Sunday morning talk shows are as good a place as any to gauge the developing media conventional wisdom, which will inform the expectations going into and, perhaps more important, coming out of the early state caucuses and primaries.
Foremost on the talking heads' minds (particularly Meet The Press but also Fox News Sunday,) was still the ABC News/WaPo Iowa poll that showed Obama pulling ahead of Clinton within the margin of error. Although a week old, the poll still merited chatter thanks to a slow holiday news week, the fact that it was the most recent poll out of this key early state not to mention that if true, it could be game changing. The question remains, however, whom the media's focus on this one poll has the potential to hurt more, Obama or Clinton. For Clinton, the danger is that the media takes a hold of this story line (Mara Liason went so far as to suggest there might be a "new front-runner" in Iowa) and it becomes self-fulfilling. The greater danger, however, might be for Obama. If one poll showing Obama ahead is enough to change the conversation to "Obama rising," imagine one or two subsequent polls showing Clinton up by just a few points, as most recent polls have. Suddenly, is Clinton the comeback kid? Is Obama falling? Of course not, but that's exactly what all the media hype about this one poll is setting up, which is not good for Obama. Also, if it is going to be essentially a tie going into January 3, Clinton would much rather the expectations of her performance be lowered so that if she does lose, it's not the end of the world but rather would simply be a pre-cursor to a "comeback" in New Hampshire. Mary Matalin had an interesting take on MTP that could be a sign of how a Clinton loss in Iowa might be spun.
The best thing that could happen to Hillary Clinton is to lose Iowa. [...] There's a fast calendar. It's a change election, but it's a completely unique and fluid and dynamic situation. If she loses, she gets knocked back. We've seen repeatedly, this is the Energizer bunny of candidates. She takes a licking, and she gets--keeps on ticking. And she's got the money, she's got the team, she's got the resolve.
On the Republican side there was the usual "Fred Thompson is flailing" and "it's Romney's nomination to lose" observations, but most interesting was perhaps the Huckabee and Giuliani dynamics.
For one thing, it seems to be conventional wisdom that a Huckabee win in Iowa will most likely not translate to a strong performance in New Hampshire and thus he'll likely be stalled in his run for the nomination. This is due to the different make-up of the GOP electorate in the two early states, but one thing Huckabee's rise does do is help Giuliani.
For one thing, a Huckabee win in Iowa, or even a strong second, wounds Romney, and puts eyes on South Caroline where Rudy is vying for his first real win. In addition, the expected 1-2 of Romney and Huckabee in Iowa and Romney's expected win in New Hampshire means that Giuliani's expectations are somewhat lowered; he'll be strong leaving the early states with a third in Iowa and a second place finish in New Hampshire. Which may have been Giuliani's early state strategy all along, to remain in play in the early states to an extent whereby he can make his move once the players are set. If this latest "Giuliani Revives NH Campaign" article on the NY Times Caucus blog is any indication, that's exactly what he's beginning to do.
G.O.P. candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani criss-crossed New Hampshire on a bus this weekend, shifting his strategy a bit away from his concentration on the states that vote Feb. 5 and focusing more on his rivals who have long courted the Granite State's vote.
The thing about conventional wisdom, of course, is that it changes on a dime and was made to be broken, especially this year with the unprecedented primary calendar and too-close-to-call races on both sides of the aisle. Look for this so-called wisdom to shift wildly in the coming pivotal weeks.
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