The mainstream media who until a few months ago thought that the Iowa caucuses belonged to Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton are now stepping all over themselves to try and analyze the political landscape in the wake of the solid victories by Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama.

As they see it , Huckabee and Obama have changed the order of things after just one victory.  Granted both men won more easily than expected and even worse for the media the previously anointed media nominee Hillary Clinton finished third, but this race is far from over. After all the only non-incumbent to win his party’s caucus and the general election was George W. Bush in 2000.  Bush’s father beat Reagan in 1980 and native son Tom Harkin won for the Democrats in 1992. Neither made it to the White House as president in those years.

The early primaries and caucuses will mainly serve to separate the wheat from the chaff,  The top tier candidates will jostle around and the second tier candidates will pray for a miracle to keep their campaigns alive.  Huckabee isn’t considered to be much of a factor in New Hampshire next week as the state is notorious for it’s anti-tax fervor and the former governor has a long track record of raising taxes.  So he won’t be following up his Iowa victory with another win.  For the GOP the campaign of John McCain which the media left for dead just a few months ago has come on strong and will give Romney a stiff test.  Giuliani is in New Hampshire but is saving his efforts for larger states.  For the Democrats it will be another Obama-Hillary battle and a chance for the former first lady to create a vision for her muddled campaign.

If there are any lessons to be learned from Iowa I would say that for Romney it’s don’t spend big bucks too early and for Hillary, maybe Bill still has some magic left, but you can’t take a shrill tone and then suddenly transform it into something warm and fuzzy.  The voters know it’s too phony.

In the end the results in New Hampshire next week won’t make that much difference for the major candidates.  They are well funded and plan to be in it for the long haul.  The major test of viability will be Super Tuesday on February 5th.  Then and only then will the public and the media have a clearer idea of which candidates are truly viable and have what it takes to win their party’s nomination.

Everything else until then is just white noise no matter what the media says.

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