I think Dave Roberts gets the reshaped contours of the race exactly right. As he says, Hillary's candidacy had a whiff of loss aversion to it. She wasn't the candidate most likely to steal your heart, but she promised to be the candidate least likely to break it. Obama and Edwards both ran campaigns with a higher shot at grand change, and a greater apparent risk of total collapse. But while Hillary's vote total was not, in fact, that far behind Obama's, and was certainly quite near Edwards, for the overwhelming frontrunner and the wealthiest candidate to take third in Iowa does feel like an implosion of sorts. And suddenly, Obama's campaign doesn't seem like a promise for the young and naive, but a tangible reality. As Roberts writes, "After tonight, though, the Obama phenomenon is real. He really did attract tons of new young voters. He really did sway tons of Independents and Republicans. It really does feel like a movement. A black candidate won big in a 95% white state. Something genuinely new seems to be happening....I've always understood how a Dem voter could cling to Hillary. And I've always understood how a Dem voter could leave Hillary and take a chance on Obama. What I can't imagine, especially after tonight, is a Dem voter leaving Obama's camp and going back to Hillary. What would motivate that?" So that's the question for the Hillary campaign: Which voters do you go after? Now that Obama's candidacy is a safe choice, rather than an untested gamble, what's the appeal that makes voters love you, rather than simply accept you? Update: Here, via Marc Ambinder, is Clinton's comeback strategy. In contrast to Matt, point 6 is the only part that really makes sense to me. If McCain weren't on the upswing, I think Obama's nomination would be relatively safe. You can pit Obama against Huckabee, or Thompson, or Romney, or even Giuliani, with fair ease. McCain, for better or worse, has that gravitas that sets hearts aflutter, attracts glowing press coverage, and is almost custom bult to give a national newcomer who claims to be a bipartisan uniter a very hard time.
