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I’ve read some of the analysis from the Iowa Caucus last night, but I’m not so sure that the pundits are right on the true winners and losers. I think the easy winner is Barack Obama, who showed that he could bring in independents and that a majority white electorate has no problems with his race. While Iowa is far from Alabama, I think that it bodes well for him at least in the rest of the primary season. The big loser on the Democratic side, other than Biden and Dodd who withdrew from the race, was Clinton. Her air of inevitability has clearly come off and she’s really got to dig down now. She’s far from out of the race but I think this will test the vaunted Clinton machine. Edwards did come back to finish second, but he’s been campaigning in the state since 2004. I think he hangs on to February 5^th but I think he’s probably done.

On the Republican side, I think the big winner is Rudy. Huckabee doesn’t have the money or structure to survive Super Duper Tuesday and his campaign seemed to implode at the first scent of criticism. His big win in Iowa pretty much kills Romney’s campaign as they were banking on winning Iowa and winning big. McCain has the war and memories of “The Hug” to contend with among independents and his slamming of religious conservatives in 2000 derails any chances of him picking off those votes in states such as South Carolina. That pretty much leaves Rudy as the candidate with the money and organization capable of pulling off the nomination. His campaign couldn’t have been happier with the way things went last night.

I think the really big losers in yesterday’s caucuses are the moderates. The partisans in Iowa chose candidates from the far left and far right of each party. New Hampshire generally picks candidates from the middle, but the middle is hard to find in this race. It will be interesting to see if McCain, once the middle of the road candidate, decides to push for the center again or abandon it (again) for a rightward tack to try and win South Carolina.

I don’t think Iowa told us anything that the endless polling didn’t in the days running up to the caucus. While Obama won by a bigger margin (and Edwards eclipsed Clinton) I think that we could easily end up seeing both winners last night not get the nomination. It’s still a marathon and we’re only at Mile 4 (unfortunately).