Young voters, women were key for Obama...Iowans turned out in record numbers for the 2008 caucuses, and in the process altered the nation's political landscape overnight by favoring a pair of upstart candidates over contenders with longer pedigrees. Iowa Democratic officials reported 239,000 caucus attendees, which was nearly double the number of 2004. Attendance at the GOP caucuses exceeded 112,000, which eclipsed the 87,666 total for 2000, the last year of contested caucuses on the Republican side.
"The real shock of the night isn't Obama winning. It isn't Huckabee winning. It's the unbelievable turnout on the Democratic side. Nobody was thinking above 150,000, wildest dream. It's just astounding," said David Redlawsk, a political science professor at the University of Iowa who backed Edwards.
Where other Democratic campaigns were working the traditional lists of party faithful, Obama's campaign actively worked on independents, he said. Obama's power to gather fresh-faced activists proved to be unbeatable. "They grabbed their muskets and came out of their caves," said Jerry Crawford, a Des Moines lawyer and one of Clinton's closest Iowa confidantes.
"I don't think anybody saw that kind of turnout coming with the possible exception of Ann Selzer," Crawford said, referring to The Des Moines Register's pollster. The pre-caucus Iowa Poll, conducted Dec. 27-30 by Selzer & Co., showed Obama widening his lead over Clinton and Edwards with the help of newcomers and independents.
Out of 80,000 Iowans the Clinton campaign identified as supporters, 72,000 showed up Thursday night. "That's a super-human effort," Crawford said Friday. "We thought if we did that we would win handily." That was 30,000 more than the number that caucused for Democrat John Kerry in his 2004 caucus victory, Crawford said.
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe agreed that the outcome came down to "record turnout and lots of independents and first time voters." In New Hampshire, which holds its first-in-the-nation primary on Jan. 8, "independent voters make up at least 40 percent of the electorate in the Democratic primary so it couldn't be a better entry point into New Hampshire, the way we won Iowa, Plouffe said...
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080104/NEWS/80104043
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