I don’t think I can add anything to the discussion of shifting horserace dynamics that hasn’t already been covered by the best political team in the blogosphere.
Taking a step back, I do think there are valuable lessons that should be memorialized by future campaigns that trek the terrain from Dubuque to Cedar Rapids.
Count on voters to decide with their hearts, not with their heads. 2004 was all about momentum vs. organization. 2008 was about candidates of the heart vs. the head. Clinton and Romney had well-reasoned closing arguments centering around their fitness for the office, which should be the bottom line in any normal election. But in Iowa, the pull of identity, of gut decisions, and of emotion, won the day. Obama crushed with 57% of 17-29 year old voters, an astounding 22% of Dem caucus turnout. Huckabee won with a similar 56% among those who thought religion was very important, a full 36% of the electorate. This was a vote about identity, about people voting for someone like them, not about issues.
As I wrote on December 11:
[Huckabee’s] success is not about ideology, but identity. For his voters, he’s a Christian first, and a conservative second. Attacking him on conventional conservative issues won’t undermine his core support because it has nothing to do with being a conservative.
Huckabee won women 40-26% (and men just 29-26%). He won voters under $30,000 by about 2 to 1. Cross those two, take away the Republican filter, and you’re talking about a general election constituency that is at least 2-to-1 Democratic. These are not people that conventional primary campaigns are designed to reach. These are the Republican voters the furthest away from National Review, other elite conservative media, and websites like this one. It’s easy to see just how the analysts missed the boat on this one.
The long process warps judgments of frontrunners. A long process is inherently unkind to candidates who seem to be handed down as the anointed frontrunners from above. Iowans take a good long year to vet their candidates, and won’t take cues from intermediaries. This leads to a process where people inherently gravitate to who they want, not who they “should” vote for. A short process begets snap decisions, which benefits the “safe” alternatives, and Obama will have to angle his way into this territory to win.
For most Iowans, the process began months ago. For most Americans, it begins tomorrow and ends 32 days from now. I was struck in 2004 how the day after Iowa I first heard two office workers having a conversation about John Kerry, which was unheard of before then. Most people only engage after Iowa.
Usually, Iowa is a tad more establishment-oriented than its evil twin New Hampshire, but not this year. Probably because…
Conventional organization may matter less in an era of high-stakes, high-turnout elections. Romney’s Iowa chair Doug Gross was quoted as saying that 80,000 was their “magic number” for overall turnout. It’s easy to see why. With 26,000 Romney votes, that would have been good for 32.5% and a win — about the same percentage they got at Ames (where turnout was historically low).
The Romney campaign was an efficient machine that knew who its voters were and turned them out. The problem is that Mike Huckabee’s momentum brought in new voters off the beaten path — more Evangelicals, more women, people lower on the income ladder. Think about this: In the 2000 Caucuses, only 37% described themselves as “religious right.” This year, 60% described themselves as “Evangelical Christians.” That’s an imperfect comparison, but the universe of Evangelical voters almost certainly expanded this year.
In both Caucuses, turnout was well above expectations. This probably represents a lasting shift in American politics in a post-9/11 world. We saw it in the historically high interest and turnout the 2004 election, and it is continuing into 2008. With an electorate that is harder to shape, a paint-by-numbers approach to turnout loses value. You need passion and energy, not just issue matrices and spreadsheets, to connect with the voters not in any turnout universe. (I think President Bush had this in the ‘04 election, and showed how a broader universe could benefit Republicans.)
In a sense, momentum trumped organization in Iowa again tonight.