The voters in Iowa chose "change" over "experience" Thursday night, leaving Hillary Clinton looking for silver linings after coming in third place below self-proclaimed change agents Barack Obama and John Edwards.

Obama was declared the winner of the caucus while Clinton struggled in a tie with Edwards for second place with 99 percent of precincts voting.

FOX News entrance polling ahead before the Democratic caucusing indicated that 52 percent of Iowa voters were more concerned with electing a candidate who could "bring about needed change" than seeking one with the "right experience." This far outweighed what had been believed to be Clinton's strong suit, which 20 percent of the caucus-goers said was most important to them.

The preference, along with a massive turnout of Democratic voters, resulted in a blow to the Clinton campaign, which has long been hailing the senator's 35-year political career, including eight years as first lady, as superior credentials over her rivals for the White House.

As if already picking up on that point at the end of the evening, in a speech to supporters at the end of the evening, Clinton immediately began speaking about "change."

"We have seen an unprecedented turnout here in Iowa. And that is good news, because today we're sending a clear message:  that we are going to have change, and that change will be a Democratic president in the White House in 2009," she said to cheers. "I am so proud to have run with such exceptional candidates ... together we have presented the case for change and have made it absolutely clear that America needs a new beginning."

Off-stage, political analysts were parsing out just what happened to the candidate who just a few months ago was considered to have a near lock on the nomination.

Heavy turnout is believed to have led to some of the disappointment, as analysts had predicted early on that the more people who showed up at the Iowa precincts, the better the opportunities for the perceived outsiders, Obama and Edwards. Iowa Democratic party officials reported that with 99.2 percent of the precincts reporting, 236,000 attended the caucuses.

According to campaign sources who spoke with FOX News, Clinton's team believed, early on, that the turnout would not exceed more than 150,000. By the end of the evening, Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee acknowledged that turnout could end up being more than 200,000.

He otherwise kept the outlook bright.

"As the boss said earlier, today is just the beginning. It's not the end. Tomorrow you hit reset and you start all over again in New Hampshire and you run hard for five days," he said.

"Look, we're just playing our game. We came here, we're going to do as well as we could. We feel very good about the ground game that we had. We feel very good about the way things are looking at this point of the evening"

But beyond turnout, the entrance polling revealed some of the most serious problems with Clinton's prospects in Iowa.

Early pundit prognostications said that if the youth vote Obama so heavily courted showed up at the polls, it would mean trouble for Clinton, and it apparently did. According to the entrance polls, the under-22 vote accounted for 22 percent of the total vote and they went for Obama 57 percent while they went for Clinton 11 percent.

As the country's first, most viable woman candidate for president, it is probably most surprising that Obama did better among female voters in the entrance polling, 35 percent to 30 percent.

David Yepsen, political columnist for the Des Moines Register, told FOX News that he believed Clinton had failed to get a cogent message out to the voters, despite a huge operational presence in the state. He said on the Republican side, Mitt Romney may have suffered from the same shortcomings. "Who are they and what do they stand for? I think they failed on that."

From here, he predicted that the "anti-Hillary Clinton vote" will now "coalesce around Barack Obama. That's part of the story tonight."

Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers played down the impact on Clinton Thursday, and said it was the media, not the Clinton campaign that had assumed the early primaries were to serve as nothing more than "a coronation' for Clinton less than a year ago. But nonetheless, Powers told FOX News, being in third place was "not good for her by any stretch of the imagination."

Michael Steele, former Republican lieutenant governor of Maryland, said he did not believe Clinton would suffer so badly.

"Hillary can take this hit, I've said it all along," he said. "She is not necessarily focused on the short game. This is all about getting the delegates for the convention, that's what matters to her."

Clinton hinted also, in her speech, that aside from embracing the idea of "change" she is still going to bank on her experience as a long term tool for success in 2008.

"What is most important now is that, as we go on with this contest, that we keep focused on the two big issues, that we answer correctly the questions that each of us has posed.  How will we win in November 2008, by nominating a candidate who will be able to go the distance?"

 And who will be the best president on day one?

"I am ready for that contest," she said.