Iowa Already Called for Huckabee? That Seems Early. (UPDATED: Obama and Huckabee. Well, What Now?)

Fox News has already called Iowa for Huckabee, with only 25 percent of the caucuses reporting and a ten percent lead on Romney. That seems premature to me. Perhaps they’re getting information that the other caucuses are going exactly the same way, but with only that small amount of results in at this point, a little swing can change the results quite a bit. At least potentially.

On the Dem side, it’s a pure dogfight and it’s likely to go on for quite a while longer – maybe an hour or more. That’s because the Dem caucuses require a certain percentage of the total voters else it goes to a second vote where the voters on the “low” candidates have to choose someone else. That and there’s no secret ballot on that side, so there’s a lot of pressuring going on. We may not know for sure until the 11 o’clock news.

UPDATE: Edwards seems to be making a game surge in the tight race. How robust is our two-party system when it could well produce front runners in Huckabee and Edwards whose positions, such as they exist, are almost exactly the same.

UPDATE 2: Okay, so let’s say that everything stays the way it is. Obama comes off very strong and Edwards actually gains some serious *cough* legitimacy. Clinton is hurt but she’s far from dead. Obama had better get ready for some serious underhanded attacks because she’s not goign to take losing to an upstart very well and slinging the mud is something the Clinton political machine does better than anyone in politics right now. It will be messy. Edwards could be the winner there if he has the sense to stay clear. He may not have that much sense, though.

On the Republican side, there aren’t any real surprises. Huckabee will have to follow up with a strong showing in New Hampshire. Romney is going to have to do better than he’s projected as well. Neither one has to win (which is good because McCain is likely to win there since that’s where he’s spent most of his time and money) but they do have to show strong. Thompson is in pretty good shape, even with a third-place finish. He only spent about a month in Iowa and pulling somewhere about 15 percent of the vote while enduring the worst MSM coverage of any candidate thus far is an accomplishment. He’ll have to turn things up in a couple days in New Hampshire, though. He can’t afford to lose any bit of momentum at all. If he ends up pulling above 17 percent, it’ll be a huge victory for him and Romney, at least, is in big trouble.

UPDATE 3: And Fox is calling it for Obama at 9:30. Hmmm…