Final thoughts from Pat O'Brien in Iowa

Here's a recap of the Iowa caucuses by Pulaski County Clerk Pat O'Brien:

I spent the last six days in Iowa campaigning for the winner, Barack Obama. On the first day, I ran into a man at a McDonald's in a small Iowa town and he asked me if I was here for the caucus from out of state. (I had a map of Iowa in my hand). He told me the finish would be Obama first, Edwards second, and Clinton in third place. He stated that "Clinton had run a terrible campaign with no ground game". I thought he was crazy. I never thought that Clinton could run third. However, I don't believe the issue was lack of a ground game but the man picked the finish just the same.

There may have been a magic bullet in Iowa. This was the first election here that allowed people to register the same day of the election. My cousin was the chair of a precinct in Cedar Rapids (he was a Biden man). On the drive to the precinct he told me to expect between 100 and 125 people. There ended up being 216 people. Out of the 216, 105 registered as Democrats tonight. Now, some of those people were Independents and Republicans but the great majority were first time caucus participants and some were first time voters.

While Obama got 38% of the delegates statewide I feel sure that he received a higher percentage of the people that actually showed up. That number is not reported, only the delegates are counted. At the Cedar Rapids precinct, Obama received about 45% while Edwards and Clinton each received about 20%.