"Respect, Empower, Include." -internal Obama campaign slogan
As you may know, the Iowa Democrats held their county conventions yesterday and the result was a big bonus for Senator Obama in the projected delegate count, changing the media projection of Obama 16, Clinton 15, Edwards 14 to Obama 25, Clinton 14, Edwards 6.
It should be noted, however, that like the previous projection, this one is not permanent. It may be closer to the final count, but like the previous projection, it depends upon delegates showing up and staying by their current choice. I have long been saying that Edwards's 14 Iowa delegates had not materialized yet, and truly, the same is true about the current 6. The process is far from over. It will continue through the April 26 district conventions and the June 14 state convention.
I personally attended my convention, the Poweshiek County convention at the Malcom Community Center, as a delegate for Senator Obama. The convention started speeches by Ed Fallon, Leonard Boswell, and several local politicians running in the June primary.
On January 3, Poweshiek County elected 150 county delegates: 65 for Obama, 52 for Edwards, 27 for Clinton, and 6 for Biden. However, these counts did not hold yesterday for a couple reasons. The first was that the Biden delegates and a significant number of Edwards delegates shifted to the Obama preference group. The second was that in filling in delegate slots with alternates, the Clinton group fell 4 alternates short.
In the end, the delegate count was 77 for Obama, 34 for Edwards, and 23 for Clinton. Since there were 17 district and state convention delegates to be determined, the final delegate count out of my county was 10 for Obama, 4 for Edwards, and 3 for Clinton.
This trend of Edwards delegates moving to the Obama camp and the Clinton delegate count stagnating was repeated in numerous counties throughout the state. In contrast to the "state delegate equivalent" count used as a basis for determining the results of the Iowa caucuses, which stood at
Obama 940 (37.59%)
Edwards 744 (29.74%)
Clinton 737 (29.47%)
Richardson 53 (2.12%)
Biden 23 (0.92%)
Uncommitted 3 (0.12%)
Dodd 1 (0.004%)
The actual elected state delegate count turned out to be
Obama 1299 (51.96%)
Clinton 802 (32.08%)
Edwards 388 (15.52%)
Uncommitted 11 (0.44%)
At the county level, the shift is rather pronounced, especially in the Edwards-dominated rural areas. Here's the state colored according to delegates elected on January 3:
And here's the coloration based upon delegates elected yesterday:
So, why did Obama make such gains from Edwards delegates when Clinton gained to nothing? Since Poweshiek County is only one of 99 counties, and not one where Senator Clinton was particularly popular at that (she wasn't viable at my caucus), I can only speculate, but I think that in a large part it comes back to the slogan I put at the top of this diary.
"Respect, empower, include." was an internal slogan repeated to Obama staff members here in Iowa. They were encouraged to make community bonds, respect the people of the state whether they be supporters of Senator Obama or otherwise, empower people to take ownership in the campaign, and to be as inclusive as possible. I think that this general attitude earned the Obama campaign a great deal of support among those who didn't caucus for him on January 3.
The Obama camapaign strategy has been very successful in the Midwest. Here's a comparison of the area using the results from the caucuses and the results from the county conventions
Clearly the result conform with those seen in surrounding states, so perhaps this shouldn't have been surprising, but it certainly clarifies Iowa's preferences, and provides a great boost for Obama's delegate count (a net gain of 10 yesterday compared with Clinton's net gain of 9 in Ohio on March 4)