Barack Obama scores decisive victory
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By: Carrie Budoff Brown
Columnist
The Politico
January 4, 2008 02:13 AM EST
DES MOINES, Iowa — Sen. Barack Obama became the front-runner tonight for the Democratic nomination, scoring a decisive victory over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards that will give him the momentum heading into the New Hampshire primary.
“They said this day would never come. They said we set our sights too high,” Obama told thousands of cheering supporters at a convention hall in downtown Des Moines.
“But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn’t do.”
With his wife, Michelle, and his two daughters at his side, Obama walked into Hy-Vee Hall to U2’s “City of Blinding Lights,” the song that marked his entrance on the presidential stage in February, when he announced his candidacy.
He clapped along with the crowd and nodded approvingly at the sea of sign-waving, screaming supporters.
In one of the shortest speeches of his campaign, Obama struck themes similar to those he pressed on the stump: ending the war in Iraq, fighting global warming, tamping down special interests, aiding the middle class, providing universal health care and, above all, fostering a new kind of politics in Washington.
“Tonight, we are one step closer to that vision of America because of what you did here tonight,” Obama said, thanking his field organizers, precinct captains and volunteers just as he had at every stop across Iowa in recent months.
In fewer than three years, Obama went from a nationally unknown Illinois state senator to a candidate who defeated both a former first lady and the Democrats’ 2004 vice presidential nominee in the first contest of the 2008 election.
Obama learned that he had been projected the winner while dining with family and friends at an upscale steakhouse in West Des Moines, according to his campaign.
"It gives us an extraordinary boost to run against Sen. Edwards, who has been here for six years, and Sen. Clinton, who has the most famous and enduring name in Democratic politics," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist.
The win provides Obama the momentum he needs going into New Hampshire, where Clinton built an extensive ground organization that she hoped would be her firewall, Obama aides said.
He will press the same message of change and post-partisan politics that seemingly sealed his victory tonight, aides said.
Every new round of caucus returns broadcast onto large projection screens at Hy-Vee Hall in downtown Des Moines drew wild cheers from hundreds of supporters, who began gathering here soon after the caucus began.
Axelrod was standing amid reporters when he was informed that networks were calling Obama the winner. “Oh, that's great,” he said. “I put that in the category of good news."
When it appeared certain that Obama had indeed won, the Isiserettes, a drill and drum corps from Des Moines, stormed the convention hall, dancing and drumming their way through the crowd.
The group escorted Obama into the game-changing Jefferson Jackson Dinner in November, when he dazzled Iowa Democrats with a widely acclaimed speech that his campaign viewed as a turning point in the race.
Obama’s strongest weapon turned out to be his message, heavily steeped in the concept of “change.”
He emerged as a sort of Goldilocks in the Democratic field — not as strident as Edwards, not as establishment as Clinton, but just right for many Iowa voters.
Obama didn’t visit as many counties as Edwards did. Or linger at the rope lines as long as Clinton would.
(Unlike his rivals, Obama almost always declined to pose for photographs because they took too much time.)
But he made up for it in other ways.
Voters routinely left his events intrigued, if not swayed, by speeches heavy on sweeping oratory and light on policy.
His field organizers, schooled in the failures of Howard Dean in 2004, would then follow up. Undecided voters would be invited to listen to Obama again and again, if necessary.
Obama’s wife, Michelle, would focus in on women.
And eventually, a campaign that sputtered through the summer and into the early fall began to gel.
Obama’s upturn started in late October, when Clinton turned in a poor debate performance in Philadelphia, and continued in November with the Jefferson Jackson Dinner.
TM & © THE POLITICO & POLITICO.COM, a division of Allbritton
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