Iowa Caucus Results

As I type this, 100% of the Democratic results are in, and 87% of the Republican results.

A surprisingly large victory for both Obama and Huckabee, if you ask me... while I knew that both had very good chances of winning tonight, I did not expect for their margins of victory to be quite so big. Please don't believe everything you hear/read. Iowa voters did not vote for Hillary tonight because they didn't want to vote for her- NOT (I repeat, NOT) because she's a woman. I have heard countless people say that they would certainly vote for a woman- but the right woman. We take this seriously folks, and aren't about to vote for a woman (or not for for her) simply based on her gender- her third place result tonight was legitimate.

I did make up my mind and vote for a candidate in my party... also a candidate that won tonight... but my guy did not win my precinct. (Although he lost the precinct by a mere 3 votes!) Hubby had a hard time deciding, too, and voted for my second choice- and afterwards admitted that he wished he'd have voted as I did.

After the results were announced, delegates to the county convention were elected- hubby and I will both be delegates- and the evening adjourned. At the county convention, we'll vote again for our a presidential candidate and the field of delegates will be narrowed for the state convention... those delegates will vote for the candidates once again just before the National Convention.

Exciting stuff. We decided to head downtown to celebrate with other politicos and media, and to hear a candidate's remarks following the caucus results. On our way we decided to go to the party of the candidate that I'd voted for (thinking it might be a bit more interesting than the other), and were lucky enough to find a parking place about 3 blocks from the hotel. The place was packed, FULL of media, and buzzing with excitement as the results were rolling in. While we were waiting for "the man" to make his entrance, a reporter from his home state approached hubby and I and started chatting about the caucuses (past and present) and how he's been amazed the last week or so about how many media folk are in town. He actually said that walking down the street in Des Moines, he's felt as if he's in DC- seeing so many media that he knows or is familiar with. (This reporter is apparently based in DC.) We chatted with him for a while, said our goodbyes, and continued the evening... but a while later he came back to us and asked if he could use some of our comments in a story that he was working on for his paper- with a deadline that has past (as I type this). I'm looking forward to digging for the story online tomorrow to see how he interprets our thoughts.

Now the caucuses are over and I'll be able to focus on something else for a while. I have a quilt that needs binding, and hubby has TWO t-shirt quilts that he wants to be my next priority. I'd like to know what the next project is going to be from AfricanKelli and Finny, so that I can get thinking about that.