SUNDAY FIX

Obama's Edge Among Women

One surprising headline from Iowa was how Obama beat Clinton among women, despite all the intense wooing by the Clinton camp and outside groups such as EMILY's List.

Obama's real edge came with single and divorced women. According to entrance polls, Clinton narrowly won among married women, but Obama dominated with unmarried women, winning by 13 percentage points.

Democrats are targeting unmarried women as a potentially significant new voter pool, and the Iowa caucuses suggested that those efforts may be paying off. In Iowa, unmarried women accounted for 28 percent of Democratic caucusgoers, six points higher than their overall share of the state's population, according to entrance polling.

Married women caucused in proportion to the overall population, accounting for 29 percent of the eligible population in Iowa and 29 percent of Democratic caucus attendees.

For the first time in history, there are as many unmarried women nationally as married adult women in the country. But unmarried women are 9 percentage points less likely to register and 13 percentage points less likely to vote. Marital status is one of the top four determinants of whether an individual will vote.

Can Clinton Bounce Back?

Former president Bill Clinton may have known something most of the country didn't.

In a speech in Iowa on New Year's Eve, he seemed to hint that his wife might fail in the state's caucuses but that her experience with setbacks prepares her to bounce back.

"The next president, unless he or she is locked in a closet for four years, will sooner or later fail at something," he said. "What you need to know is how your leader would respond to failure."

He went on to describe how, when faced with the failure of their plan to overhaul health care, his wife pushed forward on legislation to ensure broader access for children. "She doesn't quit, and that's a good thing in a leader," he added.

While the health-care flop was certainly a notable policy failure, a look at Hillary Clinton's political career shows no defeat comparable to the one she suffered at the hands of Obama and former senator John Edwards (N.C.) last week in Iowa.

In 2000, Clinton took considerable criticism when she initially announced her decision to run for the Senate from New York, but she quickly quieted skeptics with an Upstate "listening tour." When the race seemed to tighten in the early fall, Clinton's opponent -- then-Rep. Rick Lazio -- made the fatal mistake of demanding she sign a clean-campaign pledge during a September debate. The audience bridled, and the outcome was never again in doubt. Clinton won with 55 percent of the vote.

Six years later, she cruised to reelection with 67 percent in what amounted to a warm-up for her presidential bid.

That string of unbroken political successes was broken badly last week in Iowa. Her husband was always best when he was down. Can Hillary Clinton follow in his footsteps?