After all that, the candidate who won big on second-choicers was John Edwards.

The message coming out of tonight is that outsiders, non-establishment figures, shook up both parties. And that is no doubt true. But another point occurs to me about this result — comparing the two races.

This state was tailor-made for Mike Huckabee. It’s not the evangelical South. But Iowa’s Republican caucus constituency has a very evangelical tinge. It’s no accident that Pat Robertson came in second here back in 1988.

You can’t say the same thing about Obama. Iowa’s a very white state. And if I’m not mistaken it is, demographically, a relatively old state. Unlike Huckabee, there’s no reason (nothing about the state itself) to think that Obama shouldn’t do as well or better in New Hampshire than he did in Iowa. And if he comes off another win in New Hampshire I think it’s a good bet that African-Americans in South Carolina (who make up something like half the Democratic primary constituency) will break overwhelmingly in his favor.

None of this is to presuppose the outcome of the Democratic race. Hillary’s not going anywhere. She could have knocked Obama out of the race with two strong victories. But it will take a lot longer and a lot more wins for Obama to put this one away. What I’m talking about is the disparity between the night’s big winners — Huckabee and Obama. Huckabee was in many ways on his very best terrain. Perhaps the peculiarities of caucusing helped Obama. But his victory strikes me as much more portable outside the state than Huckabee’s.

Nathan Newman notes that Obama’s win last night could translate into “realignment of a whole range of voters into the progressive column, not just in November but over time.”

Paul Kiel catches us up on the EPA’s decision not to allow California to regulate greenhouse gas vehicle emissions and the unfolding legal and political battles between Congress/environmentalists and the White House over the universally panned decision.

One of the surest axioms of politics-watching is that folks who say they’re going to win not by getting a bigger slice of the pie but by expanding it are full of it. That sounds a little cynical. But you would put together a very good record of prognostication by assuming it’s always true. And that’s one thing that stands out to me about last night on the Democratic side. As Eric Kleefeld points out here, among returning caucus-goers, Edwards won last night with 30%. But 57% of caucus-goers were first-timers. And Obama won those newcomers decisively — 41% to Hillary’s 29% and Edwards at 18%.

I don’t think it’s fair to credit all the expansion of the Democratic electorate to Obama. There are a number of factors, several of which are pluses for the Democrats in general. But he won them resoundingly.

And clearly there was no way to peg this outcome if you figured by looking at the makeup of previous caucuses.

Another point that needs saying. There was a lot of talk going into last night that Obama was going to overwhelm the caucuses by bringing in tons of independents. That didn’t happen. As a percentage of caucus-goers independents made up almost exactly the same percentage as they did in 2004.

(ed.note: A lot of readers have written in about this last paragraph. So perhaps it’s unclear. Whoever brought them, there were clearly about twice the number of independents caucusing with the Democrats last night as compared to four years ago. My point, however, was whether they would ‘overwhelm’ the caucuses in the sense of change their partisan complexion. And that clearly didn’t happen since the breakdown of Dems and Independents remained the same.)

TPM Reader TF reports from on the ground …

You are absolutely correct (“Kicked Ass, Will Travel“) about Iowa (Republicans) being tailor-made for Huckabee. As an observer of R politics in this state, it has been years since the fundamentalist right seized control of the party. This has some downsides for their party—we had several prominent former Republicans caucusing with us (including a former legislator).

Not so correct about Iowa Democrats. Jessie Jackson did very well here in 1988. On the whole, Iowa Democrats tend to be more progressive than the average Democrat and extremely open-minded (and sometimes naïve about our opponents). My own observation (as an Edwards supporter) is that the Obama campaign was extremely-well organized and figured out how to turn out new caucus attendees. (The former Republicans at our caucus generally supported Obama.) Our precinct went from a prior high of just over 300 attendees to 523. From a quick view at the paper this morning, our caucus was not alone.

But central to this is that Obama would never have run into problems with Iowa Democrats because of his race, any more than Clinton would run into problems because of her sex. I failed to pull over a number of Democrats who agreed with everything Edwards said, liked him a lot, but did not want to pick the white male candidate in this field. Whether Obama can pull in Republicans is a different question (given the people who are left in that party, it is unlikely), but relying on a large number of independents, he certainly showed a major draw and tapped into resources that no one has tapped into in Iowa in my political experience (which goes back to about 1978, even though I could not vote that year.) This will be good for our party; one of our new County Central Committee members was the Obama precinct chair and has never been involved in party politics at this level before (I’m not sure she ever caucused before.)

I’ll add a more general observation. I know a lot of Democrats who have nothing against Hillary Clinton, but they can visualize the Republican attack because they remember the attacks on Bill Clinton. I don’t think those same Democrats visualize the attack on Obama, if he is the nominee. With the Republican “scare” issue moving from gay marriage to immigration (and with it, the GWOTTM), and the base of the Republican Party what it is, the race against Obama (if he gets the nomination) could be one of the most miserable experiences in modern politics. I picture a racist, xenophobic campaign that will bring out all the worst America can be. The upside is that Senator Obama is up to the challenge and if he is nominated and wins, the mere act of winning could transform our country and the Democratic Party. I support Edwards because of his policy positions, because I think his economic diagnosis and solutions are the best. I believe he already improved the race by forcing our other candidates to seriously address health care, the environment and poverty. I am also not convinced that Obama’s coming together message will work or that he can lead the country from that position without getting run over by the Republicans. But if Senator Obama can do nationally what he did here, watch out for him—he will be a potent political force.

Seems the final participation number on the Dem side in Iowa rests at 239,000. It is difficult to express just how much that number exceeds almost all expectations. Here’s what Edwards advisor and former Dean 2004 guru Joe Trippi said just a couple days ago …

Anybody who tells you this thing gets up to 220,000, that’s some number of people who’ve never participated in this thing. It’d be an incredible thing to see if it happened, and more power to the candidate who pulled that off.

But I’m also having this reverse deja-vu where I remember spending a good chunk of this period 4 years ago telling every reporter that would talk to me about exactly how 220,000 people were going to turn out and vote, and if they did Howard Dean would be the next president of the United States. This time I feel a little awkward sitting here arguing that 200,000 will never show up, but I honestly don’t think it’s going to happen.

Okay, it seems like Rudy isn’t going to give up his long, twilight struggle to truly embody his own parody. He’s now passing off the difficulties of his 6th place Iowa finish and flagging campaign by saying it’s nothing compared to the dangers he faced on 9/11.

Obama jabs Hillary:

Referring to his new status as the Democratic front-runner, he said: “This feels good. It’s just like I imagined it when I was talking to my Kindergarten teacher.”

You’ll notice in today’s video Mitt has regained some of his composure. And unlike last night’s appearance he’s ditched most of the gritted, teeth and facial twitches that suggested a loss of his preferred animatronic presentation.

My favorite moment in this new Mitt moment comes at about 16 seconds in. Scarborough makes a gentle joke at Romney’s expense, to which the expected reply in a move-along ‘good one’ or something. But Mitt just can’t help himself. Watch what he says but even more his expression.