Record Turnout for Dems In Iowa, Next Stop NH, Oooops, No, GOP Should Be In Wyoming

Final tally: Barak Obama with 37%, John Edwards with 29.7%, and Hillary Clinton with 29.5% of the vote.

The casualties: Joe Biden and Chris Dodd,

But, the big news is the voter turnout, and quite frankly even the Nag can’t get the reason for this huge turnout by dems completely wrong.

A record number of Democrats turned out to caucus — more than 239,000, compared with fewer than 125,0000 in 2004 — producing scenes of overcrowded firehouses and schools and long lines of people waiting to register their preferences.

The images stood as evidence of the success of Mr. Obama’s effort to reach out to thousands of first-time caucusgoers, including many independent voters and younger voters. The huge turn-out — by contrast, 108,000 Republicans caucused on Thursday — demonstrated the extent to which opposition to President Bush has energized Democrats, and served as another warning to Republicans about the problems they face this November in swing states like this.

Eric at TPMElection Central takes a look at two entrance polls. The first entrance poll shows that Edwards was the clear winner in second votes from caucus goers.

If we assume that the final state delegate numbers actually approximated the votes of the caucus participants, this means John Edwards was the big second-choice winner, as he boosted his final score by seven points, compared to only three points for Obama and two for Hillary.

The second entrance poll Eric looks at, shows that Obama’s strategy to get out the vote worked.

An astonishing 57% of caucusers were first-time participants. And how did they vote? Barack Obama carried them with 41% of the people going in and before second-choice reallocations, followed by Hillary Clinton at 29% and John Edwards at 18%.

And among the returning caucus-goers? Edwards was carrying them with 30%, with Obama at 26% and Hillary with 24%.

Libby points out something very important that party officials just cannot continue to ignore, and I completely agree with her.

I’m somewhat heartened by Clinton’s third place showing. It shows that the party machine can’t pull the strings to dictate the outcome as easily as they have in previous elections. That’s a good sign I think.

As all eyes, the candidates and the media, thus forcing the public to turn their attention to New Hampshire, wide open Wyoming is just that — wide open. Did you know the Wyoming GOP caucus is now sandwiched between the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries? It appears some GOP’ers in Wyoming are not to pleased at being dissed by their party’s candidates.

While Republican presidential hopefuls have focused on Iowa, home to the first key race of the 2008 U.S. election season Thursday, this vast state with a similar contest just two days later has been largely ignored.

Only Republican hopefuls Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter have passed through since September despite the fact that the party will hold meetings Saturday to select delegates that will help determine the party’s candidate at the Republican presidential nominating convention in September.

The race in Wyoming carries little of the influence of the Iowa caucuses where candidates who do well there, an in the New Hampshire primary five days later, are often able to gain enough momentum to secure their party’s nomination. Candidates who do poorly in those two events often drop out.

So far, no candidate has announced plans to head west for Wyoming’s Republican’s county conventions Saturday. An exception could be Hunter, who has been to several of the state’s major cities and held out the possibility of a last-minute visit. His wife spent part of her childhood in Wheatland, in southeast Wyoming.

Interesting, no? Are the GOP candidates so wrapped up in the past that they can’t break out of their moldy molds — can’t change — or do they just don’t care about that huge state, until it comes time to exploit the state for whatever reason should that pop up? Or, is the media continuing to decide for us what matters and what doesn’t matter?

There has been no public polling, and those familiar with the results of the Republican precinct caucuses held last month said no clear candidate emerged when delegates to the county conventions were selected.

Update: I forgot to add this. As for the GOP turnout in Iowa, which was pretty dismal, fringe ultra conservatives, such as Richard Viguerie, are not pleased with the results.

In my inbox, came this condemnation, which I really have to laugh at.

“Mike Huckabee’s victory in the Iowa caucuses is bad news for the Republican Party.

“Mike Huckabee is a Christian socialist. He is a good man, but with a Big Government heart. He is the most liberal of all the Republican presidential candidates on economic issues.

“Huckabee’s approach to every problem or perceived problem is to pass a law and launch another government program. If you like President George W. Bush, you’ll love Mike Huckabee.

“If, on the other hand, you’re a limited government conservative in the grand tradition of Robert A. Taft, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan, you will want to redouble your efforts to make sure Huckabee doesn’t win the Republican nomination. Four years of a Huckabee presidency would ensure that there wouldn’t be a penny’s worth of differences between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party on economic issues…”

Is Viguerie really that scared Huckabee would win the GOP nomination? If you want to wade into some scary shit, you can read the rest here.  I mean, really now, Huckabee is a Christian socialist and the most liberal in the GOP???

Nowhere on Viguerie’s site does he mention the Wyoming caucuses.

I guess the  Viguerie people caught my rants on Fred being a false prophet for the GOP, and sucked my email addy into their list, it was about the same time I had posted a number of Fred rants that I started getting these emails. I guess politics truly does make strange bedfellows.