Pollster.com‘s Mark Blumenthal muses soberly, and at length on what the Iowa polls do and do not show.
The Wall St. Journal is getting a little nervous about the ‘populist’ tone of some of the candidates in Iowa.
WSJ’s Amy Chozick reports on the Dems’ surge in rural IA.
In addition to the DMR poll, Open Left‘s Chris Bowers sees increasing signs pointing toward an IA win for Obama
WaPo‘s Dan Balz says the Dems’ contest in IA is a battle over tone, as well as issues and direction.
John Zogby believes that there is a good chance of a three-way tie in the Dem caucuses.
The Politico‘s Roger Simon argues that media buzz may doom 3rd, or even 2nd place candidates.
ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper debunks the myth that IA Dems don’t vote for women.
Larry J. Sabato has a bit of a raspberry for the whole Iowa thing.

The AP‘s Ron Fournier has an enjoyable account of the latest act in the Mike Huckabee circus. Fournier, one of the few msm reporters who has not been snowed under by the Arkansas Governor’s much-noted wit, charm and bogus populism, nails Huckabee for a press conference he called to show reporters an ad he was withdrawing because it was too negative in attacking Romney.
Presumably, Iowans were supposed to respond, “Ah, how humble, how decent. But gee whiz, Huck’s ad had a point.” A dubious tactic at best. As Fournier says:

Iowans have a reputation for punishing politicians who go negative. The question is whether voters, particularly evangelicals who make up his political base, will believe Huckabee had the political equivalent of a deathbed conversion.
Or will they think he’s treating them like rubes — appealing to their sense of fair play while being foul?

Fournier wasn’t having any of it. Conceding that Huckabee is “an immensely talented communicator,” Fournier calls him a “flawed candidate,” “mistake-prone” and “thin-skined and rash.”
Towards the end of his article, Fournier notes something unique about Huckabee’s campaign:

He has a paltry political organization in a state that values the ground game, according to an informal survey of GOP county chairs and co-chairs. “I haven’t seen much of a sign of him or his people,” said Jim Conklin, chairman of the Linn County GOP.

What is interesting here is that Huckabee is leading in the latest polls and may just win the Iowa caucuses with a comparatively limp ground game, a highly counter-intuitive strategy. If he pulls it off, however, it doesn’t mean anybody can do it. As Ed noted in his 12/28 post “Somehow or other, Huckabee’s managed to come up with the jack for a respectable TV campaign of his own.” And not every candidate has Huckabee’s talent and grit for guerrilla politics. But if he wins, it will prove that Iowa can indeed be had without much of a ground game — at least on the Republican side.

The Des Moines Register poll of Democrats discussed in the staff post earlier today really just confirmed what’s been fairly obvious for a while: if the turnout is large and wide, Barack Obama will probably win. If it’s not, anything could happen. With time pretty much gone for any late trends (and the Register poll certainly confirmed my belief that the Bhutto assassination didn’t change anything), the shape of the playing field will likely determine the victor.
I know the numbers in the Register poll concerning participation by self-identified independents and first-time Caucus-goers are unprecedented, and therefore a bit hard to believe. But throughout 2007, all the signs pointed to exceptional interest in the Democratic as opposed to the Republican competition in Iowa. Given the state’s status as a purple state in general elections, a high turnout would be good news for Democrats regardless of the nominee.
In any event, all the speculation will soon be moot. I’ll be headed to Iowa soon to watch the Caucuses up close, and will make every effort to semi-live-blog from there on Caucus night.

The final Des Moines Register Poll Democratic results are great news for Barack Obama. The LV percentage results: Obama 32; Clinton 25; Edwards 24; Richardson 6; Biden 4; Dodd 2; Kucinich 1; Gravel less than 1. Part of the good news is that the final DMR poll before the Iowa caucuses has a perfect track record in ranking the order that candidates finished in the caucuses for both 2004 and 2000. In addition, Obama’s margin was double the m.o.e (3.5%) for the poll.
The cautionary note for Obama is that the percentage of first-time Iowa caucus-goers and self-identified Independents is much higher in the ’07 DMR sample. Historically, first-time caucus-goers have not shown up at the caucuses in impressive percentages. As Pollster.com‘s Mark Blumenthal puts it “this Register sample predicts a very different set of caucus participants than in years past” (As always, Blumenthal’s analysis is required reading for poll junkies.) The only thing to add is that there is a bit more of a lag between the final DMR poll and the caucuses this year than in ’04, when the poll was released the day before the caucus.

I’m not sure I can remember the last time David Broder of the Washington Post broke a major political story. But it’s certainly appropriate that he was the first out of the gate with the news of a bipartisan cabal of Former Big Names who appear to be coalescing around a third-party presidential run by Michael Bloomberg next year.
In case you missed it, Bloomberg’s attending a meeting next Sunday, hosted by former sorta-Democratic Senator David Boren of Oklahoma, to discuss “bipartisan” options for 2008. Other past or present Democrats billed as part of the cabal include Chuck Robb, Alan Dixon and my old boss Sam Nunn. The two more surprising Democratic names on the attendance list are Gary Hart and Bob Graham. The one sitting elected official on the list is soon-to-retire Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, with fellow GOPers John Danforth, Bill Brock, Jim Leach and Christine Todd Whitman.
According to Broder, the meeting is intended to send a signal to presidential candidates of both parties to immediately announce support for a National Unity Government or risk a Bloomberg run. So it should be understood as positioning Bloomberg and his wallet to offer the American people a High Broderist bipartisan option next November.
I pretty much agree with Digby’s take on the objective case for High Broderism, most obviously its fatuous assumption that the two parties are equally responsible for polarization and gridlock. I do not, however, share the popular progressive netroots view that big majorities of voters actually like polarization and want a lot more of it, or the corresponding theory that a Broderist option is so politically puny that Democrats should, as Digby puts it, “tune out” and ignore it. The massive and persistent wrong-track numbers represent something beyond a coalition of those who hate Republicans and those who are mad at Democrats for not fighting them enough. There are those who out of conviction, ignorance or simple fatigue might vote for a reasonable-sounding third option, and the billion smackers that Bloomberg is alleged to be willing to spend will buy you a whole lot of credibility.
In the end, a serious Bloomberg run may not materialize. And if it does, history suggests he wouldn’t come close to winning, and would hurt the Republican more than the Democratic ticket (third parties generally get more votes from major parties in decline, such as Democrats in 1968 and Republicans in 1992). But Democrats shouldn’t’ just laugh it all off, even if they justifiably laugh at Broder and his confederates.

Jane Norman of the Des Moines Register Washington, D.C. bureau reports on the growing controversy about nonprofit issue ads being run in Iowa in the closing days of the presidential campaign. There’s no real shockers here — the article spotlights accusations against the Edwards, Clinton and Huckabee campaigns for abusing federal election law prohibiting issue-focused groups and candidate campaigns from coordinating activities. Norman notes that the Federal Election Commission found “widespread illegal conduct” by 527s in ’04 and quotes Fred Wertheimer, head of the Democracy 21 reform group: “it appears that 527 groups are blatantly and arrogantly at it again in the current presidential race.”
Don’t hold your breath expecting fines or penalties. Allegations of law-breaking are usually difficult to prove, and it would be hard to find a campaign that didn’t get a little too cozy with a 527 at some point. The hunch here is that the ads in question have been targeted for criticism because they are effective. You can see the pro-Edwards ad here and the pro-Huckabee ad here. A host of Iowa campaign ads can be viewed here.
In a close race — and it looks close for both Dems and Republicans in Iowa, any small or large factor can be credited with making the difference between a win or a loss. Among the most recent polls, the MSNBC-McClatchy/Mason Dixon poll conducted 12/26-28 has Romney and Huckabee in a stat tie in the GOP race. Ditto for Edwards, Obama and Clinton in the Democratic contest, echoing the results of other recent the polls cited by TDS yesterday.
The much-anticipated Des Moines Register poll, regarded by many as the ‘mother of Iowa polls’ just before the caucuses, will be reported in tomorrow’s edition of The Register, but the results will be circulating on the internet later this evening. Among others, The Baltimore Sun‘s political blog “The Swamp” plans to post results tonight.

Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny report on the ground game in their Sunday New York Times article “Candidates Digging for a Deeper Pool of Iowa Voters.” See also Scott Helman’s report “Ground game is key for Democrats,” focusing primarily on the front-runners campaigns in The Boston Globe.
Also in the NYT, Patrick Healy’s piece, “Iowa Saturated by Political Ads” discusses ad spending of the candidates and 527’s and notes that candidates are expected to triple the amount spent in 2004. And Jeff Zeleny also co-authors with David D. Kirkpatrick a round-up of the candidates’ messages on the last weekend before the launch of primary season. See also Todd Beeton’s MyDD post “Romney v. McCain: The New Hampshire Ad Wars.” As this week’s guests on Meet the Press, Huckabee and Obama get the functional equivalent of a huge free ad, a nice edge — if they do well.
A just-released Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll, conducted 12/26-29, reported by John Whitesides has Clinton with 31, Obama 27 and Edwards with 24 percent of likely caucus goers. Biden and Richardson were at 5 percent, while Dodd and Kucinich had 1 percent. On the GOP side, it’s Huckabee 29, Romney 28 and McCain at 11. Thompson, Giuliani and Paul each got 8 percent. Both parties had 6 percent undecided. Clinton had a big lead in percentage of her supporters who described their support as “very strong” (76 percent), compared to 65 percent for Edwards and 56 percent for Obama. However, Edwards was the most popular “second choice” with 30 percent, compared to 25 percent for Obama and 12 percent for Clinton.
Another poll of likely caucus goers, conducted by the American Research Group 12/26-28, has Clinton at 31 and Obama and Edwards at 24, with the rest of the Dems in single digits, according to Alexander Mooney of CNN’s Political Ticker. But the ARG poll has Romney ahead of Huckabee 32-23 percent, with McCain trailing at 11 percent. Mooney reports on yet another poll, a Quad City Times poll conducted by Research 2000 (released Friday), that has Huckabee 34 percent, Romney 27 and Thompson 11 percent. The Quad City poll has Edwards and Obama tied at at 29 percent, with Clinton at 28 percent.

Robert Borosage has one of the better round-ups of the closing Iowa arguments of the Dem presidential front-runners at the HuffPo.
Kathy Kiely’s USA Today article “Democrats focus on getting out supporters,” takes a look at turnout issues and demographic considerations being addressed by Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa in the closing days of the Iowa primary campaign.
No major surprises in the 12/26-7 Lee Enterprises newspapers Iowa poll (sample size 500 ‘likely caucus-goers,” 4.5 m.o.e.), with Obama, Edwards and Clinton still in a stat tie, with Richardson 4th, followed by Biden. Edwards is up 5 since the Lee poll two weeks ago, Clinton is up 4 and Obama is down 4. Huckabee now leads Romney by 7 and Thompson is a distant third.
The Cedar Rapids Courier has Jens Manuel Krogstad’s report on how “Bhutto’s Assassination Jolts Presidential Politics.” The Politico rounds up the presidential candidates’ latest comments on the Bhutto assassination. See also Patrick Healy’s “Crisis Overseas Is Sudden Test for Candidates” in today’s Grey Lady, Peter Walsten’s L.A. Times article “Assassination May Shift Focus of Presidential Race” and E. J. Dionne Jr.’s WaPo op-ed “A Crisis Intrudes in Iowa.”
The Wall St. Journal‘s Amy Chozick reports on the presidential candidates’ efforts to reach Iowa’s 37,000 registered Hispanic voters.

Jim Geraghty makes a good if limited point about the Republican presidential Caucuses in Iowa at National Review today: anything other than a sound victory by Mike Huckabee will be heavily spinned by the campaigns and the news media in the effort to influence trends in NH and later states. And in those spin wars, Huckabee doesn’t have many friends. This, indeed, could represent the “revenge of the establishment” against Huckabee that so many observers have been expected.
But will Huckabee lose? He’s not running away with the contest in polls at this late date, and Mitt Romney’s reached near-maniacal levels of paid media in Iowa. But somehow or other, Huckabee’s managed to come up with the jack for a respectable TV campaign of his own, so he could well hang on for a win that would be difficult to spin away.

Yesterday, I briefly wrote about the highly debatable theory that the Bhutto assassination will greatly affect the Democratic presidential race, and J.P. Green briefly touched on it today. But I want to return to it now in a bit more detail, after appearing on the syndicated public radio show To the Point earlier today, where speculation was rampant that the Bhutto Factor will be the ball game for the Iowa Caucuses specifically.
To be clear, it’s all close enough among the Big Three candidates in Iowa that all sorts of factors–the weather, the impact of the final Des Moines Register poll, and most of all candidate “second-preference” deals–could be decisive, And in that respect, heavy news coverage of the Bhutto assassination and its aftermath, along with candidate interaction on the subject, could have a key impact as well. But as for the idea that the assassination has suddenly made foreign policy street cred and experience an overriding factor in Iowa–sorry, I just don’t buy it.
You have to remember that Iowans have been watching and listening to these candidates for about a year, many of them through personal contact, and hearing their pithy views on virtually every topic, foreign and domestic. Most likely caucus goers are not just now “tuning in” (unlike their counterparts in later states). Yes, they will be exposed to relatively heavy news coverage of events in Pakistan and the remarks of the candidate on same, but news coverage in Iowa will be dwarfed by paid campaign media (which has reached unprecedented levels this year), phone calls, door-to-door campaigning and personal lobbying from friends and family. There are also Iowans who will go to the Caucuses undecided, and will pick a candidate based on the dynamics (and campaign pleas) in the room.
In other words, it’s the last place on earth where tangential news-cycle developments are likely to play a really major role. And come to think of it, that’s the first good argument I’ve thought of for Iowa’s primacy in a good long while.