After the many months of prognoses and analyses, after the handicapping and speculations and the polls within the margin of error, Iowa, with its actual voters and actual voting, seems to have focused the attention of the presidential campaigns. And, we now know, the crucial issue facing this war-weary, economically skittish country is change.
The need for change has become the mantra of the political season. On both sides of the nominating process the amount of change promised may be enough to completely remake the entire future of humankind.
While he had to share some of the Iowa spotlight with Mike Huckabee's insurgency on the GOP side, it is Barack Obama -- black guy, black wife, funny name, ridiculous optimist, incredibly cute kids, 10-point lead in the latest poll -- who has most firmly grabbed the change mantle in his charge downfield. His victory in Iowa seemed to so embody the change he calls for that he may be impossible to stop at this point.
But as Obama's victory in Iowa proves, anything can happen and will, even with a 10-point lead going into tomorrow's New Hampshire primary.
In June 2004, I sat with Obama in a ramshackle office in Springfield, Illinois, talking about his political good fortune. It was the day after the GOP nominee for the Senate withdrew from the race in the wake of the oddest political sex scandal ever (Jack Ryan was accused of wanting to have sex with his wife in a public place). This left Obama, for a while, without an opponent in one of the most-watched Senate races in the country. This was before the speech in Boston, moments before his political career would go into supersonic overdrive.
Even then, Obama knew he was inhabiting almost providential space, and it made him uncomfortable: "A useful quality I have," he said then, "is that the more things seem to be breaking my way, the more stressed I get."
After Iowa, you have to wonder how stressed he is now.
I have found it easy to dismiss all the chatter about how much of a pass the media has given Obama during the primary campaign, in large part because of my low tolerance for conspiracy theories; I also understand that the rhythms of campaigns assure that sooner or later he'll get his. But I must confess to being taken aback by how crowded the Obama bandwagon has gotten lately: David Brooks of The New York Times marvels at his "core." David Broder of The Washington Post now thinks that the nomination is Obama's to lose. Frank Rich, an early imbiber of the Obama Kool-Aid, saw in the Iowa results a rebirth of patriotism, declaring: "After so many years of fear and loathing, we had almost forgotten what it's like to feel good about our country."
If winning Iowa was not enough to stress him out, all that MSM love breaking his way should do the trick.
There is, of course, good reason for Obama to be uneasy. Compared to most others in his line of work, Obama seems an especially introspective man, as evidenced by the self-observation that good luck stresses him out. So undoubtedly he understands that Hillary Clinton is particularly able at knowing what to do when things seem not to be breaking her way. Escaping near-death experiences is the Clintons' bread and butter. They like to run from behind and Obama needs to watch his back. In an odd way, she may have him exactly where she needs him.
The presumption of Clinton dirty tricks has been present throughout the campaign, and if she doesn't start winning soon we may get to see them.
But with the latest polls showing Obama trouncing Clinton in New Hampshire, there may be little she can do at this point to change the dynamic of the race. In the end, it may not be Hillary; it may be the country. Her time, simply, may have passed. The irony, of course, is that while she and her husband were some of the most wronged victims of 90s partisanship, they remind people of a time many would rather forget.
She may well be right that the partisans have not gone away, and she stands most ready and best able to fight them. But Obama allows people to hope for something better rather than fearing the worse. It may be a willful suspension of reason on the part of voters, but that's what happens when things start breaking your way.
The gentleman from Illinois, I predict, is in for a little more stress.
