MELISSA BLOCK, Host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, Host:
Ina Jaffe is at the Embassy Suites hotel in downtown Des Moines. That's Huckabee campaign headquarters and I assume it's a happy headquarters at this point.
INA JAFFE: The national chairman of the Huckabee campaign, Chip Saltsman, addressed the crowd and he said it's going to be a long night, although maybe not that long for these folks. And he said what we're seeing tonight is that Mike Huckabee is right, message matters, you can't buy this election in Iowa. And he says that Romney, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, has the best organization money can buy but we've got the best volunteers anyone could hope for. So people right here are pretty happy.
SIEGEL: Is there a volunteer organization that either awaits Governor Huckabee in New Hampshire or that can go there with him?
JAFFE: Well, there were some folks here - are some folks here who came up to support him from Arkansas. As to what his organization on the ground is in New Hampshire, I really don't know really much about it, but he is still working really hard to raise money because he's certainly underfinanced compared to the likes of Mitt Romney.
SIEGEL: It's actually a remarkable first place finish for Huckabee when we consider that a few months ago he was considered one of those candidates like Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul who would pull up the rear of the Republican field.
JAFFE: And I think it shows that debates are important. That people watched him on television and said that this is somebody who they found very likable, who sounded smart and it made a lot of people take a look at him that might not have originally.
SIEGEL: Melissa.
BLOCK: NPR's Scott Horsley is at his headquarters in Des Moines. And Scott, if there was elation at Huckabee headquarters, I imagine there is sullen dejectedness there with Mitt Romney's supporters.
SCOTT HORSLEY: But it's also true that Iowa has been very important for Mitt Romney's strategy. He's run more than 40 percent of his television ads here in Iowa. He spent more than 70 days campaigning in the Hawkeye State. One of his sons traveled to all 99 counties in Iowa in their converted R.V., the Mitt-mobile. So he wanted a strong finish here and I think it's safe to say a stronger finish than we're seeing so far tonight.
BLOCK: Spent a lot of time in Iowa, also spent a huge amount of money, including a lot of his own money in Iowa.
HORSLEY: That's right. And one of the things that the campaign has been talking about is the evangelical turnout that Ina mentioned. And I was with both former Governor Romney and former Governor Huckabee yesterday, Huckabee said, you know, we were outspent 20-to-1 and that this was an opportunity for Iowans to say they can't be bought, can't even be rented for a night. Romney spent a huge amount of money, much of it his own, here in Iowa. And it appears that the evangelical turnout has just swamped that.
BLOCK: Now, a very different electorate in New Hampshire where they head next to the primary on Tuesday, that evangelical base not nearly as important, if important at all. And, of course, Mitt Romney from the neighboring state of Massachusetts, the former governor from there. He would be expecting a far better showing there.
HORSLEY: Well, yes. Although the campaign has tried to say that the neighboring state doesn't mean that much. There's, of course, a fair amount of tension between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. But it's much more a sort of fiscal conservative audience in New Hampshire that they'll be appealing to rather than the social conservatives that have dominated at least this round of the caucuses here in Iowa.
BLOCK: Okay. NPR's Scott Horsley at the headquarters of Mitt Romney in Des Moines, Iowa. And, again, NPR has projected that Mike Huckabee has finished first in the Iowa caucuses on the Republican side, Mitt Romney has finished second.
SIEGEL: NPR's Mara Liasson is at the Polk County Convention Center in Des Moines - Des Moines is in Polk County - keeping an eye on the results. Pretty close race you got there.
MARA LIASSON: Really extraordinary, Robert. I mean it is really, it's a three-way tie almost. Obama is ahead. We've got just about half precincts reporting from the Iowa Democratic Party - Obama at 34.3, Edwards at 31.6, and Clinton at 31.2, so that means that Edwards and Clinton are pretty much tied, Obama ahead at 34 percent. I mean, this is really extraordinary.
SIEGEL: Now, we should say here, Mara, that in terms of tangible gains from the Iowa caucuses, this doesn't mean much. There are about - in 44 convention delegates at stake...
LIASSON: You're talking about tangible gains as an actual delegate.
SIEGEL: That's right. It's...
LIASSON: No. But that's not what this is about.
SIEGEL: It's all about showing that you can win an election.
LIASSON: Yes. That's right.
SIEGEL: And at this rate, you could say no one has shown that so far with these results.
LIASSON: Yeah, that's true. But there is so much free media and expectations. And, look, they wouldn't be in Iowa if it didn't mean something.
SIEGEL: Right.
LIASSON: And they've been here for a long time. And what it means is that they can prove to Democrats that they can win. And this is the first opportunity they have to show they can win, and so far, Obama looks like he's - at least with just about half reporting - he is in the lead here. A small one...
SIEGEL: Yes.
LIASSON: ...but a lead. And I can assure you, Robert, that if this stays this close until the end we're going to hear some furious spinning after this. Whoever wins, even by a .0001, is going to say I am the winner, and the guy who's close to him is going to say, well, I tied.
SIEGEL: Yeah, 34, 32, 31 is a dream scenario for the spinmeisters to go with. Just one point I'll add before I let you go, Mara. I saw comparative charts for Obama and Hillary Clinton in terms of age groups. The older the age group, the better Hillary Clinton did. The younger the age group, the better Barack Obama did. It was just a stunning difference between the two contenders.
LIASSON: Not surprisingly, yes.
SIEGEL: Okay. NPR's Mara Liasson at the Polk County Convention Center in Des Moines, Iowa, keeping an eye out on the results of the Iowa caucuses as they come in there.
BLOCK: Andy, what are you seeing in the numbers that you've been looking at most recently?
BLOCK: Obama was so much - so much of this is about change and new ideas and that's what has been most positive for Obama throughout, thematically throughout all of the internals of this entrance poll.
BLOCK: And as we've been talking about, a lot of first-time caucusgoers, he was banking on that and they, you know, a lot of the questions about whether they would actually show up tonight and they did.
BLOCK: That's right. And it's more about personal qualities and less about issues. I mean, earlier, we talked about health care where surprisingly 31 percent of people who said health care is most important picked Obama, 30 percent Hillary.
BLOCK: Let's bring in our political commentators E.J. Dionne, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and columnist at the Washington Post, joining us from Manchester, New Hampshire. Hi, E.J.
BLOCK: How are you?
BLOCK: Good. And Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, he joins us here in our Washington studio. Welcome back, Rich.
BLOCK: Hi, there.
BLOCK: First, your take on the Huckabee projected finish. First, Rich?
BLOCK: Well, it's an incredible personal victory for Mike Huckabee. He had everything thrown at him by the Romney campaign and by the media. He really hadn't had a good day in the free media ever since there was this Newsweek poll three or four weeks ago that showed him popping up to an incredible 22-point lead. There was an onslaught, ever since then, he survived it mostly because of his incredible personal communications skills. This is an extremely talented politician.
BLOCK: But E.J. Dionne, what's your thought on whether it survives beyond Iowa?
BLOCK: And I think these are folks who had been used by the establishment Republicans for a long time and they decided this time they're going to vote for one of their own. The person this helps a lot in the short term is John McCain, because Mitt Romney was counting on coming into New Hampshire, right here where I am tonight, with a victory in Iowa. John McCain has been pulling ahead of him in New Hampshire. I think this will make life very difficult for Mitt Romney. Mike Huckabee is going to fight on here, but he's really looking to South Carolina for another victory.
SIEGEL: Rich Lowry, let's turn to the Democrats right now. It looks like we could be having the result that one Obama aide, David Axelrod, referred to in the New York Times the other day, as a hung jury. What if it ends up 34, 32, 31?
BLOCK: Well, I think a win is a win for Obama. I mean, it's very close to being a three-way push here. But a win is still a win. You got to be impressed the way he turned out the youth vote. We always hear about young voters and very often they don't show up. Apparently, enough of them showed out - showed up tonight to help push Obama, perhaps...
SIEGEL: Now, we don't know that. We don't know that yet.
BLOCK: ...this time, we don't know yet. But if Edwards finishes second, it'll be I think sort of a repeat of what happened to him in 2004 when he had an amazing surge at the end based on a connection with Iowa voters that he captured in a stump speech, and he surged to second and it wasn't quite enough. And he wasn't the biggest story coming out of Iowa. And it looks as though he might be facing a repeat of that tonight.
SIEGEL: E.J. Dionne, what do you think the big story is on the Democratic side?
BLOCK: And it's very interesting, the analysis before the caucuses turns out to be largely right, which isn't the case all the time. The previous caucusgoers actually did vote for John Edwards as expected, but there were a lot more new ones.
SIEGEL: New ones.
BLOCK: And those - a lot more than people might have expected. And Obama carried those quite handily.
BLOCK: Very briefly. Let's also just say that apart from the top three whom we've been talking about, Iowa also serves as a winnowing place. And with people like Governor Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd below 2 percent, we'll see a narrower pack very soon.
SIEGEL: You're listening to coverage of the Iowa caucuses on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.