Iowa Caucus: Will We Know When We Know?
On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, the three-way race for the Democratic presidential nomination has continued to tighten over the past 24 hours. The latest Reuters/C-SPAN Zogby poll taken from Dec. 29 through Jan. 1, shows Illinois Sen. Barack Obama stands at 28.3%, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton 27.5%, and fellow Democrat John Edwards in a statistical dead heat just two points behind at 25.7%. As we await the results of the final round of daily polling in Iowa, everything I have been observing about a three-way tie, with no defined winner or loser, still holds true as a real possibility.
This most recent poll finds Clinton's lead among self-identified Democrats slipping a little, but she maintains her leads with women and liberals. Obama is back in the lead among Independents, with Edwards in second place. Obama still leads among 18- to 29-year-olds, while he and Edwards vie for support among Moderates and Very Liberal voters.
You have seen and will continue to see lots of polls with shifting leads and different methodologies. Nearly all are saying the same thing: this remains close, too close.
I've been on the record for a while now suggesting that any one of the top three Democrats can come in first -- and any one of them can come in third. That is still very true. But my comments have been normally followed with the argument that a third place for any of them would be devastating. I am amending that second part. This race could stay very close and we may emerge with all three as viable candidates going into New Hampshire. An Edwards third place is probably rough for him but if his third place is so close that he is in the mix with the party's two superstars, then he deserves extra credit. It will also mean that he can run a strong campaign, should be able to still raise some serious campaign money, and be seen as an alternative to the "experience vs. change" dichotomy facing Democratic voters. But he still can win this.
Obama can survive a close third, too, because he will have proven that he can compete with the vaunted Clinton team and magic, as well as the party's Vice Presidential nominee of 2004. He is running even in New Hampshire and he will signal to African Americans who have doubts about him in South Carolina and beyond that an African American can run and do well. While Edwards is counting on previous caucus voters and is building from there, Obama is relying a lot on new people. Can his energy and charisma motivate new people to caucus?
A Clinton third place bursts the aura of inevitability which her own people established, but she's been up and down, bullied and done some bullying, changed her message and her tone -- she's been a survivor.
So if all this continues, we may be in for a replay in New Hampshire. Edwards still leads as the second choice (30%), but Obama is holding his own (22%). While Clinton was the second choice of 12% in our first round of polling, she has improved -- 15% in our latest round said she was their second choice. But Biden's and Richardson's voters are telling us that Edwards and Obama are their second choices. Edwards has widened his lead among men, as Clinton begins to pull away among women. Edwards is now leading among 'Very Liberal' voters, but Obama is closing in on Clintons' lead among 'liberals.' Moderates are evenly split. So are Independents, while Clinton continues her lead among Democrats and Kerry supporters from 2004. Obama has a huge lead among self-described 'atheists' (about 5% of the total), but he will also need prayers. Those who have made up their minds within the last week are selecting Edwards.
As the leading Democrats face off in a three-way statistical dead heat, there is a two-way race developing among the leading Republicans, along with a real fight in the works for third-place. Only two points separate Huckabee and Romney: 27.7% for Huckabee and 25.7% for Romney. Neither candidate, interestingly, is growing. Instead, as I have been pointing out, the more interesting race is between McCain and Thompson for third. McCain is at 11.7% and Thompson at 11.5%. Huckabee and Romney are now tied among Republicans, while Romney has lost ground with Independents - Huckabee 28%, Romney 18%, McCain 16%, Thompson 14%, and Paul 12%.
McCain is now in second place among voters over 70. Romney and Huckabee are very close with Conservatives, while Thompson has now pulled up to 20% of those who say they are Very Conservative.
There is fluidity here and much of it continues to be about the second tier's impact on the top tier, as I have noted before, and because no candidate among Republicans has really caught fire with likely caucus goers.
Both Romney and Huckabee have declined since our tracking began. This is also too close to call and there is a fascinating sub-plot playing out: McCain is impacting Romney, while Thompson is hurting Huckabee. McCain has gained among Moderates and Independents, as well as with voters over 65 -- all groups that have been supporting Romney. Meanwhile, Huckabee has dropped a few points among Born Again voters as Thompson has climbed into double digits with this group. The same is true with self-described 'very conservative' voters, where Huckabee leads (though he is declining) but Thompson is now getting one in five of their support.
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Will Iowa reflect the way I vote? no way! I have not decided which of the candidates to vote against yet. Yes, i said against, none of the front runners have shown me that they are going to cause any change.Eve
CONGATUALATIONS TO IOWA AGAIN!
In advance, America should congratulate Iowans for doing their duty again, that is, picking the worst possible Democratic candidate, as they have done frequently including John Kerry in 2004. Part of the problem is the crazy Iowa caucus system, and another part is allowing Republicans to help pick the Democrat who think is easiest to defeat. Someday, just maybe, America will have a primary system where the real swing states (right now FLORIDA and OHIO) decide who the candidate is? Of course, that’s ridiculous. Instead it’s much better to get the government we deserve!
Iowa SCHMIOWA! - the mouse that bored.
We might as well have Punxsutawney Phil anoint the front runners.
What a farce - there are less people in the entire state than there are in the SF Bay Area. They represent nothing. It is statistically irrelevant. The cable news droids have puffed this circus up to new heights of delirium.
The process discourages voting by disallowing people the right to cast their vote in private. Republicans can re-register as democrats on the spot and try to elect the candidate least likely to win as the opponent for the Repub they actually want to be president.
it stinks to high heaven, it is antiquated, foolish, solipsistic, and I am screamingly tired of hearing about it.
It just doesn't make sense that Hilary leads with liberals -- she helped bring the country to war, and, when we count her years in the white house as first lady as experience, what did she learn?
How to sell our country down the river with NAFTA and the WTO?
It was the Clintons who started the privatization of the military, and it was the Clintons -- yes, the Clintons -- who started the practice of extraordinary rendition.
Did you hear Hill wrote a book about Cruise Missile Diplomacy? It's called "It takes out a Village." Old joke, but the truth in the humour is that the Mumsy Cookie-Baking Lady Leader Of the Big PTA in Warshington image hides a criminal fascist of the first order -- think Margaret Thatcher or Isabel Peron.
Bill and Hill set the stage for Dubyah, and will be happy to take center stage back -- in the land of the sock puppets, there is no Left or Night, just...Mr. Hands behind it all.
Ohhh Nooo!
Liberals Beware.
One of the most serious errors liberals make (and that is how I identify myself politically) is to regard the fundamentalists with contempt, as having, because some of them have egregiously silly beliefs, no human value.
Not all, but many of the fundamentalists have practiced a very difficult discipline: The mastery of self and desire. They may call it temptation, and it may focus largely on sex, but the point is, they have practiced to control their egotistical desires and succeeded. This work is the most difficult work there is and the most valuable. When you have performed this difficult work and some glib youngster who has all the "right" opinions but has no notion of what is involved in self-mastery condescends to you, you are quite naturally incensed.
You have done the work. You know how hard it is. You know it is valuable work.
So, although you may as a liberal disagree with fundamentalists (I usually do), be very very careful about assuming they are all idiots. Some of them have learned a discipline that very few humans master.
If there is no paper trail, there will be no honest election. Expect more of the same.
It is too bad that we want a likeable president. Americans are so dumbed-down, they are judging our next president by charisma, hairstyles, and likeability. They said GWB was likeable over Al Gore. I won't argue that. But if we go for such frivolous points, take one of the Miss America contestants as the next president. As the rate these dummies are going--what happened to substance, preparedness, experience. We are yelling about CHANGE--Let's see what we get with Change for the sake of Change?
I agree that if the race is close the democrats in the rest of the country are willing to still consider three viable candidates. The real result of Iowa will be, as it usually is, to cut a winnowing fan through the lower tier. Biden, Gravel, Kucinich, etc will begin prepping their concession speeches. The clearly big margin between the top three and the rest will make that clear.
The bigger question is on the Republican side. Is there room on the Republican attention span for FIVE candidates. Bucause Rudy isn't playing in Iowa so the expectations for him are too low for any result to knock him out. So even a third place finish really only puts you in the top Four since Rudy will still be considered a prime contender.
Her Hillaryship has said that she's in it to win it. She is a most determined, intelligent person & wants to win it in the worst way. Some say that Hillary & her supporters are capable of using any means to become POTUS & will do whatever it takes to get her into the White House. That could lead to creating a new & harsher meaning for the term: "the worst".
Isn't it a fascist tactic to keep elections fuzzy the better to steal them? Bev Harris, an election fraud analyst, has some concerns about how the results from the caucuses will be conducted, and counted, but her main worry is how those results will be TRANSMITTED to HQ for public consumption. She is asking for as many videographers to record as much of the proceedings as they can, and to send them to her for review.
Well all this speculation is useless cause whoever gets the top spot will gain momentum in New Hampshire and will problably pull a bigger lead there. So coming out on top even if it is by a nano percent has more traction than second or third place. My hope is that Obama bags it but seeing what the deadheads did in Iowa in regard to voting for Kerry rather than Dean tells me they may go down the same dead end path and vote for Hillary. On the other hand I hope the Iowans learned from their last stupid move to think about it all this time before they leave their pens and go out in vote.
We will know soon enough - and it will matter - it is the nature of politics to fall in line behind the perceived leader.
Ohg.
http://the
Largest Poll:
FRONT RUNNERS:
Kucinich 31.97%
Gore 24.77%
Edwards 15.6%
Still in the race:
Obama 13.86%
Hillary 4.21%
Richardson 4.09%
Dodd 1.56%
Biden 1.12%
Gravel 0.77%
Other 2.05%
http://www
The problem HRC has is her campaign stands for nothing. Obama stands for change and Edwards stands for helping the lower and middle classes.
The only point HRC seems to make is she should be President because she is entitled to the position. She feels entitled to the Presidency by the fact that she lived in the White House and wants to move back into the mansion and have the privileges that come with living there once again for eight more years. Needless to say the public and electorate could care less about indulging her standard of housing and ego needs.
If Hillary were a man, she'd have been tagged as Nixon redux months ago and would be lagging behind all Dem contenders. The sleaze that leaked from the Clinton White House, which proved she and Bill were in the tank with a cast of crooked moneymen and thugs, has not gone away. If elected, Hillary will spend 90% of her time trying to distance herself from new funding scandals, Bill's new bimbos and who knows what else they have magaed to hide so far. Her gender, and her queasy celebrity factor, are all that have kept her in this race. If the Dems truly want to nominate a washed-up 1990s celebrity, they'd do better with Rob Schneider
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Posted January 2, 2008 | 01:54 PM (EST)