Hillary Clinton Just Made History

By Emily Peck

Hillary Clinton is the first woman ever to win the Iowa caucus, the moment when the voters finally jump into America's presidential selection process. That's not something to ignore.

Yet it seemed weirdly overlooked on Tuesday, as political observers argued over why men who came in second and third actually "won" the contest.

Sure, it was a tight race, but Clinton eked out first place on the Democratic side. The Associated Press on Tuesday morning declared the former secretary of state the winner, with slightly more delegate equivalents than her chief competitor, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Clinton had finished third in the Iowa caucus in 2008, behind John Edwards and Barack Obama, himself the first black person ever to win that contest.

Now, the Iowa caucus is hardly definitive. Plenty of politicians have won the early voting there and wound up nowhere in the national race, from then-Rep. Dick Gephardt (D) in 1988 to former Sen. Rick Santorum (R) in 2012. Still, the contest tends to give the winning candidate some momentum. Obama took that Iowa win in '08 and ran with it.

And, yes, Clinton has made primary history before. In 2008, she narrowly defeated Obama to win the New Hampshire primary, and she took a bunch of other states, too.

Clinton is a contentious figure, even among women. But that's no reason not to celebrate the fact that on Monday she made history -- again! Especially at a time when there are still so few women in politics.