In Des Moines, the anti-gay editor of a college student newspaper crossed over from the Republican party to caucus for Democrat Barack Obama in Thursday night's caucuses. In Iowa City, a Democratic precinct caucus passed a resolution calling for legal recognition of same-sex marriages. And throughout the first state to vote on its 2008 presidential favorites, evangelical Christians turned out in droves to support Republican Mike Huckabee.
Obama won 38 percent of the delegates coming out of the Democratic caucuses in Iowa, followed by John Edwards with 30 percent, Hillary Clinton with 29 percent, Bill Richardson with 2 percent and others with 1 percent.
Huckabee won 34 percent of the vote in the Republican caucuses, followed by Mitt Romney with 25 percent, Fred Thompson and John McCain with 13 percent each, Ron Paul with 10 percent, Rudy Giuliani with 4 percent and others with 1 percent.
One of the most interesting stories reported the night of Jan. 3 came from the Des Moines Register, which found that former Republican—and anti-gay student newspaper editor—Jason Casini 'registered as a Democrat to caucus for Barack Obama.' Casini, who is now a 40-year-old attorney, had been so anti-gay during his days editing the University of Iowa's Daily Iowan, said the Register, that protests were organized outside the newspaper's office just against him.
Casini was not the rule for Republicans. Only three percent of Democratic caucus participants identified themselves as Republicans ( most of those did vote for Obama ) ; one percent of Republican caucus-goers identified as Democratic.
CNN's exit polls showed that 56 percent of the voters who supported Huckabee in the caucuses said a candidate's religious beliefs 'matter a great deal.' Schneider said the warning sign for Huckabee was that, among Republican voters who are not born again or evangelical Christians, he got only 14 percent of the vote.
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