Here are the latest Iowa results, together with the Republican and Democratic polling data (again, but from a different source).

After reading Peter L.’s post, I have another question. To what degree will the press focus on the Obama story, giving much less attention to what happens on the boring old Republican side? Will that leave the Republican race much less conclusive (with people unable to get much of a bounce from winning a primary) until the Democratic race is settled?

Here are the WaPo Republican story, its Democratic counterpart, and the NYT article. Here are the NBC Democratic and Republican exit polls.

For instant analysis, see this NYT piece, the Corner, and TNR’s The Plank (especially this post about the Obama and Clinton campaign styles).

Here’s the lead story on The Politico site, as well as some analysis of hte Republican campaign’s future.

My first thought is that Huckabee will never again face a friendlier crowd--60% of the caucus-goers were evangelical Christians, and he won 46% of them (more than 80% of his overall total). By contrast, roughly one-third of the Republican voters in the 2000 South Carolina primary were members of the "religious Right." (I know the question won’t be asked that way this time, and I suspect the proportion of evangelicals will be a little higher, but not 60%.) Unless he can reach out beyond his base, he’s not going anywhere, save perhaps as a running mate.

My second thought is that Romney has to worry a lot about McCain (13% to Thompson’s 14%) in New Hampshire.

My third thought is a question: what happens to Thompson supporters if he pulls out? If they’re the authentic conservatives, where do they go?

They both won through big turnouts. My apologies to Clint for underestimating Huck’s ground game. (And his people predicted the outcome of the caucus with uncanny accuracy before a single vote was counted.) Huck won with little money, universal and intense establishment hostility, and lots of dumb campaign errors. It’s now time to start thinking about why. Those who voted for Huck shared his values and admired his character, even though they didn’t think he is the most electable candidate.

Obama is now the favorite for Democratic nomination. Hillary is going to have become tough about supplying reasons why he should be stopped that appeal to Democratic primary voters.

Bill Kristol was very gracious about Huck’s victory, admitting that he underestimated him in just about every way.

Although McCain’s actual vote total is pretty underwhelming and didn’t reflect any surge, he’s probably the big winner. Now he’s the clear favorite for the Republican nomination. My real thought remains: How is John going to self-destruct this time?

Here’s why many Republicans should be unhappy: Both Huck and McCain are very unreliable conservatives on domestic policy. The policy competence of both men, in fact, could easily be questioned, and neither of them seems able to formulate characteristically Republican positions on issues such as health care and taxation. Huck and John like and are like each other as a couple of moralizing outsiders. Isn’t it amazing that they might end up having to duel each other as the two favorites? My playful suggestion of the authentic ticket of McCain-Huckabee is now serious business.

Romney, in fact, is on balance more conservative and has exhibited much more competence. But he now has to win in New Hampshire to remain a credible candidate. That’s going to be a tall order. McCain is already ahead. Mitt is going to suffer from negative momentum, and he has only five days to shake it off. I’ve expressed my doubts about Romney as a candidate, but let me add again that he would probably be a solid president. Mitt looked good as the alternative to Giuliani, but that way of looking at things became obsolete way too soon. He also looked good as the man who could vanquish Huck, but now his "establishment" supporters are likely to jump to John.

The exit polls revealed somewhat of a surge for Thompson, but probably not enough of one. He was plagued by rumors all day that he was about to drop out of the campaign. And he doesn’t have a firm view of what he’s going to do next. But the opportunity remains: There is, arguably, no other real conservative in the race, and he might surge with a win in South Carolina. Fred has been saying the right things of late, but can he get the word out that he really means business when it comes to winning this thing?

I still don’t see Huck getting anywhere near the nomination. Nonetheless, there’s no reason he can’t be competitive in Michigan, South Carolina, and even Florida. Polls showed him doing well in those states even before the bump he’s going to get now. He might well be more than a one-state wonder. Certainly it’s a fantasy for Giuliani supporters to believe they can win some kind of big victory in Florida against Huck and McCain.

Well, I only saw two more:

WALK HARD is very uneven. It has some really funny moments mocking Dylan, Brian Wilson, and the Beatles in India. But its main story mocking Johnny Cash is often just stupid and needlessly gross. The songs aren’t good enough and the acting is in a nervous, often annoying position between slapstick and something like serious. John C. Reilly has some talent, but not enough self-irony. You’ll leave the theatre longing for that Will Farrell touch.

ATONEMENT is a very classy and endlessly layered psychological study that connects with every English aristocratic virtue and vice, except those that have to do with God and ruling. In its own deep way it’s sort of a chick flick and not quite for me. But as far as I’m concerned it’s the best made movie of the year. As a man of undistinguished Irish and American stock, I have to admit to being a little tonedeaf to things classy and English.

So I tend to agree with many critics that JUNO is no. 1 and ATONEMENT no. 2 for the year. The more I think about Juno the more I admire it, and I’m managing not to think much about ATONEMENT. And I’m not forgetting CHARLIE WILSON’s war.

The WaPo’s Dan Balz conveniently summarizes the conventional wisdom. Dana Milbank takes a look at the young voters supporting Obama, wondering if there’s another Dean in the making here. Methinks not, but I’ll bet that Huckabee’s homeschoolers are more reliable than Obama’s college students. (Here’s why.) David Broder gives us some more conventional wisdom about the unrepresentative character of the Iowa caucuses, characteristically preferring to regard New Hampshire (say what???) as more representative.

The NYT’s Adam Nagourney tells us that Iraq is off the front burner (duh!). For all their differences, Huckabee hearts Obama (for reasons that Peter L. has already noted). This NYT article suggests that support on the Democratic side is softer than on the Republican, though the anecdotes don’t amount to data.

This WSJ article discusses the populist rhetoric on both sides of the campaign. It resonates, but wouldn’t it be nice if the populists took the time to get their facts right? It kinda makes you want to vote for Fred, who’s in a media-assisted (or is that resisted?) fade.

Or maybe McCain, who still draws the media, if not the crowds. A "surprisingly good" third-place showing in Iowa will help him a lot, especially with his friends in the media, and especially if Romney doesn’t impress.

NR’s Stephen Spruiell explains why the liberal netroots don’t cotton to Obama (he sounds too little like them and too much like someone who really wants to go in a new direction--even if, in the end, the direction isn’t all that new). Indeed, I think this is what makes Obama a formidable general election candidate, especially if his opponent can’t get anyone to listen to how Obama--despite the fog--is still just the same old same old.

This NR editorial concedes some of David Brooks’s argument, especially that none of the Republican candidates has articulated the way forward for conservatism. The excuse? You have to consolidate the existing base first. But the editorial notes that tax-cutting doesn’t at the moment have the traction it used to have, since many fewer of us are paying a painful share of our income in taxes. Give the Democrats a couple of election victories and that might change, but the easy fiscal promise doesn’t energize voters right now and the hard one almost never does.

TWS’s Richelieu predicts that Republican women will put Obama over the top on the Democratic side and hurt Romney on the Republican side. Low Republican turnout helps homeschoolers for Huckabee and manly men for McCain. Stephen F. Hayes thinks Romney will win and McCain won’t do as well as he’d like.

When you are away from old peers and colleagues for a long time and then have the opportunity to catch up with several of them in a short span of time, you sometimes notice things that seem to represent a kind of trend. As I am creeping closer to 40, here is one that I’m noticing. It seems whenever I come across a woman I haven’t seen in awhile (or even another mother whom I barely know), and she has a tattoo she once considered to be a sign of her "edgy" and hip persona, I find myself listening to a lengthy apologia for the thinking that led to her inking, laced with regret, and nervous chatter about the improvements in laser removal techniques. Tattoo removals (like manicures, facials and various spa treatments) seem to be the new status symbol for young (well . . . not yet old) professionals and moms. It will be expensive and painful, but I guess this is a good sign for my generation (and it means that we’ll all have fewer sagging butterflies peeping out at us on the backs of old ladies in another 30+ years). But geesh! There has to be a less painful way to grow up!

David Brooks doesn’t like Mitt Romney’s chances in the fall. He’s your father’s Republican, doing poorly with the younger, less affluent constituencies a winner would have to attract. Hugh Hewitt, who is the most pro-Romney blogger I know, is too busy attacking Huckabee to respond. Though not convinced of the Republican crack-up thesis, Jonah G. thinks the column is worth pondering. I agree.

The reappearance of sprawl as a preoccupation is a sure sign that the post-9/11 world is over. Back in the late 1990s and into 2001 I was working intensively on this issue, writing a number of articles and book chapters including, for example, this one, which may have contributed to the sacking of a left-wing hack at the National Governors Association.

Back, in those days, I used to get called about once a week by a reporter, radio show, TV gabfest, or documentarian, for a sprawl-related project. That all ended abruptly on 9/11, as reporters and editors were quickly reassigned. I’ve had maybe two media calls about sprawl since 9/11.

A couple of points: First, don’t count of high gas prices curbing the urge to sprawl (that means YOU Deneen). European cities are actually sprawling faster than American cities, even with their $6 a gallon gas. My figures are a little old and need updating, but between 1970 and 1990:

Amsterdam expanded its developed area 12 percent while its population declined 12.4 percent;

Copenhagen expanded its developed area 10.3 percent while its population declined 14 percent;

Frankfurt expanded its developed area 33.3 percent while its population declined 5.4 percent;

Hamburg expanded its developed area 54.6 percent while its population declined 7.9 percent;

Paris expanded its developed area 54.3 percent (twice as much as Chicago) while its population rose only 15.3 percent; and

Vienna expanded its developed area 19.2 percent while its population declined 4.6 percent.

Second, while I am a big fan of the New Urbanism—and have done slide shows about Kentlands, one of Andres Duany’s best NE developments in Maryland—New Urbanist development does not save very much land. I can demonstrate this fairly easily, but not on a blog. By the way, anyone ever noticed where most of these heralded developments are located? Out on the suburban periphery.

Meanwhile, too many of the New Urbanists have become a bit thuggish about the whole matter, wanting to use the law to mandate the form exclusively. Even Duany has broken with most of these folks, and I know Philip Bess (a fine and thoughtful fellow of moderate disposition) has come to see this problem.

Here’s a Kristol-clear speculation, and here’s the Des Moines Register poll. If Kristol is correct, then Huckabee holds on to win Iowa. My question then would be how close McCain comes to Romney, and how that might alter the dynamic in New Hampshire.

On the Democratic side, Obama leads, but his support might be a little soft and, in its youth, perhaps unreliable about showing up. As the WSJ’s John Fund points out, the rules for the Democratic caucuses are complicated, with second choices mattering a lot. Since I’d bet that the’re’s a lot of ABH sentiment out there, that can’t help the Clinton campaign. (Here’s a Knippenberg speculation: given the gender and age gaps, the smoothest path to a Clinton victory would be a caucus dominated by older women.)

It’s also worth noting that the principal speculations in these posts aren’t borne out by the substance of the Register poll. Nevertheless, the Obama campaign’s apparent confidence about the outcome (and its effort to discourage belief in Edwards’s staying power) suggest, first, that they’re worried about him (as, apparently, are the Clintonistas) and, second, that the stakes in Iowa are very high, as this Voegeli post summarizes.

New York Times columnist John Tierney offers this worthy reflection on the certitude of continued alarmism in the year ahead, and how something called the "availability cascade" works to perpetuate the conventional wisdom. Sample:

The availability cascade is a self-perpetuating process: the more attention a danger gets, the more worried people become, leading to more news coverage and more fear. Once the images of Sept. 11 made terrorism seem a major threat, the press and the police lavished attention on potential new attacks and supposed plots. After Three Mile Island and “The China Syndrome,” minor malfunctions at nuclear power plants suddenly became newsworthy. . .

Once a cascade is under way, it becomes tough to sort out risks because experts become reluctant to dispute the popular wisdom, and are ignored if they do. Now that the melting Arctic has become the symbol of global warming, there’s not much interest in hearing other explanations of why the ice is melting — or why the globe’s other pole isn’t melting, too.