Why Iowa matters

28 October 2007 |permalink | email article

Every time I read or hear about a presidential poll showing Hillary Clinton’s healthy lead, and Rudy Giuliani with a less commanding advantage, I realize how the electorate is being misled about 2008.

Political reporters, cable news commentators and partisan talking heads all recycle the same data, leading to a perception of inevitability and a suggestion that both races are basically over.

Attention journalists and the chattering class: enough already!

The believable cliché for years has been that the road to the White House passes through Iowa first, where a caucus win often creates momentum in winning a party’s nomination.

Finishing second or third in Iowa puts enormous pressure on all candidates to either rebound in New Hampshire’s first in the nation primary.

Iowa proved to be a winning ground for Jimmy Carter (1976 and 1980, Walter Mondale (1984), Bill Clinton (1996), Al Gore (2000) and John Kerry (2004). George McGovern (1972), Michael Dukakis (1988) and Clinton (1992) lost Iowa but won the nomination.

Caucuses in both parties, originally set for Jan. 14, are now on Jan. 3, which could be the earliest date in history. There are questions about the new date, so soon after New Years and on the same night as college football’s Orange Bowl.

This time around, the contest for the Democratic nomination is drawing far more interest and substantially more investment than on the Republican side.

Barack Obama, John Edwards and Clinton have each led at various times. The most recent Des Moines Register poll has her at 29%, Edwards with 23 and Obama with 22. But the race remains fluid.

All three candidates, as politico.com reported, are throwing more substantial staff into Iowa than all the Republican campaigns combined.

Clinton follows closely behind Obama: 145; Edwards: 130; Clinton:117.

Obama or Edwards needs to finish first in order to become the viable anti-establishment, non-Clinton candidate heading for New Hampshire.

The view of the Obama campaign, better positioned than Edwards, is that Clinton cannot afford to lose. Her strategy is to knock him out at whatever cost. It’s donnybrook time.

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