Richardson and Romney have both surged.  Both have also spent substantial money on large ad buys.  This is good for them.

Edwards is the only top tier candidate that absolutely must, stay up in the primary polling this early in order to stay relevant. Because of where he is nationally, he cannot afford single digit leads. He has to have overwhelming leads or he will become second tier.

A Washington Post writer on CSpan this morning, has already projected that John Edwards is dead in the water and will no longer acknowledge him as a top tier candidate anymore. What was disturbing was, none of the callers took issue with that. No one even disputed it.

It's not good when those assertions do not go unchallenged to a national audience many of whom, are John Edwards targeted demographic...or at least the one he polls strongest in.

My understanding is that in any precinct in the Iowa caucus you need to have 15% support to be considered for support. Here's an excerpt from William Saletan on the Iowa caucuses:

"That's the sausage; here's how it's made. Say 100 people show up at pre­cinct caucus X. The caucus chair desig­nates eight stations around the room, one for each candidate and one for unde­cided. Twenty-eight people go to Simon, 27 to Gephardt, 18 to Dukakis, 9 to Jack­son, 8 to Babbitt, 1 to Hart and 9 to Un­committed. Now, caucus rules say you need 15 percent of the total to elect a precinct delegate. So the caucus chair announces that Jackson, Babbitt, Hart, Gore and Uncommitted aren't "viable." Members of those groups can then band together or defect to their second-choice groups. Say six Jackson people move to Gephardt, two to Simon, one to Uncommitted. The Babbitt group moves over to Uncommitted to elect one of its own as an "uncommitted" delegate who can vote for Babbitt at the county level; the Hart oddball defects to Gephardt; two uncommitted people defect to Gep­hardt, another to Dukakis. Now the chair counts again: Gephardt has 36; Simon, 30; Dukakis, 19; Uncommitted, 15. Of the seven delegates precinct X will send to the county convention, each group wins one delegate just for meeting the 15 percent threshold. Gephardt is awarded two of the remaining delegates; Simon gets one. So the chair phones in the results to county headquarters: Gephardt, three delegates; Simon, two; Dukakis, one; Un­committed, one."

So Richardson's 10% in any given precinct is meaningless beyond who Richardson supporters have as a second choice. My guess is Richardson supporters will be instructed to have Hillary Clinton as a second choice.

All things being equal it's better to have 25% in every precinct than 40% in a few precincts and 10%  others. I'm no expert on Iowa caucuses but how and where you get your vote total matters a lot, like the electoral college writ small.

I live in Iowa City and I don't detect much interest in people who I know will attend their caucus. Many of them think it is too early to select a candidate. They will turn out to hear a candidate but turnout does not translate into support. It appears that some of the local elected officials have committed early but some of them have very poor track records on early choices.

No doubt some of the candidates will do or say something that will take them out of the race. Immigration is a likely subject.

15% rule will definitely hurt Richardson big-time.

I suspect Edwards will get about 37% in Iowa.

Let's remember that the majority of Richardson's support in Iowa is male, and middle-aged.

There is no way that Richardson supporters are going to be drawn towards the Hillary camp if thier main man doesn't garner the required 15% to qualify for a delegate.

Since when does the Washington Post have anything of worth to say about politics! Much later in the game last cycle all the beltway pundit types were declaring Kerry dead in the water and buried. Kerry and Edwards were in single digits much of the primary season. There are many months to go and what primary voters, especially caucus voters will do is beyond anyone's prediction at this stage.

Here are two opinions for the price of one

The opinion of the Amazing Al B

Most pundits and bloggers who forecast the downfall of John Edwards or any other candidate never had a clue that ne would have this lead for this long in the first place.  Listenting to them is like listening to Cheney give you his opinion of what is going to happen in Iraq.  

As for progressive bloggers trying to be the final word on all things poll, well, maybe we all need to take each other with a grain of salt.  

Put the pundits and the big names on this blog in a bag and add the armchair pundits who think they see what the rest of the world is missing, and hell, I'll jump in there as well and whoever is smart enough to keep their mouths shut can sprinkle salt on us or something.

Why? Because most of you are either going to change your mind, be wrong in the end, or possibly both.  

Who do these people who give their take on every poll think they are?

This is like when Johnny Q blogger makes a huge deal about proudly announcing who they are going to support.

Wow, Senator Obama must be thrilled to have the support of Lawrence Peppercorn!

I saw one person who announced that as an Obama supporter they would not go negative on John Edwards.  I like the sentiment but exactly who the hell do we think we have become?  

This whole rush to say "I know what this means" after every poll is released is the same thing that bloggers hate about the hacktackular pundits that many of us go off about.

It's the same pretentious, arrogant crap that we are all going to hate when it is used against our nominee, whoever that is.

So maybe, just maybe Johnny Q Pollster can fight the sensation to rush to his keyboard and do his best John Zogby and treat themselves to a nice warm glass of shut the hell up.

       ____________

The opinion of M Conrad

The idea that John Edwards has lost his lead in Iowa is about as ridiculous as political junkie conventional wisdom gets, and it gets pretty ridiculous.

This makes some of us Edwards supporters, and I speak only for me, becuase many of the media elite hardly mentioned that Edwards had a lead in Iowa for much of 2006.  In fact, they hardly mention him at all, unless they are writing him off.  When Al Gore got his Oscar bump and his numbers went up, which meant that Edwards' numbers were hurt the media elite was saying that Edwards would fade away.  But damn, he's still first in Iowa and doing better in New Hampshire.  

I can't predict the future but it's clear what the totality of Iowa polling shows.

Over the course of the last 11 months there have been around 21 Iowa polls

John Edwards has won 16 outright
He tied once with Hillary Clinton right after her announcement
He tied once with Barack Obama in the only poll that included Al Gore

The only polls that showed him in second where done by ARG.  It is well known that ARG's Iowa polls are worthless becuase their screens are not tight enough. The intersting part is that every poll both before and after the ARG polls showed Edwards ahead.  After their second poll ARG supposedly tightened their screens.  That makes sense because Edwards went from down by aroun 17, I think in their second poll, to down a less in their third, to eventually where he is now in that last ARG poll, ahead of Senator Clinton.

So, either the first 3 or 4 ARG polls were garbage like many Edwards supporters have said OR ARG is right on, always has been, and John Edwards is experiencing at least a 21 point surge in Iowa and is now in the lead and climbing.  Either option is great for Edwards supporters.

Then there is the new Research 2000 poll (their first Iowa poll of 2008) that shows Clinton 2 points ahead.  Besides the original ARG funky crazy wildly off polls and this new one from Research 2000 what do you have?

Over the course of one year how much does polling for any matchup usually vary.  A LOT.  Not the Iowa polling.  Edwards is usually in front by around 4-7 points.  If you look at the average of Des Moines Register Polls it's a lot higher than that.  

For people to say that Iowa polls are all over the place is ridiculous.  If you say that there is any sign in recent Iowa polling that John Edwards is losing his lead then you are on something.  

In fact, many pundits, similar to the ones everyone and their mother mention around here, have said that they are surprised that Edwards has held the lead for this long.  They say that it is proof that Iowa Democrats gravitate towards Edwards.  They have seen Obama and Clinton but they come back to Edwards.  

Wait until it's caucus night and electability is on the minds of Iowa Democrats.

The polling that might seal the deal for Edwards in Iowa might not be the polling of Iowa caucus goers but the polling of the Democratic candidates vs. the Republican candidates that he does best in that could cement the image of Edwards as what he is, the most electable candidate.

Admittedly, I have a bizarre rooting interest on the GOP side. My related comments should be viewed with that in mind.

I want Guiliani to lose, but not get blown out early. I need him to remain competitive so my 10/1 is worth something once more outfits put up odds, in case I need to hedge by wagering on someone else, or a prop. I already blew the 10/1 on Mark Warner so the idea is to make at least as much on the Guiliani bet to cover the loss on Warner. Last thing you want to do is tie up cash for nearly 2 years and suffer a loss.

It's like a future bet on sports, where the team has to make the playoffs to allow room to maneuver.

Looking on the GOP side, I'm guessing by the numbers that the American Research Group pushed undecideds very hard, and it is the poll where McCain, by far, fared best. That may or may not be predictive. Also, I got a strong sense in the first GOP debate that Huckabee realized that he was competing directly with Romney for the anti-McCain/Rudy vote. His political instincts appear dead-on, and I'm curious to see if he redoubles those efforts.