I agree that it's disgusting that the filthy, ignorant masses have left their squalid shacks and their televisions to register their support for this articulate (but also, as Salon informed us some months back, "uppity") young Obama fellow instead of the dessicated, cynical hack who was already promised the presidency some months back.

I know that this proposal won't be welcomed on these boards, but is it possible that we made a mistake as a country when we got rid of the literacy tests and poll taxes?

I think it's also worth considering a return to the days when only property owners could vote in these kinds of elections. At my own caucus precinct here in Iowa, I was alarmed to see how many of the voters supporting Obama owned no acreage -- didn't even own homes. Had these voters been excluded, cooler heads might have prevailed.

Nevertheless, in a spirit of openness, I ventured out among these young Obama people, and asked them why they were voting the way they did.

Their answers did not reassure me.

What few Obama voters could even form intelligible sentences tended only to say things like "I want to have a beer with him!" and "Obama is my buddy!" One young woman, sobbing, told me: "Obama is the new Jesus! He is the messiah! Praise! Praise!" Another misted up and pointed to her chest -- her heart. "This is why," she said. "Right here."

More worryingly, many of the people in the Obama crowd didn't even understand where they were. Oprah Winfrey had told them to show up at such-and-such a time and such-and-such a place; it was only after they'd been corraled into the Obama pack that they began, slowly, to understand that there was some sort of election going on.

What makes their stupidity and childishness more devastating is the incredible truck Americans put in the political opinions of rural Iowans.

Why, my own father, in Texas, told me just yesterday that he was changing his support from Edwards to Obama. "Why?" I asked him. "Are you convinced, finally, that he has the political skills, experience, and core ethical principles necessary to start rebuilding a national consensus on some of the most pressing issues of the day?"

My poor old Dad, though, just grunted into the phone. "Iowa! Corn! Obama!" he said. "Obama Obama Obama! Iowa corn Obama! Buddy!" He cackled madly for a few seconds, and then added: "Hungry. Want food."

But something surprising happened just then. I imagined his eyes lighting up as he said: "Want . . . beer. Beer! Beer! Beer with Obama! Obama corn Iowa! Oprah beer Obama corn Jesus buddy!"

What has this country come to? And where will it be going with this tall drink of water Obama running things? I shudder to contemplate it.

And go New Hampshire!

I've never been more excited about a Presidential race. I'm still finding it all a little hard to believe.

Have the Dems really rejected HRC? Are we really going to turn the page as a party -- to stop fighting for little piecemeal victories, and begin focusing on building a progressive movement strong enough to defeat the Limbaugh/Bush/O'Reilly hate machine?

Can something like this actually happen in spite of a completely concerted effort by the Democratic bureaucracy -- and the establishment media, aided even by sites like Salon -- to deliver the nomination back to the Clintons?

@ cstrother:

As hard as it for me to admit this, given my pleasure with the outcome in Iowa, I agree that something's got to be done about the primary system. Some of the largest states in the country are basically boxed out out the primary process.

On the other hand, there's something to be said for the intense laboratory that Iowa provides. On NPR today, some "expert" compared the primary process to a months-long TV reality show. Boy -- that's not what it's like for Iowans! We meet all of the candidates, including those on the "lower tier" (I heard Biden twice, got to chat with Chris Dodd about Walter Reed and FISA immunity).

We don't see these people through the distorting lens of TV media; we hear them speaking for themselves, and we get to ask them as many questions as we like. If only for that reason, the outcome in Iowa really should seem significant to voters elsewhere; for months on end, we eat, sleep, and breathe primary politics. We didn't arrive at Obama hastily, either; he was running neck-and-neck with Clinton and Edwards during the whole run-up to the caucuses.

The outcome on the GOP side makes an even better case for preserving the caucuses' special place in American politics. Without the long caucus season in Iowa, a poorly-funded but worthy candidate like Huckabee would never have had a prayer. Now, he has a one-point lead nationally.

@ Only the Truth:

Do you realize how deeply disrespectful it is to suggest that "Obama would make a good talk show host?"

He was the Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He's been a community organizer, an Illinois Senator, a U.S. Senator -- an achiever, a tireless worker, an activist, a significant national political figure.

If you dislike Obama and his approach to campaigning: fine. But don't insult him with that kind of belittling, demeaning comment.

I probably dislike HRC as much as it's possible to dislike her -- but I wouldn't suggest that, as a Yale Law graduate, an experienced attorney, a veteran of Wal-Mart's corporate board, and a second-term U.S. Senator, Clinton would be more well-suited to a daytime talk show than the Oval Office.

To say something like that trivializing and disrespectful really WOULD validate the accusations of misogyny that fly around these boards; it's akin to saying: "You don't belong at the table."

University of Chicago law lecturer.