Update: 94% of vote in. Hillary is ahead 50.2% to Sanders' 49.3%. (She's up from a few minutes ago.) O'Malley got .5%.

I think Hillary Clinton did better than Sanders tonight. Why? He didn't knock her out of the race. There was no revolution. There was no huge voting surge by 1st time caucus voters for Bernie. Hillary turned out her voters. She's still the presumptive nominee.

Sanders is staying in Des Moines tonight -- he wants to see the vote results for Polk County. He had planned on a quickie moral victory speech and taking off for New Hampshire.

I won't be listening to Bernie's speech -- or starting a thread about it. I will start a thread for Hillary's speech.

Memo to clueless CNN pundit in the green dress: "Who cares most about people like me" is not a burning question. We are all unique. Other than leftovers from the "me generation", most voters want a President who is best for the country, not for them individually. "People like Me" is a nothing more than a bunch of malcontents who likely won't show up to vote in November.

Update: 90% of Democratic vote in, Hillary is still at 49.8 to Sanders 49.5. These aren't actual votes, these are delegate counts. Wolf Blitzer says Democrats don't release vote totals. So this whole night has been a waste of time?

Update: 84% of Dem vote in, Hillary at 50.0%. Can Bernie catch her? I predict he won't. Shame on CNN for featuring a Sanders shill disguised as an analyst. MUTE button.

CNN calls Iowa for Ted Cruz. He got 28% of the Republican vote -- how is that a huge win over Trump who got 24%? He didn't get a majority of Iowa Republican voters, he got less than 1/3 of them. Trump beat evangelical Rubio in Iowa -- that's pretty good for Trump. Rubio is claiming victory now. People told him his boobs are too high? (Surely I mis-heard him.)( Added: I mis-heard him. Someone else reported he said people said his "boots" were too high. )

Out to lunch: Rubio says he'll be the eventual nominee. He says Hillary is disqualified. He lies his as^ off and claims Hillary is a liar? He says all praise is due to you know who. Who listens to this crap? I'm turning it off.

Update: More than 90% of Republican precincts in. Cruz takes it with 28%. Trump is only 1% ahead of Rubio. I don't think that's so surprising. Iowa Republicans are overwhelmingly evangelical. Iowa is no national bell-weather. Huckabee won Iowa overwhelmingly in 2008 -- 34.8 % to Romney's 25.2%. Iowa is not the United States, it's one of 50 states.

Huckabee just suspended his campaign.

In 2008, there were 227,000 Democratic caucus attendees. In 2004, their turnout was about 125,000 caucus goers.

Update: 76% in, Hillary at 50%, Bernie at 49%. Entrance polls: 88% of the voters who thought experience matters, went for Hillary. Benie got the voters who want a candidate who looks out for people like them.

CNN pundit: Bernie can claim victory if he loses. No, pundit, he can't. Get another job.

Update: Hell is finally freezing over. Martin O'Malley will be suspending his campaign within the next hour. He didn't win a single caucus. At the 2008 caucus I attended, Obama's delegates bought Biden's delegates a box of chocolates to win them over. It didn't work. Biden held firm until the third round. Then his supporters went to Obama. And he became Vice President.

Blast from the past: The difference between caucuses and primaries. Update: MUTE CNN. Their pundits are the worst. Especially the two women.

CNN reports Sanders is going to declare victory whether he wins or loses. He will call for revolution. Message to Bernie: You are no revolutionary. At 74, you are the oldest person to ever run for President. Sorry, I don't want a Model T Ford for President.

60 % of the vote is in. Hillary is at 52%. She's winning the counties that John Edwards won in 2008. I'm ready to call Iowa for Hillary. Hillary is at 54% in Polk County. I don't see the nail-biter here.

Cruz is doing well in some non-evangelical counties that Mitt Romney did well in in 2008. Rubio is doing better than expected. Trump is holding his own. New voter turnout seems to be higher for Republicans than Democrats. Cruz is ahead 29%, Trump is at 25%, Rubio is at 21%, and Carson is at 10%.

Obama is really not that relevant here. He won the counties in 2008 with the most diverse populations -- those with thousands of non-white voters. The fact that Sanders is not winning every single one of these counties says something. Either Obama's support is transferring to Hillary, or Bernie is viewed as too liberal, or the youth vote isn't turning out as expected, or Sanders is not getting the same level of non-white votes that Obama got. Take your pick.

Update: Channel change. CNN puts its clueless pundit back in the front spot.

Did Donald Trump just go down an escalator?

Only 7% of Republican caucus sites reporting. Trump is a point behind Cruz.

Hillary seems to be maintaining her 53% lead at most of the caucuses.

Bernie is in his hotel room. He says its too early and we'll know more in an hour or so. Bernie then gives a speech about the top 1% and campaign finance. What a broken record. [More...]

Trump just took a dive in one caucus. CNN says it is not "necessarily determinative" of "Polk County." But he says The announcer just said "Johnson county, excuse me, Polk County." 25% of Democratic caucuses in, Hillary at 53%.

Update: CNN is redeeming itself by bringing in John King to crunch the numbers and backpedaling its pundits. Hillary just won a caucus with 57% of the vote.

CNN's reporters don't name which caucus they are at. Is that on purpose? How can anyone draw any conclusion without knowing where the caucus is?

Update: Cruz now ahead by 45 votes with 1245 votes. Hillary has 52%. The CNN female announcer is absolutely fawning over Trump. With 600 votes in, she calls his performance "mind-blowing." Seriously? Get a grip.

Update: First actual Republicans results: Ted Cruz barely ahead of Trump. On Democrats: Hillary 52 %, Sanders 46%. Two minutes later: Trump is barely ahead of Cruz -- he has 305 votes. Is this even worth reporting?

CNN numbers cruncher says the evangelical vote may be splitting among Cruz, Rubio and Carson. The non-evangelicals are strong for Trump. [More...]

O'Malley is probably not going to be viable. So where will his supporters go? Another caucus in Coralville is going for Hillary.

The media says turnout is heavy. There are media reports that there are more first time goers among Republicans than Democrats. Trump is speaking at a caucus in West Des Moines. [More...]

CNN gives results for caucus attendees who arrived early and says they may not mean anything. So why report them? It says Hillary is at 50% in its "entrance polls" of "early attendees."

Channel Change: Good-bye, CNN. Get some analysts or give up your "news" moniker. No one is interested in what your lame, biased pundits have to say.

Their "news guy" live at a caucus just repeated the same points he made 15 minutes ago. [More...]

The caucus I attended in 2008 was in the auditorium at the Roosevelt High School in Des Moines.

There's a huge difference between pundits and analysts. As a former TV pundit for 12 years, I know the difference. CNN just blows the line between them.

I'd rather watch the Bachelor than cable news coverage. But instead, I think I'll stick to online news, actual results and actual attendance figures.