To see the impact that Iowans had we need to recap the polls and the standings. Going into the Hawkeye Cauci the latest polls had candidates here:

Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby Poll
Obama 31%
Edwards 27%
Clinton 24%

Mike Huckabee 31%
Mitt Romney 25%
Fred Thompson, John McCain and Ron Paul tied at ~10%

Here’s where they finished:

Iowa Results
Obama 38%
John Edwards 30%
Hillary Clinton 29%

Huckabee 34%
Mitt Romney 25%
Fred Thompson and John McCain tied at 13%
Ron Paul 10%
(Giuliani didn’t campaign in Iowa so no one was surprised at his 3%)

Now, Iowa is important not because of any significance in the actual number of delegates it will send on, but for two separate perceptions it creates. The first is a sort of an expectations check. Polls are never right because “likely voters” and actual voters are two different things. (Consider whom is usually at home with nothing else to do but talk to pollsters.) The second is the much important momentum. Americans like winners and like being in their camp. Giuliani protected his national momentum by skipping a state where he would do poorly.

Now the winners and losers. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd have officially left the race after failing to break the 1% mark. Americans may love underdogs but we hate losers. Thankfully, after a year of campaigning we are quickly headed towards a field small enough to fit on one debate stage.

Fred Thompson on the other hand got a boost with a higher than expected 3rd place finish. Thompson only had limited campaign coverage of Iowa, so a respectable showing bodes well for his stronger southern states.

Obama finished stronger than expected and pulled 9 points ahead of the “inevitable” candidate. Political pundants had said a 10+ point lead would be fatal to Hillary. So not quite the death blow but certainly the young Senator is starting to look like an actual challenge.

Iowa was not good for the Clinton camp. While not a fatal blow, it joins an ever growing list of mis-steps and stumbles by Hillary in a bid that few would have questioned a year ago. That’s the biggest problem with inevitability for the Clinton campaign: it raises expectations. If you don’t win consistently you could suddenly find yourself very alone. Not that it’s for lack of trying: the campaign has been through a dozen slogan messages, tried to trip up Obama with indirect character attacks, done their best to avoid any unscripted press time. But they’ve failed to find real traction as Obama grows stronger and Hillary slides ever closer to the tipping point.

Call it racism, sexism or just great hair, but Edwards -while largely unaffected by Iowa- proved that he is still a top tier candidate in a race that could shake up considerably in the next month.

Finally, Mike Huckabee. Mike won big but no one is really sure what that means. Huckabee’s dramatic surge is historically unprecedented and therefore largely a question mark. Supporters believe his momentum will carry him on, while everyone else is expecting a more “flash in the pan” result. I personally believe he will last a lot longer than most will give him credit for. Mike Huckabee is an excellent politician in a race with many who are -well- not. His Bill Clintonesque Populist appeal is much stronger than most realize, but his base will in the end abandon him. Much of his surge is from the religious right, whom really know little about him. As the spot light and campaign trail reveal more of the man and his record, Mike will discover that it takes more than being an ordained minister to win the Presidency.

John Coleman is the guy that put weather on the map. Or at least on 24/7 cable TV. He’s a Meteorologist’s Meteorologist and he’s speaking out against global warming. Do you think he has enough credibility to overcome all the celebrities that have proved global warming over a soy latte?

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.

Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data back in the late 1990’s to create an allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental wacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremist, notable politicians among them then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda.

Now their ridicules manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment.

I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party.

However, Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you “believe in.” It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a nonevent, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won’t believe me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it…

I have learned since the Ice Age is coming scare in the 1970’s to always be a skeptic about research. In the case of global warming, I didn’t accept media accounts. Instead I read dozens of the scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct when I assure you there is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. It is all a scam, the result of bad science…

In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped.

This is by far, the best rebuttal I’ve seen to date. Visit the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project for a word doc with Coleman’s full comments.