The Independent frontpage on Iowa: The White House?

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3309995.ece

It's now a real possibility that America will have its first black president after Barack Obama’s victory in the Democratic caucusus in Iowa.
Published: 05 January 2008

It was only the third day of January, a frigid evening in a smallish state in the vast American heartland. But it has generated a raw, electric political excitement, a palpable sense of novelty that this country has not witnessed in more than a generation.

Yes, Mike Huckabee (what is it about former governors of Arkansas?) won the Republican caucuses in Iowa. But the night – and perhaps the political year that will follow, culminating with the presidential election on 4 November – belonged to Barack Obama.

"Change" is the oldest word in the political lexicon, but it is also the most galvanising. And suddenly it seems more than conceivable that Mr Obama, black, relatively untested and looking even younger than his 46 years, could ride it to the White House.

"This defining moment in history," he said in an inspirational speech after his victory in the Democratic caucuses on Thursday. And who even among the most hardened political pros, could disagree? On paper, Mr Obama's margin was not overwhelming: 38 per cent against 30 per cent for John Edwards, relegating the former front-runner Hillary Clinton to a humbling third place with just 29 per cent. It had also been predicted, more or less by the last opinion polls. But predictions are one thing. The first real votes of a presidential campaign are another. And this Saturday morning, the votes cast in Iowa feel like the advance tremblings of a political earthquake.-snip-