You guys are probably wondering what to write about next.  I suggest a TNR profile of this late entrance into the race:

www.theonion.com/.../area_familys_trip_to_new_hampshire

Obama won by an even larger margin than people realize.  The party reports only the delegate count, not the actual popular vote at the caucuses.  The delegate count is biased toward rural areas: for example, in more densely-populated Johnson County, where I live, there were 39 caucusers for every delegate elected.  In a rural county like Adams, there were 6 caucusers for every delegate elected -- effectively giving their votes almost seven times the weight of mine.

And the county-by-county delegate counts make it clear that Clinton and Edwards did better in those small rural counties, so the statewide delegate count is almost certainly inflating their popular vote percentage.  The upshot: Obama's popular vote total was probably well over 40% last night.

The numbers add up, Jon, when you include Richardson's -8%.

Mea culpa -- I'm wrong, above.  I've been hashing this out with the good people over at pollster.com, and I now realize that we just don't have the data to draw any conclusions about rural bias in the delegate count.  I've got to stop blogging on too little sleep . . .

Iowa is a screwy state -- and even with the amazing turnout last night only 12-15% of eligible voters took part, and a margin of about 20,000 votes separate Obama from Clinton and Edwards.  

So let's not write-off Hillary or Edwards yet.  Let's all hope that the choices of 20,000 Iowans do not weigh heavily in the minds of the folks in New Hampshire (another odd state given way too much input in this process).

Neil

I imagine, for some reason, that the results from Iowa wouldn't matter so much if people would quit pontificating about them so much.

what is TRB?

what is TRB?

Those Rat Bastards?  Taking Rum Bodyshots?  Totally Random Blather?  Transcendent Radiant Beings?  Tremendous Retail Bargains?

As I recall, TRB, coined in the 1940s when TNR was published in NYC, stands for the initials of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit in reverse.  

Nobody agrees with me on this, but I think Hillary should pitch a serious energy policy -- with real "hard truths" -- and say it's vital for the war on terrorism and our economy and it can't be sugarcoated.  I know, it bombed for Mondale, but I think people intuitively know it's true and it would play to her strengths vs. Obama.  

I'm curious if Jewish groups have shifted at all on Obama.  It was one thing if Obama won a close primary and/or election, but if Obama wins in a Reaganesque landslide, given his blank foreign policy slate, he would be well positioned to pressure Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians. This definitely is the approach favored by Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Obama might use it to buy some leverage/assistance from other Middle Eastern nations to help extricate the U.S. from Iraq.  TNR also mentioned a Latino HRC firewall -- would illegal immigration be an issue Obama would "reach out" to Republicans on?  Its things like this that make me thing Clinton will try some divide-and-conquering instead of going the Paul Tsongas route I wish she (or anyone -- Dem or GOP) would.

"The numbers add up, Jon, when you include Richardson's -8%."

Love it.

"I'm curious if Jewish groups have shifted at all on Obama."

Just earlier today I concluded an AIPAC leadership conference for college kids. Politics was on everyone's mind, and I'd say that the group of 300 or so attendees was pretty much split down the middle between the parties. However, the plurality of support I would guess (based on a show of hands that a speaker asked us to do) went to Obama, with John McCain was a close second. Obviously, college kids support Obama in disproportionate numbers, but it was illustrative of the fact that Israel supporters aren't afraid of Obama.

TRB? Like markluiggi, I alway thought that it stood for BRT backwards. This was what the original TRB Richard Stout said in an interview that is somewhere on line. However, when I LAST mentioned this on these blogs about a year ago, there was another poster who had another story. Google Richard Strout (or was it Stout?) and find that interview. It is a great interview and about mid way in the interview, the old TRB dude tells the story. According to him, it was a last minute, throw away title that somehow stuck and people have been intrigued by it since. BTW, I remember reading TRB when old RS still wrote it.

I found my last post on this topic:

mrcookie1 said:

Google Richard Strout, the original co TRBer. There is an interview with him done in the 1980's. He give the origin of the term TRB and I have posted it several times. Sheesh! Don't you guys hang on my every word? Strout's co TRBer - I can't remember his name - was asked, just before going to print, for a name. The guy just played with the letters of the train - Brooklyn line - and came up with TRB. It might have been the TBR or BRT line, I can't recall. Sheesh...you young guys need to know your TNR history...

March 20, 2007 2:45 PM

mrcookie1 said:

HESS: One question on that, sir: Where did you pick up the [41] initials TRB? What do they stand for? STROUT: Oh, that's another story. That's -- I didn't pick it up. That was -- Bruce Bliven invented that. They wanted it -- the magazine was published in New York at that time and they wanted an inside column from Washington, and they wouldn't have a name on it because they wanted to alternate it with various newspapermen. Frank Kent was the first one, so they decided they would put some initials on it, and they waited and waited and finally the composing room man came to them said, "You've got a half an hour to think what you are going to sign on it, the initials." And Bruce Bliven had just come over from Brooklyn on the Brooklyn Rapid Transit, BRT, so he just changed it around from BRT to TRB.

I dont know what the hell TRB stands for, but the Brooklyn Rapid Transit company went broke in the 1920s. It was replaced by the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit co, the BMT.

Do your homework, boys.

It stands for The Right Bank.

Going back to the topic, Hillary=Toast, every passing moment is showing a tsunami against her in New Hampshire.

What we're witnessing, I believe, is a Democratic Party rebellion against its own status-quo and establishment.  The supposed deep love for Billary is proving to be a chimera.

The combination of Iowa & New Hampshire will prove to be the Bastille Day of the Clinton regime.  Which has never been truly beloved-- only enjoying the gratitude of Dems for winning.  (Though the wins were in many ways tenuous.  "More such victories and we are undone.")

If blacks abandon the "first black president & wife" in South Carolina and at last embrace Obama, it's curtains.  Hillary will prove to have been, not Evita, but Mrs. Ceausescu.

Worst Best post on Sen. Clinton's political demise ever? Not sure, but this one by The New Republic's Jonathan Chait with the sign "Hillary = Toast [symbol]" has to be in the running. (A search of the Huffington Post archives might possibly

1. A year ago, I wrote an article making the case that Hillary Clinton was not the inevitable Democratic