is 95 percent white--could be a deciding factor. But Jonathan Alter, senior editor and columnist at Newsweek, says the Iowa win has made Obama the prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic presidential nominee.

"It's hard to believe a few thousand votes in Iowa can have so shaken the political landscape, but the front-loading of the primary process--originally meant to settle on Hillary Clinton early so she could concentrate on defeating the GOP in November--has backfired badly for the Democratic Party establishment," writes Alter. "The only one who can stop Obama from making history is Obama."

The Clinton camp has a different perspective, obviously. Clinton's campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle offered congratulations to Obama while saying the battle was far from over. "This race begins tonight and ends when Democrats throughout America have their say," Doyle writes on the Clinton campaign web site. "Our campaign was built for a marathon and we have the resources to run a national race in the weeks ahead."

Timing is everything. It's possible Obama may be the last candidate to ride the Iowa wave to a party nomination, should he go that far. Some political analysts are suggesting that Iowa, largely rural, white, conservative and sparsely populated, exerts far too large an influence over the political process.

"The major parties would be far better off if the presidential nominees were chosen much later in the process," says Steven S. Smith, a political expert at Washington University who predicts Iowa's special role in party politics may end after this year. "It's a lousy way to elect a president. Is it reasonable to allow states like Iowa and New Hampshire to have such a disproportionate impact on the presidential race?"

The New York Times concurred. On its editorial page, the Times urged that "this year's Iowa-New Hampshire rush to judgment will be the last."

"We don't question the enthusiasm of the commitment of the people of Iowa and New Hampshire. But Iowa, where a huge turnout amounts to less than 10 percent of the population, is about 92 percent white, more rural and older than the rest of the nation," says the Times.

How interesting, then, that Iowa's sawn song with its predominantly white populace may be propelling Barack Obama to the Democratic nomination.