The Iowa presidential caucuses have done their job effectively by beginning to sift the rival candidates for nomination by the Democratic and Republican parties. The more decisive outcome was in the Democratic contest, in which Mr Al Gore defeated Mr Bill Bradley by a margin of 63 per cent to 35 per cent. In the Republican contest Mr George W. Bush held off a strong challenge from the far right wing candidate, Mr Steve Forbes, which should help to maintain his commanding position nationally.
These two relatively minor contests provide the first taste of voter preferences and will determine candidates' ability to raise crucial financing between now and the primaries in the densely populated states in March. They also test the candidates' adversarial and rhetorical skills, laying down ideological frameworks and popular assumptions by which they will later be judged in the media and by voters.
In that crucial respect Mr Bradley must be sorely disappointed with his performance in Iowa. He spent more money than Mr Gore but performed surprisingly poorly in several of their set-piece encounters on health, campaign financing and agricultural issues. He will have to sharpen his attacks on Mr Gore going into the New Hampshire contest at the risk of antagonising some of his supporters there. Unless he does so, the differentiation that puts him to the liberal left of Mr Gore may lose its appeal. If he loses next week he will probably have to stand down. A great deal depends on his performance in tonight's televised debate with Mr Gore. By the same token, Mr Gore has certainly been strengthened by this first outing. He has managed to project his personality more effectively and to put over his main political priorities.
Mr George W. Bush kept ahead of the pack in the Republican contest. From the national perspective he appears to have little to worry about from Mr Forbes and his wing of the party, except on the abortion issue. A more critical part of the Republican contest was effectively absent from the Iowa caucuses, in that Senator John McCain avoided campaigning there. He has high expectations from New Hampshire, sure in the knowledge that he appeals to its voters' sympathy for colourful outsiders and underdogs. Were he to perform well there, he would get an essential lift for the months to come, having demonstrated a gift for feisty debating with his main opponent.
That will make for more public interest in the political process which has so far attracted all too little attention from the mass voting public in the United States. Mr Bradley and Mr Gore have a similar capacity to generate interest and are sufficiently far apart on policy issues to justify it. Thus the New Hampshire primaries also bid fair to fulfil their traditional role of stimulating the nation's attention at the start of a heavy voting year.