What Happened

OK...here's what happened.

Obama won the Iowa caucus. He beat John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, neither of them by much, by spending almost $3 million more than Hillary on TV ads and almost three times what John Edwards spent. Hillary spent over twice as much money as John Edwards and he beat her in Iowa.

I spend Three Times as much money than you do in a political campaign and I should kick your ass all the way back to Seneca, South Carolina and the mill village you were born in.

Where did their money come from? Well let me just say this...Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are now indebted to some seriously big corporations. John Edwards has refused to take Corporate PAC money. Obama is fairly clean on this but not so Hillary.

Hillary Clinton is a huge loser in this, and even though Obama won, he outspent everybody else a ton to do it. We'll see how your corporate media spin it but I'll bet that they totally downplay how well John Edwards, sworn enemy to corporatists, did last night. (Update: I'm wrong in at least one case...Time picked up on it)

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney had the Hillary experience times Four. He spent $7 Million to Huckabee's $1.2 Million and got kicked. Mike Huckabee has now proved that a Baptist Preacher with a kindly manner and an executioner's heart can get all the other people to vote for him, as long as they don't believe in Evolution, do believe the End Times are upon us, and don't check his record all that closely.

Republicans have apparently decided that they'll take the crazy guy they like over the semi-competent Mormon guy they don't. There are some other white men running for the republican nomination but they seem to have disappeared. Thompson did come in third, but he has to go take a nap now, and nobody thinks he will wake up in time for the next primary. McCain in in the low single digits along with Giulliani "Who?"...Apparently even Republicans have a sleaze and creepy factor threshold that even they can't ignore.

So both races seem to be two man contests, but Hillary has the money to stay in, and Obama may continue to be able to outspend everyone as long as Edwards refuses to take Corporate money.

Romney is severely damaged, but who knows. The only question I have is whether the Republican power mongers, who have so brazenly trashed the constitution in order to play to evangelical conservatives, will blanch at the monster they've created and run to someone else...Anyone else...besides Mike Huckabee.

As for me...I sent John Edwards some money this morning. I'm far more afraid of Corporatism than I am of a Baptist preacher who doesn't seem to have read, and certainly doesn't understand, the second testament of the book he thumps.

Peace,

Steve