The opening round goes to Obama and the Huckster

My, my, my. Obama's people had predicted over 200,ooo Iowans would caucus on the Democratic side, when I couldn't remember there ever being more than 125,000. I thought either they were blowing smoke up our collective arses, or they had a great organization in the Hawkeye State.

Pick the latter, folks. There were over 218,000 who caucused Democratically on Thursday night, and the junior Senator from neighboring Illinois pulled 37.58% of them, topping John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, in that order. Mighty well done, sir, mighty well done.

I was at Drinking Liberally at Dish on the hippest corner in town, Cooper and Young, where our pal Vibinc rocked the house with his live-blogging of the current state of affairs in each party.

As for the Goopers, Mike Huckabee, after only being in the state three months and having been out-spent by Mitt Romney, who I believe had been in Iowa over a year, thoroughly tromped on the former Massachusetts Governor, 34% to 25%. Fred Thompson, rumored to be dropping out, limped in just ahead of the man he is rumored to be endorsing after said departure, John McCain.

Oh, by the way, our Blog-Ruler Kos noted the following tonight:

There were approximately 356,000 Iowans turning out from BOTH parties. Here's how the top four candidates fared when grouped together:

Obama 24.5%

Edwards 20.5%

Clinton 19.8%

Huckabee 11.4%

So much for Iowa being a Republican state!