What a Night

by A.B. Stoddard - 01/04/08 5:42 PM ET

WOW, is all I can say. What a night. To watch as 93 percent more caucus-goers poured into precincts across Iowa, with many independents changing their voter registration at the door and college kids returning early from vacation to push Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) into first place was astonishing. I really didn’t expect it. His speech was tremendous, and no matter what happens in New Hampshire it will be remembered for a long, long time. Republicans told me today they were moved by it. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) speech was, well, Clintonian. No matter that roughly 70 percent of voters had caucused against her — she was in control, refusing to concede anything, the national front-runner on her path of her national campaign. What did we expect?

Huckabee’s margin was also a big surprise; so was Fred Thompson eking by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — I think even Big Fred was shocked! I don’t expect Huckabee to last in the long run, and think the GOP knives that are out for him will succeed in cutting his chances at the path to the nomination. Read about that in my column.

But the big headline from last night is that I am a disastrous prognosticator and predictor. I am not even close to wrong, it’s that bad. And I could be wrong about Huckabee, too. But to be honest, it’s fun to be wrong because I just LOVE the surprise.

Happy New Hampshire Primary Weekend — one and all.

***

ASK A.B. can’t return until late next week! Our awesome video team has been working around the clock in Iowa and are now in New Hampshire. Keep watching them on our website! And look for my video Q & A on Jan. 10 or 11. Keep sending questions to askab@digital-staging.thehill.com.