The recuperation period has begun. Check out Iowa Caucus coverage at Iowa Indy to get your fix. This blog will be where I cover national politics (including the continuing primaries on both sides) now that it is no longer Iowa-centric.

Perhaps the most important news to come out of last night’s caucuses for those who remain in Iowa is the turnout. Until the summer of 2006, Republicans held a registration advantage over Democrats. Democrats gained a slight margin over the GOP that year, but after doubling GOP caucus turnout with tens of thousands of new caucus-goers, their margin is likely to increase. If county Democratic parties handled their caucuses correctly last night and brought new caucus-goers into the fold for the long term, they may need to find bigger rooms for their local central committee meetings.

The news that is most significant nationally is that Sen. Barack Obama is the first candidate who can actually bring out new voters in droves. His field organizers deserve a lot of credit for the unprecedented work they did, but the truth is, the Obama field program was not significantly better than Sen. Hillary Clinton’s or former Sen. John Edwards’s. Obama’s message, personality, and biography were the raw material from which his organization was built. And if this sounds glowing, well, I am honestly impressed. I used to be an organizer, and though it’s true I never worked for a candidate like Obama, I know that even under the best circumstances, managing such a huge turnout operation is hellish. At some point soon, I’ll analyze what happened with a more critical eye, I promise.

Writing for the Huffington Post, Bev Davis breaks up the neighborhoods of Des Moines and predicts which candidates they will support.

The surprising prediction was for the Southside:

Obama takes it. Edwards comes in second. Hillary Clinton rides in third, unless Biden isn’t viable and then his supporters will actually decide the final outcome.

Mostly middle-class and white, but with more than their share of professionals and active Dems, there is also a new heavy influx of Mexican immigrants, who have yet to assert themselves into a powerful voting block. These voters want tax relief for the middle class, affordable higher education and health care, and an end to the war in Iraq.

Known as our “Little Italy,” this is a bastion of Democratic voters for as long as I can remember. At age five, I vividly recall the sparks flying after my grandmother once lost Grandpa’s entire weekly check from the Colonial Bakery by playing Bingo in the basement of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church.

Most of the original Italian families here have morphed into successful professionals and savvy politicians that weld enormous power within city, county, and state government.

When Jimmy Sarcone, the elected Polk County District Attorney, introduced Barack Obama last night at Weeks Middle School on the Southside - he drew 1,000 voters on a Sunday night with temperatures dipping down to 21 degrees - and I knew it was a good sign for Obama.

Sarcone hails from a family of politicians. The Sarcones have long memories, know where the bodies are buried, and they play political hardball.

After six years of campaigning in Iowa, Edwards has his devoted fans on the Southside, and they are experienced caucus-goers. They can expertly cut deals and trade votes when tempers start to fly and viability is at stake.

However, much of his support comes from union endorsements and while union membership is not small on the Southside, they don’t own the political machine. The elected officials are the kingmakers.

If an Iowa voter hasn’t already chosen HRC, it is unlikely they are going to give her their second vote. She has a fine organization throughout the state with 450 staffers on the ground and more volunteers, so she earns one of the three top spots for the Southside, but not the winning one.

Admittedly, I’m not yet an expert in Des Moines politics, having lived in rural Iowa for much longer than I have lived here in the capital.

But Sen. Hillary Clinton isn’t likely to lose the Southside neighborhood by a lot if our rubric is support from the political machine there. A week or so ago, Clinton was endorsed by Secretary of State and former Polk County Auditor Michael Mauro. Mauro’s name is at least as powerful as Sarcone’s on the Southside — probably more powerful. If Mauro fails to deliver at least a second-place showing for his candidate on caucus night, it could be seen as a major coup.

This blog has been neglected for its far busier cousin, Iowa Independent, where I have been spending most of my time.

But not to fear, I will be posting ideas as they come into my head to this blog over the coming days. And once the caucuses are over, I’ll continue writing about the presidential race here, assuming that a few people will accidentally check this blog after the candidates have left Iowa for good.

In the meantime, in case you were looking for news about me rather than news written by me, here are a few places you might look:

Wired

The Nation

NPR’s Morning Edition (interviewed for story on TV ads)

CSPAN’s Washington Journal (12/30/2007)

(Hat-tip Ben Smith.)

On the eve of former President Bill Clinton’s visits to three Iowa colleges, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign remains unsure of whether the roughly 40% of Iowa college students who come from out of state should participate in the January 3 caucuses.

One student at Grinnell College, where over 80% of the student body is not from Iowa, received a phone call from Clinton’s campaign Sunday. The caller invited the student, a registered Iowa voter who is from Minnesota, to attend Monday’s 5:15PM event on campus with the former president. The student, who it should be noted is not a Clinton supporter, sent along this email:

The Clinton campaign called me today and invited me to the Bill [Clinton] event. They also asked who I was planning to caucus for and if I’d ever caucused before. So I decided to call them back and asked if they even wanted me to caucus.

I said, “I’m a Grinnell College student but I’m from Minnesota. Does Hillary Clinton want my vote?”

And the woman said, “That’s a complicated issue, hold on a minute.” So she put me on hold for about two minutes, then said, “I’m going to have our youth coordinator get back to you.” And she took my name and number.

I’m still waiting for them to tell me whether I’m worthy of caucusing for Hillary Clinton.

The student also provided the caller’s phone number, which traces back to the Clinton campaign’s Des Moines headquarters.

Former President Clinton is set to visit Iowa State University Monday morning and Grinnell and the University of Iowa Monday evening. (Notably, Sen. Barack Obama visited Grinnell and the U of I last week. Former Sen. John Edwards visited Iowa State last week.)

A week ago, the Clinton campaign criticized the Obama campaign for making efforts to recruit college students to return to Iowa from out of state to caucus. On Wednesday, they quietly issued a second statement from Howard Wolfson, Communications Director: “The Iowa caucus is so special because it is based on Iowa values. We believe that every Iowan and every student who is eligible to caucus in Iowa should do so and we hope they do.”

But that message may not have trickled down very far. As former President Clinton prepares to ask hundreds of out of state college students to support his wife tomorrow, her field organizers still don’t know if they deserve the right to vote. Classy.

If the former president takes questions at tomorrow’s event in Grinnell, this subject is likely to come up.

The Register had a big piece about home schoolers supporting former Gov. Mike Huckabee. For some, it was news. For readers of Iowa Independent last July, it may not have come as much of a surprise.

I don’t put much stock in polls, and particularly not in the Republican firm Strategic Vision’s polls, as a predictor of caucus results. You can’t poll a race in which only 10% of the electorate participates — especially when you can’t know which 10% it will be.

But I do follow Strategic Vision’s polls because they have been asking, since January, whether Republican caucus-goers support withdrawal from Iraq within six months. Ever since they started asking the question, more Republicans have said yes than have said no, and it has usually been a majority. The results out today fit with past months’ results:

Do you favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months? (Republicans Only)
Yes 50%
No 38%
Undecided 12%

And I’ll note that on the Democratic side, the poll measures a widening lead for Sen. Barack Obama (he’s at 32%) over Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards (who are both at 25%). Probably not worth much weight, but still interesting.

On the Republican side (Republican polls are slightly more likely to be accurate, but not by much), Gov. Mike Huckabee is leading Gov. Mitt Romney for the first time, 27% to 24%.

The most recent national phone survey conducted by Rasmussen found that just 24% of Americans believe Iowa and New Hampshire are lucky because of the attention they are getting from presidential candidates at this time of year. Nearly twice as many — 45% — think we are unlucky.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 24% of Americans believe that people in Iowa and New Hampshire are lucky because they get to vote first in the Presidential nominating process. Nearly twice as many, 45%, say those same voters are unlucky because they have to put up with the candidates and campaigns during the holiday season.

This year, with the Iowa caucuses scheduled for January 3 and the New Hampshire primaries set for January 8, candidates will be faced with the awkward necessity of reaching out to voters in those states during a time when many Americans would rather be with family and friends.

The prevailing view that early state voters are unlucky cuts across partisan and demographic lines. Younger voters are a bit more likely to consider those early voters lucky—27% of those under 30 hold that positive view while just 42% say they are unlucky. Among senior citizens, just 19% say the people of Iowa and New Hampshire are lucky while 51% take the opposite view.

That’s the word on the street, but I have no confirmation of it. The Huckabee campaign says they will have a “major” endorsement in about 40 minutes, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich happens to be in town for a conference of social conservatives.

If it’s true, it could be a major institutional boon for Huckabee, although it isn’t clear whether that would matter more in Iowa or nationally.

Update: Nope, it was Chuck Hurley, who is big in Iowa, but not as big as Gingrich nationally. Still a big deal.

Perhaps that front page article in the Register a week or so ago (and all of the blogospheric banter leading up to it) about the two different John Edwardses was a bit premature, as we see the Edwards campaign use the last month of the Iowa Caucuses to tie everything the former senator said in 2003 back together with what he’s said in 2007. Case in point, this new ad, set to air in Iowa:

In short, Edwards is a fighter, yes, but he’s really just fighting for the optimism that his little old lady supporters hold for “future generations,” i.e., their grandkids. It’s a powerful message that makes his relative negativity over the past few months seem reasonable and, well, sunshiney.

Expect to see the campaign fold the two messages together more and more between now and January 3.

On another note, Edwards still tops Iowa Independent’s Democratic Power Rankings.