Weekend Reading: The Caucuses in Review

By Garance Franke-Ruta
As you reflect on the results of the Iowa caucuses and look forward to New Hampshire's Tuesday primary and this Saturday's Democratic and Republican New Hampshire debates, take a minute to look back at some of The Trail's comprehensive coverage of the week that was.

Alec MacGillis yesterday shone a spotlight on the Democratic campaigns' New Hampshire ground games, including the book clubs organized by the Barack Obama campaign. Peter Slevin told the story of how Obama courted one tiny Iowa newspaper and won a columnist's favor -- just one small part of the campaign's intensive overall organizing strategy that ultimately led to his Iowa win. Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta looked at the Iowa entrance polling data and who ultimately went for the Illinois senator. Dan Balz today takes that data and reviews the New Hampshire electorate, concluding that on every demographically favorable measure, N.H. is even more likely to warm to Obama than did Iowa. (Alec MacGillis wrote about how the demographics of N.H. have changed since the last presidential cycle, potentially transforming the state's political culture, back on Dec. 18.)

On the GOP side of the aisle, John Solomon discovered that Mike Huckabee had run that negative ad on Mitt Romney, after all. Perry Bacon Jr. looked at Huckabee's volunteer army and how a man with little formal organization or financing was able to pull off so decisive a caucus victory. And then this morning Michael D. Shear reported on a late night briefing with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's spokesman, the collapse of his "kindling strategy" -- and how he spent $238 for each of 29,405 votes.