Outcomes Hard to Predict in Iowa
As the last few days dribble away before the Iowa caucuses, it's pretty much agreed that no one can confidently predict what going to happen a week from tomorrow night. Oh, there are polls ... lots of them. And while they show some people have slipped and others have surged, all the major candidates remain within striking distance of each other.
For instance, an American Research Group poll a week ago (600 likely Democrats surveyed, error of +/- 4 percent) showed Clinton at 29 percent and Obama at 24 percent. But a Christmas Eve poll showed Clinton with 34 percent and Obama back down at 19 percent. (Edwards polls 20 percent.)
On the other hand, a Strategic Vision poll (600 likely Democratic voters), taken only a couple of days before the ARG one, shows Obama with 30 percent and Clinton and Edwards with 27 each. And in the same period, CNN had it 30 percent for Clinton, 28 for Obama, and 26 for Edwards.
On the Republican side, Dick Bennett, president of the American Research Group, laughs and says "Take eight cards and toss them up in the air." He says there are "very few, very strong" supporters of any of the leading candidates. In the latest ARG poll, Mike Huckabee has come back towards the pack, slipping from 28 percent to 23 percent. And Bennett says Iowan Republicans are telling ARG interviewers who they'll vote for .. and then why they don't like that candidate. "I've never seen anything like it before," he says.
Again, showing the wide difference in these polls, Strategic Vision had Huckabee with 31 percent. Huckabee was doing even better in the CNN survey, racking up 33 percent.
As Ina Jaffe noted in an earlier blog today, the candidates themselves are madly dashing around the state these last few days, trying to convince late-deciders to jump on their bandwagons. But you can bet the real push this week, especially behind the photo ops, is to make sure they can get their know-supporters lined up and ready to go to the caucus meetings next Thursday.
But getting supporters lined up too early can hurt too. Bennett points out that in 1992 in New Hampshire, George H.W. Bush identified supporters early. But many of them changed their minds and went to Pat Buchanan. So Bush ended up bringing many of his opponents' supporters to the polls.
4:30 PM ET
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12-26-2007
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Another New Hampshire Paper Slams Romney
Mitt Romney must be asking himself what he ever did to annoy the editorial boards of two of New Hampshire's larger papers. Whatever it was, their decisions to rake him over the coals publicly could not come at a worse time for his campaign. (That noise the former Massachusetts governor can hear over the Christmas carols is the sound of Sen. John McCain charging up from behind.)
Last week, the more liberal Concord Monitor wrote an editorial entitled "Romney should not be president," and called him "a disquieting figure who sure looks like the next president and most surely must be stopped." What made this broadside even more damaging is that the paper has not officially endorsed a candidate yet, which made this an anti-endorsement.
Then today, the Manchester Union-Leader, the state's largest, most conservative and most influential paper, piled on Romney. In an editorial, the paper notes that Romney has been in the state more times than any other candidate, that his rallies have been mostly well-attended, and that he has other advantages like money, organization and that most of the people in the state know who he is because of his years as Massachusetts' governor.
But, the editorial adds, he hasn't been able to close the deal, and that's because he lacks one thing that McCain "has in spades: conviction." People can sense, it adds, that Romney's words are "memorized but not heart-felt."
The Union-Leader does have a horse in this race - it has already endorsed McCain as the best Republican candidate.
10:59 AM ET
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12-26-2007
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A Reporter's Christmas in Iowa
This was a good day to get ready for the onslaught to come. Candidates begin campaigning again in Iowa Wednesday morning. In perusing their various schedules I noticed that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will be here over the weekend. Since Giuliani has staked his fortunes on the Florida primary on January 29th and on the February 5th states, this 11th hour visit to Iowa is one of this campaign season's mysteries. Polls show him coming in a very distant third or fourth here.
Skating on Thin Ice
The metaphor is irresistible: Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, he of the single digit poll numbers, gliding around in circles on a downtown Des Moines ice rink.
The Democratic candidate moved his family to Des Moines, all the better to be close to potential caucus goers. It hasn't done him any detectable good in the polls. But it did mean he had a home to which he could invite about two dozen Iowa staffers who couldn't make it to their own homes on Christmas. And before the chili and hot chocolate, they all went skating together.
One the skaters was Henry Johnson, Dodd's field organizer for northwest Iowa. What follows is the first interview I have ever done while skating. (I'm not from L.A., I'm from Chicago. I skate.)
Henry graduated from Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, Maryland just last year. He's been with the campaign for 4 months, working 18 hour days,7 days a week. "You represent the candidate," he says. "It's a big responsibility and a privilege." He talked about really getting involved in the communities where he organizes.
How involved? "Well, I painted somebody's house once." He'd wanted them to have a campaign event at their home, they said it was a mess, so he painted it for them.
This is the first time he hasn't been home for Christmas and his mother's upset. It's made worse by the fact that everyone else in his family is a Republican and he's abandoning them this year to help a Democrat.
So, how does he soldier on when he knows that things don't look good for his guy? It's easy for him, he says, because he's come to respect Dodd so much, both for his positions and for the way he treats his staff like family. "I'm not embarrassed to be working for him. It's not like the day after the election I'm going to want to rip the bumper sticker off my car."
Henry is game, an adventurer. He's from Georgia and this was his first time on skates. He did just fine.
Post script
At the NPR/Iowa Public Radio debate, Dodd said he was buying his daughters (Grace, 6 and Christina, 2) "Iowa toys" for Christmas. In an interview with Morning Edition's Steve Innskeep that aired on Christmas morning, he said he could not reveal what those toys were because presents had not been opened yet and the girls could hear him.
So I asked Dodd about it at the skating rink and it can now be revealed! The Dodd daughters received children's books by Iowa authors and some handmade wood craft toys, including a tic tac toe set, trucks and cars, and "some kind of macrame, uh, um.... " "Like a yarn thing?" I suggested unhelpfully. "Yeah, that's it," he said,"a yarn thing."
--Ina Jaffe
9:08 AM ET
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12-26-2007
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