New Iowa Poll: Edwards Surges, Huck's Bubble Bursts

McClatchy:

John Edwards has clawed his way into contention to win Iowa's caucuses on Thursday in the first vote for the Democratic presidential nomination, gaining strength even as rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have lost ground, according to a new McClatchy-MSNBC poll.

At the same time, Mitt Romney has regained the lead among Iowa Republicans as Mike Huckabee has lost momentum and support, even among the evangelical Christians who had propelled him into the top spot just weeks ago.

Taken together, this first poll in Iowa since campaigning resumed after a Christmas break showed a dead-heat contest between the three leading Democratic candidates and a volatile clash between the two top Republican rivals here.

Read the whole story: McClatchy

Comments

[Waitaminute]

Obama will win Iowa. I know the game these people play. All signs lead to Obama winning Iowa, NH, AND SC. BET YOU MY GOLLY WOW....

[gregjones]

SHOCKING NEWS !!! Please google PNAC....ch­eck the videos....­The Neo-Cons planned the Iraq, Iran, Syria invasion back in 1992......­Hillary is a part of the plan to continue the mission which is why she is getting more contribution funds from defense contractors (tank, guns, bomb manufacturers, etc.) than any other candidate including the republicans. DON'T BE FOOLED. A vote for Billary is a vote for war escalation !!!!!BEWARE OF BILLARY AMERICA !!!! Then google 'clinton body count'....­.then....'­ron brown's death'....­.SHOCKING NEWS !!!

[IkeChicago]

I just saw Hillary on CSpan, what an audience she gathered. I think if Hillary promised free crutches and wheelchair assistance, the whole audience would have applauded.

[liberalveteran]

John Edwards represents the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. He is the only candidate talking about the class struggle in America, which the bottom 80% of the population is losing.

Hillary will be whatever you want her to be on any given day. Obama is better, but he has a terrible desire to get along with everybody. Let's just hold hands with Dick Cheney and pretend to be friends. You know, bring a fascist to dinner and make nice. Turning his campaign into an extension of the Oprah show was a huge turnoff.

I am supporting Edwards. But who knows, if nobody gets a majority, the Democrats can still draft Al Gore.

[sonicyouth]

For the life of me, I am shocked and bewildered how so many "progressives" can be supporting Edwards. What comes out of his mouth does not match how he lives his life. As a fellow Carolinian I can tell you this man is a fraud. He runs a national "populist " campaign around poverty while getting $400 haircuts and accepting $50k speaking fees from public universities to talk about...yo­u guesed it, poverty. He lives in a $26 million dollar home in one of the poorest regions in the country (believe me, $500 k in Chappel Thrill buys you a MANSION). He rails against corporations yet takes $800k from a "corportation" that is foreclosing on Katrina victims.

I help many of the country's largest "progressive" organizations and have spent my life working for progressive causes, but what I see our movement doing to Obama is sickening.

Many progressives' blind support for Edwards is troubling and quite shallow - they believe what he says without looking at the facts. While in the Senate he did NOTHING to address "poverty" (Bankruptcy Bill, etc...) It has been disturbing to see so many - from Campaign for America's Future to the SEIU and their horrendous advertising, take shots at Obama.

AFSCME and Emily's List have lost my support as well. If you want to support a candidate, fine. But to run attack ads against someone who has a 100% voting record on your pet issues is disgraceful.

I hope Obama wins and tells them all to fuck off. Wouldn't that be fun.

[BillyCioffi]

Anyone who saw Ole' Huckster on Meet The Press today should be scared and relieved. He'll never be elected. He is really weird.
He stated that a women having an Abortion should be treated as a "victim" while the Dr. should be punished. How's that for keeping "the little woman" in submission!! They could never make a reasoned choice or anything like that.Oh No! It was the most subversive sexist thing I heard and old Russert never even flinched or said "are you implying a women cannot make a choice for herself?" Huckabee is a religious zealot. That response says volumes about how the Arkansas Deliverance thinks of women and equality.

[IkeChicago]

America is the only nation where Al Qaeda could elect a president and it is usually going to be a Republican. All they have to do is to bomb or threaten to bomb and then nation will concede the election to Al Qaeda, I’m sorry I mean the Republicans.

Now it seems that the Pakistanis have assumed the role, Buhtto is assassinated and now Hillary is the only viable candidate.

Wake up people Pakistanis shouldn’t decided who the next American president should be. Only Americans should have that vote.

Note that I misspelled Bhutto’s name, that was purposeful, to signify how insignificant she is to the American process.

[Tellmethetruth]

Judicary Watch just printed their 10 most corrupt politicians of 2007 - Obama and Clinton made the list. Clinton for not releasing the White House year documents as First Lady. Obama for the following:

" Senator Barack Obama (D-IL): A "Dishonorable Mention" last year, Senator Obama moves onto the "ten most wanted" list in 2007. In 2006, it was discovered that Obama was involved in a suspicious real estate deal with an indicted political fundraiser, Antoin "Tony" Rezko. In 2007, more reports surfaced of deeper and suspicious business and political connections It was reported that just two months after he joined the Senate, Obama purchased $50,000 worth of stock in speculative companies whose major investors were his biggest campaign contributors. One of the companies was a biotech concern that benefited from legislation Obama pushed just two weeks after the senator purchased $5,000 of the company"s shares. Obama was also nabbed conducting campaign business in his Senate office, a violation of federal law."

http://www.judicialwatch.org/judicial-watch-announces-list-washington-s-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-2007

Guilliani is on the list as well, along with Craig and Pelosi. Libby made the list but not Cheney and Bush, so whatever this is worth. Judicial Watch does do thier homework and they do have a file on Bush/Cheney.

Not sure what to make of this myself, but people should know.

[plutorage]

Hilary has been too focused on giving the "right answer" to everything. After a while the right answers all start crashing in to each other.

Edwards, in the meantime, has been gathering steam with his "take the corporations on head-on" message. I purchased Health Insurance recently and I must say I have never been so disappointed in corporate America. I just took a cross country drive and I must say the more charming areas were the ones where the corporate presence was minimal. I think we do need a smart person in the White House who will take on the corpocracy. Hilary wants to tax the oil corporations. That may be the right answer for many but the fact is that oil companies use their profits to explore for oil. Oil company stocks are valued in how much reserves they have and what they are doing about replacing reserves. If Hilary taxes oil companies profits, the companies will have less money to gamble on drilling for new oil. I think we may as well have our companies own the reserves rather than foreign companies who will be happy to take over the oil business if Hilary insists.

[andyboy]

Turnout is everything here. In a shocker I can see Edwards followed closely by Obama then Clinton.

We cannot discount the advantages John Edwards holds in his gender AND his race.

I don't feel America herself is ready to vote for a woman in the numbers it will take to secure the nomination. Unless the candidate happened to be Angelina Jolie.

My gut feeling is that women will decide this race from the 18 yr olds all the way up to the Geritol set. And my gut tells me they will prefer Obama. John's message is muddled. It's too focused on this crusade for the little man aspect. He has no star quality like a Kennedy or a Schwartzenneger.

And his cowlick detracts from his shall we say, gravitas?

In many ways it's going to come down to who the typical American female gets turned on the most by. I think we can then safely say most men will not vote for Hillary. As for the women?

Like I said if it was Angelina..­..

[hope4theflowers]

Obama ,Clinton and Edwards all are promoting the same health care "plan". Promises of affordable health care for everyone..­vie INSURANCE companies.
Hello..can you say meaningless rhetoric?

Only Kucinich is man enough to admit insurance companies make their money by denying health care to its paying members.El­iminate the for profit middle man insurance companies.­..

if not now..they will have to be eventually because sooner or later people are goin g to realize Kucinich is right.And this money wasting and time wasting beauracracy has to stop.Penni­es on the dollar health care would cost if it was truly nationalized and made non profit.Sad­ly, in this country anything that makes so much sense and actually reflects the supposed moral values of the majority is promptly squashed..­and the voters are more than willing to close their eyes.

[Listen2me]

This stupid "horserace" reporting is so damn tiresome.

It would take a simple editorial decision to refuse to play along with it, and instead report on ALL the candidates' positions on issues that matter.

TO make that decision requires 2 things on the part of the managers of this site:

Brains and guts.

What a farce this year's election reporting has been so far. It has never been worse, never more degraded, never more insubstantial, never more irrelevant, never more pathetic, never more useless, in the 50 years I've been following politics.

We can't do anything about the editorial decisions to play "follow-the-Fox" except not to take the bait. DON'T TAKE POLLS SERIOUSLY and don't react to them.

I hope the results in upcoming caucuses and elections are out-of-synch with the polls. I really hope so.

[DRaymond]

the three top democrats were within two percentage point of each other with TWELVE percent undecided! If that isn't the definition of 'too close to call' I have no idea what is.

The other important thing is that anybody who does not get 15 percent of the first round voting is dropped. That would mean that all of the Richardson, Gravel, etc. supporters will either go home or stay and support somebody else. Who? My gut feeling is that right now the Democrats, like much of the country,find Hillary a divisive figure. That there is the Hillary camp and the anybody-but-Hillary one. So my guess is that eventually it will boil down to either Edwards or Obama based on the second choicers.

[WestLittleRock]

Thank GOD ALMIGHTY they are looking closer at my ex governor. Huckabee must be stopped

[ChristopherLib]

Two Iowa polls came out today and Obama lead neither of them, a definate change from a few weeks ago when he basically lead all Iowa polling. The Zogby/Routers poll had Clinton with a four point lead and Edwards with a strong third at 24%. Edwards has seem the most upward movement as of late, but Clinton has trended upwards. Obama has fallen, and his pathetic response to Bhutto's death, trying to policize it, isn't going to help him. I think Iowa is going Edwards, Hillary, and Obama in that order.