In case you’ve been living under a rock or have at least been avoidant of the American cable news channels, you know full well that the Iowa caucuses chimed in last night, beginning the process of selection for their party’s presidential candidates. The results (source):

Democratic: Obama – 37.6%, Edwards – 29.7%, Clinton – 29.5%, Richardson – 2.1%.
Republican: Huckabee – 34.3%, Romney – 25.3%, Thompson – 13.4%, McCain 13.1%, Paul – 10%, Guiliani – 3.5%

First of all let me say I’m glad to see Assface Guiliani get trounced, but apparently he didn’t try very hard in this state anyway. Also, there’s a lot of controversy about the Iowa caucus in general and the importance placed upon it. See this editorial for some of these concerns.

Clearly, the biggest “surprise” of the evening was Hilary’s 3rd place showing. Michael Moore suggests a simple explanation – the two candidates that beat her oppose the war in Iraq, she doesn’t (link).

This insight on the republican side is very interesting. Basically, the loose alliance between libertarian, evangelicals, big business, and the ’empire builders’ is falling apart and pulling right-wing voters in all directions.

What is most interesting to me is that Huckabee and in particular Edwards, who both had very strong and somewhat unexpected support, are hauntingly populist in their approach to the problems of corporate interference in politics – stances which have cost them the endorsement of nearly all major media outlets. My guess is that politically involved Americans have finally had it with “towing the party line”.

Finally, with Ron Paul only getting 10%, his supporters clearly have to get their butts away from the keyboard and get themselves involved in the process. In other words, “they need to put up or shut up”.