Obama, Huckabee sweep to Iowa victories - Yahoo! News

Obama, Huckabee sweep to Iowa victories - Yahoo! News: "DES MOINES, Iowa - Sen. Barack Obama swept to victory in the Iowa caucuses Thursday night, pushing Hillary Rodham Clinton to third place and taking a major stride in a historic bid to become the nation's first black president.

Mike Huckabee rode a wave of support from evangelical Christians to win the opening round among Republicans in the 2008 campaign for the White House.

Obama, 46 and a first-term senator from Illinois, told a raucous victory rally his triumph showed that in 'big cities and small towns, you came together to say, 'We are one nation, we are one people and our time for change has come.''

Final Democratic returns showed the first-term lawmaker gaining 38 percent support. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina gained second, barely edging out Clinton, the former first lady."

Transatlantic Poltics

I've been following the election in France. Who is going to win? Is the next president a man or a woman? Are they voting for a right wing male president or a woman representing the leftists in France? The second round is all about Ms. Royal or Mr. Sarkozy. The hard-liner Sarkozy did win the first round with a margin. The second round is going to be tight. There is not a clear idea about the final outcome.

I was reading the blog Transtlantic Politics and according to an FT-poll , "the Brits, Germans, Italians and Spaniards are even more Socialist than the French - or maybe they just wish them 'well'. All of these groups support Ms. Segolene Royal from Socialist Party over the current front-runner from the center-right, Nicolas Sarkozy."

According to The Economist, Sarkozy seems to be the only chance of reform France has left:

"Mr Sarkozy is the only candidate who seems both to have understood the urgency of reform and to have the abrasiveness to stand a chance of carrying it out. A political outsider, who fought his way to the top of the Gaullist party through hard work and cunning, he remains fearless in the face of opposition. Anticipating resistance, his advisers are already working on a draft of the law on minimum service, so as to curb the effectiveness of strikes."