Josh Marshall on the Democrats

It's my sense that many people have been sitting on the fence, waiting to see what would motivate voters in Iowa and New Hampshire: would we get the passionate candidate or the money candidate? Would we get the idealist or the electable compromise?

Obama is benefiting from Iowa and comes out as the new face of America. Clinton is struggling as the divisive, old school, boomercrat and Edwards is the populist without a people.

Josh Marshall reads things much more pragmatically:

In general, I think Obama's the winner tonight. I think Hillary made her case well. I think Edwards had the best debate. But the debate can only be understood in the context of the moment. Right now, Obama's on fire. The first post-Iowa polls show him picking up a big post-caucus bump. He needed to come off well. Not make any mistakes. And not let Hillary open up any strong line of attack against him. And I think he did each one of those things. Which means he gave some reassurance to those who might be hesitating to get on the bandwagon and didn't do or allow anything to happen which significantly change the trend of the moment, which is moving heavily in his favor.