Barack Obama’s election as president could give Iowa an edge in its never-ending effort to remain the nation’s lead-off state in the nomination process.

Obama has repeatedly given Iowa credit for launching his longshot campaign for the Democratic nomination and said he supports the state’s early voting status.

“There’s no question Iowa is a special place for Barack Obama,” said Brad Anderson, a veteran Democratic activist who worked for Obama’s Iowa campaign. “He said from the beginning that Iowa should be first in the nation and he’s going to make good on that promise.”

For decades, Iowa’s precinct caucuses have been the first event in the presidential nominating season, prompting candidates and organizers to set up shop in the state months before the event. This time, candidates from both parties set up campaign offices and held events in the state for nearly a year — Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd even moved his family to Des Moines.

Iowa’s status has long annoyed officials elsewhere who question why a rural state with a small population is lavished with such attention. In response to such complaints, especially by officials in Florida and Michigan, Democrats named a commission to study the campaign calendar and make recommendations by January 2010.

Obama supported that work but hasn’t backed off his support of Iowa’s caucuses, which gave him a surprising victory in January that blunted New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s momentum and put him on the path to the nomination.

Mark Daley, a veteran Democratic activist who worked for Clinton’s Iowa campaign, noted that in his acceptance speech Tuesday night, Obama referred to a campaign “that began in the back yards of Des Moines.”

Daley said, “Iowa has been very good to Barack Obama. There’s no question about it.”

While party leaders deal with issues such as the campaign calendar, veteran Democratic consultant Jeff Link said Obama becomes the unquestioned leader of the Democratic Party with his election.

“It’s great news for Iowa. It’s great news for the Iowa caucuses,” Link said. “Iowa made it possible. Iowa made it all happen.”

Former Iowa Democratic Chairman David Nagle, a Waterloo lawyers widely credited with cementing the state’s role in the nominating process during the 1980s, was more cautious.

“I think we’re all nervous because of the commission that was created to review the whole calendar question,” said Nagle.

Nagle said there’s little evidence that other states will give up their desire to leapfrog to the front of the calendar.

“We can’t go to sleep on this one,” said Nagle.

Still, Nagle said the election helps Iowa’s cause by showing that the state can pick a winner.