Obama is now the most likely Democratic nominee

Dolores DiBartolo

Senator Obama has been my candidate of choice since the very beginning. I congratulate him and his beautiful family. This was a night one can only dream could be true. Thankfully it was just that and so much more. His speach was one that provoked so much emotion and confidence, I am confident he is to be our leader. My prayers and best wishes go out to him as he paves his way to the White House.

Lee Jakeman

In the sincerity stakes, Obama beats all of the other contenders. The big question is: can he come up with equally convincing policies? Perhaps he's one of those who will mature in office and become a great president.

Max Kaye

He's a nice boy and a good 'anyone but Hilary' candidate. I hope he makes the distance and thus assures a Republican presidency.

Nills Haroldsen

I am a former Iowan. Iowa is not the rest of the USA and its importance is really overblown. It has two types of people, rather extreme liberals, and extreme bible thumping conservatives. The smart centrist people are also there but they usually are too cold to go out and partake in the silly caucuses which they realize won´t add up to much. Before anybody gives too much significance to Iowa, ask yourself, what kind of people live there. It is mostly people who have failed to get away to someplace warmer and are stuck there dreaming of a warmer winter and a more pleasant summer. Iowa is awful both times of year. And spring is also bad for the allergies with all the pollen. It is flat and boring and people there drink too much to forget they are stuck in Iowa, or they spend a lot of time being saved (also part of the 12 step drying out plan) so lots of towns have many bars and many churches, the people vaccillate from one state to the other. The only similar area is the pacific northwest which has the added kicker of lots of high tech jobs and money, in addition to outstanding marijuana and other drugs. Iowans have to grow their own marijuana. Anyway they do not resemble the people in the rest of the country very much. So no one should make any presuppositions based on this vote which is representative of a tiny weird demographic.

pat

Nills Haroldsen-
Sour grapes!you sound like a prophet of doom were your jealous not so evident. I don't want to drum the tired story on the virtues of Obama ( BTW i support Edwards).Has your candidate won, you would have said this victory is important. Do you think your judgement is better than that of all the Americans who voted for Barack?

Tariq

In a way this is the worst possible result for Edwards, who now finds himself squeezed between two major headlines: Obama First, Clinton Third. Hard for him to attract attention when all eyes are on those two.

David Lindsay

Obama (although he deserves better than for the New York Times to run a front page picture of Clinton) would be slaughtered in a televised debate with a former Governor or a former Mayor of New York, and in any case 2008 is not shaping up to an American year of plenty like 1960, when a charismatic idealist could be chosen, first as candidate and then as President, over a hardheaded realist. Perhaps the East Coast and London media should stop mentioning that Obama is black, since it didn't seem to bother anyone in Iowa. Or did it? His attraction might well be that he is not African-American in the sense that Jesse Jackson meant when he coined the term. And that might well anger a lot of people who are (a lot of whom don't like the products of twentieth-century, legal and more-or-less socially respectable, race-mixing). Imagine if the Republican nominee had a black running mate? A ticket which appeals only to the core of one's own core is electoral suicide. Clinton-Obama? Obama-Clinton (which she'd turn down)? You simply cannot be serious. The Republicans could run a pair of pumpkin pies and beat that. So, all in all, a very good night for John Edwards. Which is a very good night in itself.

Omadhaun

You have to realize that the Iowa caucuses are an electoral aberration. In the caucuses a mob of party "activists" group together and rant for awhile before going to a corner and are counted for their candidate. There are no booths, curtains nor really any adult supervision. The media gerbils take this "rally" for serious politics- it isn't. Obama is probably the most refreshing candidate in this sorry lot. Refreshing- is dangerous-the US has elected many refreshing candidates in the last 50 years only to find that they were essentially incompetent. eg Jimmy Carter and, of course our dear Mr. Bush- whose only advantage is that he was marginally better than either of the cretins who opposed him.

Oylok

I am not sure how good a president Obama would make, but in any case he should be better than raving femnist Hilary, whose moral probity is rather suspect.