MELISSA BLOCK, Host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, Host:
Some analysis now of the Iowa caucus results with Rich Lowry of the National Review, E.J. Dionne who now is in Manchester, New Hampshire. Do I have that right, E.J.?
BLOCK: I am. I'm ahead of the crowd. I'll serve coffee to everybody tomorrow morning.
SIEGEL: Rich Lowry, a couple of minutes ago, we heard the Republican National Committee chair Mike Duncan put a brave face on a win for Mike Huckabee in which his votes overwhelmingly seemed to come from conservative Christians - evangelicals. Good news or bad news for the GOP?
BLOCK: And part of it also was in identity politics. And If you look at the entrance polls, at the numbers of voters who said they cared a great deal about a candidate sharing their religious beliefs, Huckabee wiped up among those people. Romney, in turn, beat Huckabee among those voters who said they didn't care so much or not at all, but there are just less of those voters.
SIEGEL: But does that mean that the road to Iowa takes you all the way to South Carolina. I mean, can you win this way all the way nationally?
BLOCK: Yeah, well, Andy is probably more familiar with these numbers than I am, but I don't think we'll encounter an early primary or caucus where evangelicals are such a huge part of the constituency even in South Carolina. So the challenge Huckabee has is widening his appeal
SIEGEL: Do you agree with that, Andy?
BLOCK: Well, I think that the polls that we saw in South Carolina and Iowa were comparable in terms of the size of evangelical Christians in the potential electorate. If you had the same kind of turnout that - in South Carolina that they had in Iowa, you could see this thing happen in South Carolina again. Now, it's not going to happen in New Hampshire where Christian conservatives are a third of what they are in Iowa and in South Carolina. But you could see this again in South Carolina.
BLOCK: What you could see here with Huckabee is an analogy...
BLOCK: Sorry.
BLOCK: ...to Jesse Jackson in 1984 who had the African-American vote locked up - it was enough to win some places, it was enough to get 25 percent in a lot of places, but he had a ceiling on his support. And that may be the case with Huckabee. We don't know.
SIEGEL: E.J. Dionne, your thoughts on Huckabee, conservative Christians, Iowa and New Hampshire.
BLOCK: And then on the Democratic side, I think the - with apologies to James Carville, it's change, stupid. I mean, it's remarkable that, you know, you've, not only got Barack Obama winning, but you've got a neck and neck race between John Edwards and Hillary Clinton for second place.
SIEGEL: Yeah, we're going to give you the latest results, the latest numbers, from the Democratic race. With 1,611 of 1,781 precincts reporting, Obama is now at 37 percent - 37.03 percent - then John Edwards at 30.08 percent, and Hillary Clinton at 29.70 percent.
BLOCK: Just one last question, Andy. I've been curious about this. We've been talking a lot leading up to this, watch the independents, watch the independents, see whom they caucus for, they tipping Democrat or Republican because that's going to say a lot about what happens in November. Can you glean anything from these entrance polls about that?
BLOCK: I don't think you can glean very much. You've got about the same percentage. I think it's about 15, 16 percent independents in each of the caucuses. They weren't overwhelmingly one way or another. But, that doesn't say - I mean, that's the relative numbers. We don't know what the absolute numbers. There may have been in absolute numbers many more independents voting in Democratic caucuses, but we have to see how many - what the absolute levels of turnout have been, and we don't know that yet.
BLOCK: I think Andy's right because if you just look at the raw numbers, independents are a slightly larger percentage of a much larger Democratic turnout.
BLOCK: We are joined now by Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, former Vermont governor, and welcome to the program, chairman Dean.
BLOCK: Thanks for having me on.
BLOCK: You also are somebody who knows something about finishing third in Iowa. Any advice for Senator Clinton?
BLOCK: And this is, I think, honestly, the turnout is the big story tonight. Certainly, we don't want to take anything away from Senator Obama's victory, but from the point of view of the chairman of the Democratic Party who's going to be neutral on the candidates, the fact that we just about doubled the Republican turnout and that virtually every independent in Iowa apparently voted in the Democratic primary is a very good piece of news for the future of this election.
SIEGEL: Chairman Dean, after the top three, the fourth finisher, from what we see in the actual votes counted so far, is Governor Bill Richardson with 2.15 percent of the vote. Is it time for people other than the top three to get out of the field?
BLOCK: No, really, that's - the way they count the votes in Iowa is a little unusual. It's not like a primary, so, Bill, I'm sure, and Senator Biden, Dodd and - as well got more than that. What happens is, is if you don't get 15, your vote total essentially disappears.
SIEGEL: Senator Dodd got three hundredths of a percent.
BLOCK: Right. But that's the - he may well have gotten more than that in the actual vote count. I don't want and go and spend the time going into the complicated way that Iowa totes up their votes, but if you don't get 15 percent, your vote total disappears in a particular caucus.
SIEGEL: Right.
BLOCK: So, you know - and also having done this, this is a very personal quest to take - to look for the presidency. When it's time for people to get out, they will decide that for themselves, so I wouldn't call on anybody to drop out of the race at this point.
BLOCK: Governor Dean, thanks very much.
BLOCK: Thanks for having me on.
BLOCK: We've been talking about the results coming in all evening from the Iowa caucuses. Barack Obama on the Democratic side is the projected winner, showing right now about 37 percent of the vote. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton hovering right around 30 percent. Robert?
SIEGEL: Over on the Republican side, where as we've heard, the turnout was lower, Mike Huckabee has come in a convincing first, ahead of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. And after them, it seemed - it looks like a close race between former Senator Fred Thompson and Senator John McCain.
BLOCK: I was just talking with chairman Dean there, asking about advice for Hillary Clinton if she finishes third. It now appears possible that, in fact, she will finish second. As we said, it's extremely close - the race between John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.
SIEGEL: Yeah.
BLOCK: But again, Barack Obama coming in first on the Democratic side.
SIEGEL: So, we can see the outlines of the result - more than the outlines of the result. Everybody's thinking now about what happens next. On Tuesday, New Hampshire votes, an actual primary, and that is also one of the traditional tests for would-be presidential candidates. Senator McCain's already there. He's put a statement out on the Web. He's run pretty well recently in polls in that state. On the Democratic side, Senator Obama has run convincingly in polls against Hillary Clinton.
BLOCK: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News on this Iowa caucus night.