Obama shrugs off the slurs to nail Hillary

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is now fighting for its life after a shattering defeat last night in Iowa at the hands of the black senator from Illinois, Barrack Obama. Also on life support is the candidacy of the Mormon Mitt Romney, trounced in Iowa's Republican caucuses by Mike Huckabee, the folksy and decidedly Christian former governor of Arkansas.

Confounding all expert predictions, the turnout on the Democratic side doubled from 2004 and Obama can fairly claim he was the reason. His vague calls for change held huge allure for Democrats and independents in every age group, except among women over 65 who stayed true to Mrs Clinton.

Obama won in the cities and in rural counties. Among young people Hillary won 11 per cent of college voters. Obama won 60 per cent. Young people simply didn't care for Hillary. In their cohort, Hillary's 'likeability' scored a desolate 17 per cent.

The parlour wisdom in the press has been that the war in Iraq is no longer an issue. It turned out that the three main issues on voters' minds were, in descending order, the war, the economy and health care. Obama led in all three.

For the party establishments - Democratic and Republican -  it was a bad night, as their favoured candidates went down to severe defeat.

The Clintons' calculation had been that Obama would never be able to match their fund-raising. Wrong. Obama raised huge sums from small-sum contributors, who can continue their support. A lot of Hillary's big financial backers have already reached their legal limits.

Mrs Clinton had the big feminist organisations in her corner and a good chunk of organised labour. They didn't deliver, any more than the Democratic machine supervised by campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe and super-pollster Mark Penn. They thought they could sink Obama with December's slurs about drug use, Islamic heritage and colour. The slurs backfired.

On the Republican side Mike Huckabee sank the hopes of Mitt Romney and the Republican establishment in part because of his version of economic populism, far more persuasive than that of the Democrat John Edwards, whose run now seems doomed. Of course Huckabee (right), a former Baptist pastor, did rally the evangelical Christians who turned out for him in large numbers, but it's foolish to see this as evidence only of bible-thumpers on the march.

The wisdom had been that a Republican candidate would ride to victory by swearing to seal the southern border, cut taxes and go to war on Iran. Huckabee's substantive record is one of tolerance towards immigrants, compassion towards convicted criminals and straightforward abolition of the most hated agency in the United States - the IRS - with installation of a sales tax, whose regressive features would be balanced by rebates to the poor.

Romney is on the ropes, sustained only by diminishing hopes of victory in New Hampshire.  Amid chaos, the Republican establishment is regrouping round John McCain, never their favourite. Huckabee can detour New Hampshire and look for victory in South Carolina and Florida. Rudy Giuliani claims he will rise from the dead some time in February.

The press did its best to finish off Huckabee, but their brickbats bounced off the ebullient governor. Despite similar savaging, Ron Paul scored 10 per cent, a respectable performance for an anti-war candidate running in a pro-war party.

The races will get nasty. Both Obama and Huckabee have survived the first round of mudslinging. Next Tuesday Obama could well repeat his triumph in New Hampshire and then move confidently south to the primary in South Carolina. The Clintons will now throw everything they have at him. The Republican establishment will give Huckabee the same treatment. Overall, for those who have bewailed a dull political season, the Iowa results have brightened the landscape by overturning the official apple cart. ·