Obviously Huckabee and Obama were the actual winners of the Iowa Caucuses in that they received the most delagates to the Iowa convention, but which candidate actually gained the most from their performance (or the performance of others) in the Iowa caucus? To figure this out, let's look at the Iowa Electronic Market, a futures market where people can legally bet on the 2008 elections. Here's the Republican futures for January 2nd, the day before the election (converted into percent change of winning the nomination):
As expected, Huckabee was the largest gainer, but McCain (my Republican of choice) was actually not far behind, despite finishing fourth behind big loser Romney and moderate loser Thompson. In fact, McCain's fourth-place finish has somehow propelled him into the favorite to win the Republican nomination, while Romney's second-place finish has dropped him from first to not even one of the top three candidates. Go figure, I guess.
Not that you can't already accurately hypothesize what happened to the Democrats, but we'll do them as well. From January 2nd:
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
