Dear Lord, how the anti-Clinton forces grasp at straws!  Iowa was presumably the state in which Senator Clinton would come in third.  

Now she ties at first, and has the institutional support of the state's governor to boot.  This is very bad news for former Senator Edwards, and it is not necessarily good news for the presumably insurgent Senator Obama.

I would argue that Iowa is make-or-break for the neophyte Senator Obama, who is a brilliant orator, but, with two years in the Senate under his belt, far from ready for prime time.

I have never seen so much ceaseless pablum tossed Senator Obama's way, entirely born of anti-Clinton vitriol.  It is both tragic and sad.  

If I were Obama and I thought I had any chance to win Iowa, I would go all out to do so. Obama should meet as many Iowa'ns as possable because he is sore personally likeable. An Iowa victory for him probable gets his the nomination because

A. It ends Edwards who needs to win Iowa (probably handily) to have any chance

B.  Hillary as the establishment candidate supported by Vilsack goes down

C.  the most important, the media bounce he gets will be unbeleivable considering that Iowa has almost no black voters, 25 % of dems primary voters nation wide are african american and they will almost all support him after he shows he can win among white voters like Iowans.

I agree.  I think that Sen. Edwards would want to be further ahead.  This has to be scary.  Sen. Clinton has only gone up.  Of course, he has a solid operation and it all comes down to who has the endorsement/caucus cards.

This poll seems pretty different than the Arg poll, so different that I think its hard to make any broad generalizations about numbers for candidates.

What we can do is possibly see a few trends in movement. Edwards and Obama, seem to gain in both but by very different amounts while Hillary remains steady. Undecided has gone down in both and that might explain the movement in more than anything, looking at both polls they appear to be breaking towards Edwards and Obama.

All in all, its fun for junkies, but who knows where January will be.

talk of an Obama win in Iowa, though he is moving up. Someone has to be going down for him to him go up higher and thats not happening yet.

Putting both polls together, Edwards is moving up more (15 pts in the arg poll) and Hillary is holding steady.

Gephardt, Dean and Lieberman battle for top spot!

''Among a subsample of likely Democratic caucus-goers polled before the Edwards announcement, Edwards led with 30.2 percent, followed by Clinton at 24.4 percent and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) at 22.1 percent. After the announcement, both Edwards and Clinton moved up, while Obama dropped. Among likely caucus-goers after the Edwards announcement, the results were: Edwards 36.4 percent, Clinton 33.9 percent and Obama 14.4 percent.''

http://news-releases.uiowa.edu/2007/marc h/032707caucus.html

I love seeing Obama having some momentum in a poll... but unfortunately its Zogby... I trust them as much as I do Bush... I will be curious to see what other polls say.

I can't figure why there would be so much shift away from Obama in the UIowa poll. 14.4% seems very low.

Among likely caucus-goers after the Edwards announcement, the results were: Edwards 36.4 percent, Clinton 33.9 percent and Obama 14.4 percent.

Take a look at the sub sets:

35-54 yo
Edwards 29
Clinton, obama 22 each

55-69
Edwards/Clinton 25 each

Obama holds large lead in "younger voters" (what are they polling teenagers? - because clinton holds a slight lead in mid 20s)

Clinton holds a slight lead in the over 70 crowd.

My point is that the age groups that would be (presumably) most likely to go to a caucus - EDWARDS HOLDS A 9 POINT LEAD.

Obama has his largest lead among people who have never voted in a caucus (by age alone). Clinton doesnt lead in any group except the over 70 crowd. Seniors vote, but i would be interested in seeing how that vote breaks down by age - over 70 would seem to be the easiest to get dissuaded by a bad winter storm

Now, this is very crude, as we dont have the breakdown. Can matt pull up some data on the way iowa broke down by age in 04?

Lets wait for the debates when Edwards asks Hillary to apologize for Iraq?

I hope the Edwards campaigns sends that clip to every Iowa caucus-goer in the state.

The fact that Hillary is winning national polls over Edwards by 20 points and the fact that he is slightly winning Iowa is amazing in its self.

Edwards 31.10%
Clinton 29.38%
Obama 19.08%

I combined the numbers in the U of I poll -- both pre- and post-announcement -- which resulted in Edwards 33.3%, Clinton 29.15%, Obama 18.25%.

Analysis:

Obama has demographic problems in Iowa. Younger people and Independents, who appear to be his strong suit, have been less likely to turn up on caucus night than older people and Democrats.

Edwards has, if anything, gained strength from the recent media coverage of his wife's health, particularly with women. That's not good news for Clinton, who is relying on doing well among women.

Clinton is running in a close second, and combined with Vilsack's endorsement and her huge financial advantage, the media expectations for her will be to win in Iowa. Failing to live up to expectations in Iowa is never a good thing for a presidential candidate.

Elizabeth Edwards or Hillary Clinton...who is the more decent human being...

I think Iowans will fall in love with Mrs. Edwards in favor of Billary.

The age gap is interesting and its very consistant with anecdotial stories I hear every day.  Obama looks to be a classic generational candidate -- he could make up some ground with Seniors but they just don't "get" him yet.  

I just wonder, is there any chance that Iowa and even New Hampshire might be pushed back into holding the caucus/vote during the college Christmas/New Year vacation period?  At some colleges the year end break goes well into mid-January.  In New Hampshire students could vote absentee if they qualified otherwise.  In Iowa -- no way, you have to be at the Caucus to vote.

It's clear that the cancer bit helped Edwards.  I'd say it was probably for one simple reason: the media had pretty much turned this into Hillary v. Obama, and this helped Edwards crash the party.

Now it's going to be a lot harder for them to ignore him.  Even if they're saying Elizabeth should have the decency to go home and quietly die, and John should go home and hold her hand while she does so, they can't ignore the Edwards campaign.  And that's good for the campaign.

There may be a problem for Obama in Des Moines as Drake University doesn't get back from break until a week after the caucus...but that may not matter at all...its not total number of support, its just how it is spread out. And the surrouding neighborhoods could be very pro-Obama.

that Clinton will win Iowa.  I think it is pretty clear that the DLC/Vilsack/Clinton forces killed Howard Dean's candidacy in 2004 with dirty tricks among other things. I would expect the Dean supporters, along with Kucinich people and other progressives, to support Edwards in the end.  If that happens and he can get Carol Shea-Porter's support in New Hampshire, he may have enough movement to be competitive in the super primaries.

We need new ideas and leadership in the party and I don't see a lot of difference in corporate financed Repugs and corporate financed Dems.  The heavy handed tactics of Bill Clinton on behalf of Hillary, telling Dems they can not support the efforts of more than one candidate, is like another draft dodger, George W. Bush, telling us, "You're either with us or you are against the troops".  Those kind of tactics led to grassroots movements and Democratic victories in Montana, Virginia and New Hampshire, among others.  

We need a contested race where all the issues can be fleshed out instead of money buying the nomination.

Polls on caucuses are always a bit misleading because usually the fringe candidates will swap their people at the last minute.

Kucinich proved extremely valuable to Edwards doing this last year. The real question with the race this tight is who DK gives his votes to this time...Edwards out of loyalty...or Obama as someone who is far more in the ethanol camp and a far more strident anti-war vote.

I think Edwards is relying on Iowa to gain him the momentum to go forward and challenge in all the Feb 5th states. After all, national polling and state-by-states all imply that he's really not in it in any other state except possibly the Carolinas and NH (third but not too far off the pace). He really needs the win here while I think Clinton and Obama can both survive okay with "good showings". That's not to say it wouldn't be damaging to both of them and not to say it wouldn't be a huge boost for Edwards - it shows that Hillary isn't unbeatable, shows that Obama isn't the only alternative, and shows that Edwards can win. What would be particularly damaging for Obama is if he really did finish on just 14%, less than half what the other candidates got. I think that would be hard, albeit not impossible, to come back from.

While I think that the frontloading of the primaries does mean that Iowa and New Hampshire aren't necessarily the be all and end all if you can contrive to have strong showings in the big Feb 5th states, it's nevertheless true that voters' impressions of the candidates will be significantly affected by results in those early states - it's remarkable how quickly "winner" and "loser" type tags can solidify amongst the electorate. Therefore, I think perhaps one of the most important things that the campaigns will have to do in Iowa is manage expectations. A showing which on the face of it might be thought of as "poor" can be rescued by the notion that it was "as expected" or "better than expected".

On another note, the talk about "soft" Obama supporters crossing over to Edwards after the announcement really reinforces the idea which I guess is fairly obvious but bears repeating - if either Edwards or Obama dropped out and threw their support wholeheartedly behind the other, then I think the primaries and the general election would be that candidate's to lose.

Nouveau Riche University has made similar predictions for the long run but polls look a little bit different but those will probably self calibrate with time.