Watching the Iowa Democratic Caucus

Interesting watching the Iowa Caucuses via CNN tonight.  Two of the local precincts have allowed CNN to broadcast the feeds live, along with one of the GOP precincts.

But there was a real shocker in Des Moines tonight.  The way things work for the Dems is that people move to various parts of the room to show their support.  Each candidate must have at least 15% of the supporters in the room in order to move to the second round.

The numbers in the one caucus I was watching... of 374 folks in the room, there were 77 for Clinton, 67 for Edwards, and get this, 155 votes for Barak Obama, with the rest spread across the other candidates, all of whom polled less than the required 15%.

It will be interesting to see how the second round numbers pan out, but I must say, the first round number for Obama may be the beginning of a HUGE upset for Team Clinton.

UPDATE: Really interesting to watch... the CNN team at one of the Dems caucuses live feed is trying to keep the cameras and mics pointed where the action is going on... all the deal making, trying to move supporters around to move the delegate numbers around in their favour.  This precinct is slated to send seven delegates to the convention, and at the moment, it looks like Clinton and Edwards will get 1 delegate each, with Obama taking four... the last two will be allocated after the next vote.  And time is running out, only 10 minutes until the next vote.  Much of the talk seems to be in an effort to prevent Obama from getting another delegate.

When it comes to politics, this is the good stuff.

CNN is also reporting the overall known numbers for Iowa... looks like Obama at 33%, with Clinton and Edwards at 32%.

UPDATE II: Interesting quote, out loud, from an Edwards supporter to someone considering Edwards or Clinton... "If it comes down to Clinton, we're going to have a Republican President."

Richardson, one of the non-viable candidates in the first round, got enough to become viable... thereby denying one of the other camps an extra delegate.  They're doing the counts now to determine how many delegates each camp gets.

UPDATE III: Final count from this precinct, Edwards gets 1, Clinton gets 2, Richardson gets one, and Obama gets 3... looks like the Clinton camp managed to pull enough from the non-viables to get another delegate.  Drat!  I was hoping Obama would hit four... oh well.

UPDATE IV: Wow... CNN is now reporting, with 83% of the precincts reporting, that Clinton and Edwards are tied at 30%, and Obama pulled a whopping 37%, well ahead of expectations.

What's going to be the story tomorrow?  "Obama has the Momentum".

As for the GOP, Gulliani is polling in the single digits, and Huckabee will win in Iowa.  Good news is that my favourite, Thompson, polled third of the candidates, which was also better then expected.

UPDATE V: Likely last update for the night.  CNN just updated their numbers, with Clinton taking a 1% dip, with the advantage going again to Obama.  The polls had Clinton ahead by one point going into Iowa, and she's come out nine points behind Obama, and even one percent below Edwards, to take third place.  No matter how you try to spin it, tonight was a very bad night for Clinton... and a great one for Obama.

UPDATE IV: Okay, another update... Democrat hopeful Chris Dodd has announced that he's dropping out.