Sober up people

[Girlieman]

You would think that Jesus Christ himself descended on Iowa last night. Get a grip on it, really.

Obama, the candidate for "change," spend more on television advertising than the other democratic candidates. 10,000 advertisements in the last month alone. Democrats in total spent about $135 for each voter who turned out at caucuses. Looks like business, I mean politics, as usual to me.

And what for? About 200,000 Iowans voted in the democratic caucuses. Obama won by 6 percent. That's about 1,800 voters by my math. About 5 television ads by Obama for each voter in his margin of victory. Is this cause for celebration?

1,800 people in a nation of 300,000,000? Why can't Iowa just be Iowa? The whole primary process is corrupt, and the elevation of Iowa to a position of exaggerated importance is a primary symptom of that corruption.

New Hampshire? Give me a break.

The first step to real, meaningful change begins with publicly financed elections, with a reasonable primary season (6 weeks is about right), where all primary elections are held on a same date, on a day (or days) that most people don't work. Then we can talk about change.

[Colobo]

1. Relax. Obama won big, and that's the bottom line.

[Justyce]

2. Good post. I agree about the system -- Iowa shouldn't have

this much power, but Bill Clinton didn't win in Iowa in '92, so I think this thing is FAR from over.

[FrenchieCat]

3. Obama won by 8 points....and in politics, considering this country...

that's quite a spread.

Edwards' been camped out in Iowa since 2003. He was the 2004 2nd place winner and the Veep candidate. They know him in Iowa.

Hillary Clinton was married to the President for 8 years. They know here well there as well.

Obama just came onto the national scene a few years ago, and few people knew who he really was....other than us Polinerds till this late summer.

The first step to real meaningful change is to elect someone who inspires a larger turnout of voters and keeps the elections "tamper" proof. Than once in office, we can change things. One can't change anything sitting on the sidelines yelling out what's wrong with everything and telling us that we can make it right, and we need to fight for everything. We don't need to fight, we need to work together. We don't want warmongers, we want peacemakers.

[DangerDave921]

4. good points

Winning Iowa is a nice feather in his cap, but does not seal anything. It's just the first opportunity the media has to trumpet an actual vote rather than a poll. Nice job, though, on his part. HRC must be a little nervous heading into NH.

I think the campaigning season is WAY TOO LONG. We have a year of primary campaigning followed by another 6-9 months of general election campaigning. Just plain silly. I would support clearly demarcated times for campasigning, say 3 months for primaries and maybe 4 months for general.

Sorry to see Biden bow out. Good man.

[ThomWV]

5. 6% of 200,000 is 12,000, not 1,800

[cali]

6. Can't even get your facts straight. Obama won by 8 pts- and that's

a decisive victory. Yes, he spent some of the money he raised from hundreds of thousands of small donors. Over 230,000 Iowans voted in the dem caucuses.

I don't like the system, but it's what we have this year. Obama won. Get over it.

[iamahaingttta]

7. "The first step to real... "

"...meaningful change begins with publicly financed elections, with a reasonable primary season... Then we can talk about change."

But that's not the system we have now. In the system we have now, Obama won Iowa. And he won it by a respectable margin. For many, if not most people in the country, this will be the first they hear about the primaries. And Obama won. By a respectable margin. That gives him an edge. In the system we have now.