Obama win in Iowa and what it means for hope and our nation

Teresa’s narrative about Obama winning is quite captivating:She tells a really great story about what the Obama win means to her in terms of hope. Or in her words, “This is the moment when I remembered what it means to hope.“

Incredibly moving and hopeful. In a similar tone, Miles Molgelscu at the Huffington Post points out the importance of an Obama win for hope, change, and politics in general:

The biggest story out of Iowa is that nearly twice as many people turned out for the Democratic caucuses as turned out for the Republican caucuses (approximately 227,000 to 114,000). In effect, in winning the Democratic caucuses with 37%, Barack Obama received more than twice as many votes as Mike Huckabee received in winning the Republican caucuses. In fact, each of the three top Democrats–Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton–received substantially more votes than Mike Huckabee. That in an historically swing state which went for Al Gore by 4,000 votes in 2000 and for George W. Bush by 10,000 votes in 2004. This augers well for Democrats expanding their base, picking up the majority of independents, winning the Presidency, and increasing their margins in Congress in the fall.

On both the Democratic and Republican side, the candidates representing the status quo in Washington lost badly and the candidates challenging that status quo won.

Wow. Thats just astounding. What do you think about the Iowa results? What do you think about Teresa’s touching story?

If you’re a bit of a politics junkie and want to know what the election means for campaigns as a whole, check out Chris Bowers post which argues compellingly that politics and elections are about identity. (here is Chris Bower’s post original 1996 post from My DD)