Starting Gate: Polls And Possibilities
The much-anticipated Des Moines Register poll indicates that Barack Obama and Mike Huckbee may well be on the verge of winning the hotly contested first-in-the-nation contest, but the biggest question mark remains: who will show up on Thursday night?
On the Democratic side the poll, which correctly forecast John Kerry's 2004 caucus win, has Obama leading the field with 32 percent with Hillary Clinton at 25 percent and John Edwards at 24 percent. Among Republicans, Huckabee leads Mitt Romney 32 percent to 26 percent with John McCain in a distant third at 13 percent. The results differ somewhat from other recent polls which have shown a tighter race in both parties and buck growing perceptions of slight surges by Edwards and Romney. And a new CNN poll out this morning shows Clinton with a slight lead.
The poll has already been picked apart for its methodology and Register columnist David Yepsen sounds a cautionary note about the fluidity of the race and the variables which could lead to a different result on Thursday. Most striking, 60 percent of those surveyed as likely Democratic participants say this will be their first-ever caucus, a startling high number of new voters even in a race as hotly contested as this one. Will those voters actually show? And, according to the poll, nearly a third of those who say they are likely caucus goers say they could change their pick over the next three days.
And, despite the enormous amount of resources poured into Iowa for the past year, especially among the Democratic candidates, there is a growing consensus, outlined by Adam Nagourney in the New York Times, that Iowa may settle very little. The very real possibility of a narrow one-two-three finish on the Democratic side and looming battles for Republicans in states like New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida mean that neither party will have a true front-runner come Friday morning.
"It would be like a six-month trial and a hung jury," Obama strategist David Axelrod tells the Times about such a possible bunched outcome. Or, as the candidates might end up despairing, "I spent millions on the Iowa caucuses and all I got was a lousy tie."
Mike's Very Bad Day: Call it a change of mind or a thinly-veiled attempt at gaming the media but Mike Huckabee's negative-ad-that-wasn't is getting lots of attention. After calling together a horde of reporters for a press conference where he was supposed to announce a new, aggressive ad responding to Romney, Huckabee suddenly changed his mind. Surprising even his own staff, Huckabee said he had decided not to run the ad – but showed it to reporters anyway.
Huckabee claimed he just wanted to prove he had indeed produced the ad but that didn't stop the room full of press from laughing out loud when he insisted on showing the ad. It's a time-honored practice of campaigns and interest groups to try an gin up free media exposure for ads rather than spend the money to actually buy airtime. In 2004, the infamous swift boat ads had an initial miniscule run, hitting heavier rotation as more and more stories focused on them. More infamously, controversial ads like the "Willie Horton" spot in 1988 and the "Daisy" ad in 1964 hardly aired on pay media but received wide exposure in the press coverage.
While Huckabee's ad isn't going to get that kind of exposure, his message is still getting out through press accounts of his press conference. Unfortunately for him, the strange way he went about it is getting more attention.
For A Few Million More: Back in early and mid-2007, when campaign news came in dribs and drabs, reporters would spring to life when a fundraising deadline came near – the occasion meant actual, meaningful news based on hard numbers. But the last day of 2007 was also the end of the year's final fundraising quarter and, this time around, it's of little importance at the moment.
Hillary Clinton's campaign told reporters yesterday that the campaign will have raised over $100 million for the year but offered no details about how much of that was raised for the primaries and how much for the general election, making it useless for the rush of contests upcoming. Barack Obama is likely to reach, or at least come close to, the $100 million mark as well. Campaigns aren't required to file their full fund-raising reports until Jan. 15th – after Iowa and New Hampshire but before the glut of contests on February 5th.
Tear Down The Wall: New Hampshire was the site of Ronald Reagan's infamous "I paid for this microphone" moment, when he angrily protested the exclusion of candidates from a 1980 debate for which his own campaign was footing the bill. That spirit is apparently still alive in the Granite State, where both major political parties are protesting the exclusion of candidates from debates this Saturday at St. Anselm College.
According to the Manchester Union Leader, Democrats Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd aren't invited to a debate sponsored by ABC News and WMUR-TV because they haven't polled at 5 percent or higher in either a New Hampshire or national poll. The two media organizations are also sponsoring a GOP debate using the same criteria, which would seem to exclude Duncan Hunter. He and Ron Paul also haven't been invited to a separate forum scheduled for Sunday sponsored by Fox News.
While the state parties play no sponsorship role in the ABC/WMUR debates, the state Republican Party is a co-sponsor of the Fox News event. State GOP Chairman Fergus Cullen has called for all major candidates to have a podium on-stage.
"Limiting the number of candidates who are invited to participate in debates is not consistent with the tradition of the first in the nation primary," he said in a statement. "The level playing field requires that all serious candidates be given an equal opportunity to participate – not just a select few determined by the media prior to any votes being cast."
State Democratic Chairman Raymond Buckley said he was urging WMUR to "not eliminate a sitting U.S. senator or member of Congress" from the party's final debate before the Jan. 8 primary.
The exclusion of Paul from the Fox News debate is especially interesting – the libertarian Republican is polling in the high single digits in New Hampshire and, thanks to a flood of Internet donations, his fundraising is on par with that of the major candidates.
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