January 04, 2008
Obama: "It really was a victory for the people of Iowa"
Barack Obama was wheels down at Portsmouth Airforce Base in New Hampshire at 4:31 a.m. this morning, the winds of victory at his back.
On the flight Obama told reporters that his "spirits were good" and that he felt the turnout in the Democratic caucuses, more than 230,000 people caucused Thursday night, proved what his campaign had claimed was possible about engaging new caucus-goers, young voters and independents.
"It really was a victory for the people of Iowa that I think it's a harbinger of what's going to happen around the country ," he said. "We went to a precinct and just shook hands as people were walking out. You had high school kids that had never caucused before. You had middle-aged folks who said they'd never caucused before who said they were coming out to caucus for me. You had folks who said I'm switching my party registration in order to caucus. It was just across the board," Obama said, describing his support and how he had won by a margin of eight percentage points, defying expectations of a tight race.
He added, "And I believe that the country is interested in not just change in the abstract but a very specific kind of change that involves getting involved, paying attention, demanding straight talk… so that was reflected I think in the results if you go through the raw numbers tonight."
Obama also said that his campaign had "felt good for the last two weeks."
"We felt so happy about what was happening on the ground," he said. "We were seeing the crowd. So regardless of how this played out exactly we were really proud of how we had changed how politics operated in this caucus. It makes me very optimistic about the country."
He wouldn't take the bait when asked what his victory means for John Edwards or Hillary Clinton, saying he would leave the "prognosticating" to the media. When asked if there would be any changes made to his campaign structure, he said, "It's not broken. Why fix it?"
Obama will hold three rallies in New Hampshire today, in Portsmouth, Concord and Milford. He's also expected to make a series of local retail stops.
(NBC/NJ's ASWINI ANBURAJAN)
Posted at 08:21 AM
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