Those were huge wins yesterday in Iowa for Democrat Barack Obamaand Republican Mike Huckabee! While this is really just the springtraining of the political season, with much bigger races yet tocome in South Carolina, Florida, New York, California and manyother major states within the next 30 days, I think Iowa's resultsis an early indication that people are responding strongly to thepositive message preached by the two victors–namely, that mostpeople want an end to narrow, gridlock-inducing politicalpartisanship. So, where do the candidates go from here?

I'm going a bit beyond my usual boundaries and blogging on thepresidential race for two reasons:

First, whoever takes over the White House in 2009 will have ahuge impact on how the insurance industry is handled, especiallywhen it comes to health care reform, and its potential impact onthe medical portions of workers' comp and auto. Second, if there isanything I love talking about more than baseball (and insurance, ofcourse), it's politics!

In my view, a big winner yesterday was also John Edwards, who Iexpected to trail badly in Iowa, when in fact he ended up edgingHillary for second place with a relatively strong 30 percentshowing.

Hillary Clinton, who I had assumed would be the ultimatewinner–at least for the Democratic nomination–is still havingtrouble getting past her votes on Iraq and her inability to connectemotionally with voters. She doesn't have much time to recover hermomentum.

Sen. Obama is by far the most inspiring candidate–his victoryspeech last night was the best since he delivered his famouskeynote at the Democratic Convention that propelled him into thepresidential race. (If you haven't already seen his speech fromlast night, CNN and no doubt YouTube probably has it. It's worthwatching.)

CNN also reported some interesting exit polls, showing that Sen.Obama did much better with younger voters than with older ones, andactually got a higher share of the women's vote than Hillary! Quitea surprise.

At least Sen. Chris Dodd and Sen. Joe Biden dropped out. Irespect Sen. Biden especially for his intelligence and broadvision–he often appeared to be the only adult and realist in thispandering field, especially when it came to foreign affairs. But weneed a smaller crowd going into Super Tuesday next month toeliminate the clutter and sharpen the debates from the soundbite-a-thons into which they've degenerated. (Click here for NU's story about the insurance industry and thepresidential race, and here for industry reaction to Sen. Dodd dropping out.)

On the Republican side, Mr. Huckabee really pulled off an upset,and might have sunk the candidacy of both Fred Thompson (who I hadassumed would grab the evangelical vote, but whose candidacy hasbeen a dud from the start), and Mitt Romney (who changed hisposition so often he just can't be trusted). Good riddance to themboth!

The Huckabee win no doubt boosts the cause of Rudy Giuliani, atleast in the short term, by delivering a possible death blow to theRomney campaign. But in the long run, I still would be shocked tosee today's Republican Party nominating a pro-choice, pro-gayrights, pro-gun control candidate, no matter how muchdouble-talking he's done to cover his track record as New York'smayor.

If Rudy were somehow were to win the nomination, I could see theright-to-life and NRA sections of the party storming out of theRepublican convention and field their own candidate, which I thinkwould kill any chance for the Republicans to keep the White Housein November.

Mr. Huckabee could therefore sneak in as the compromisecandidate, but perhaps John McCain (who also has done more than hisshare of shameless flip-flops) can make a comeback and head himoff.

What do you folks think???