Frank Rich of The New York Times sums up Obama and Huckabee's appeal in They Didn't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow:
What felt good was not merely the improbable and historic political triumph of an African-American candidate carrying a state with a black population of under 3 percent. It was the palpable sense that our history was turning a page whether or not Mr. Obama or his doppelgänger in improbability, Mike Huckabee, end up in the White House. We could allow ourselves a big what-if: What if we could have an election that was not a referendum on either the Clinton or Bush presidencies? For the first time, we found ourselves on that long-awaited bridge to the 21st century, the one that was blown up in the ninth month of the new millennium’s maiden year.And Maureen Dowd—in Voting for a Smile—discusses Iowa caucus night and Obama's appeal to Republicans.
I interviewed three Republicans in the Obama section of the caucus who were ready for the red state, blue state merger. They said they didn’t want Hill and Bill back in the White House, and that John McCain was too much of a yes man for W., who had betrayed Republicans with his handling of the Iraq war and his fiscal irresponsibility...And I think the debate last night will help Obama further as Hillary lost her cool and came off as angry, which contrasted with Obama's intellectual calm. Hopefully New Hampshire will see it the way I did and keep Obama's momentum going.
...Obama has now put on his laurel wreath and dropped his languid pose, tapping directly into what he calls the “fire burning” across the country — the dream of a cool, smart, elegant, reasonable, literary, witty, decent “West Wing” sort of president who won’t bankrupt us or endanger us or co-opt our rights or put a black hood on the Constitution.
