Iowa Caucuses Two Days Away and Still Wide Open

The Iowa Presidential Caucuses will be held this Thursday, January 3, and national polls show a virtual dead heat among the three Democratic front-runners. The final Des Moines Register poll before the caucuses shows Barack Obama with a 7-point lead over Hillary Clinton. As the final poll in the race, conducted by the state's major newspaper, this announcement could give a strong final boost to Obama's campaign.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney have been battling for the lead, with John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul, and Fred Thomson all vying for a third place finish. Though Mike Huckabee's surge of the past two months has received the most mainstream press coverage, in many ways it is more noteworthy that Ron Paul and John McCain are both competitive here. John McCain's candidacy was written off months ago by many observers when fundraising and staffing problems caused him to struggle. And Ron Paul, despite raising a staggering $20 million dollars this quarter, has still gone virtually unnoticed by the media and the general public, yet remains on par with the major candidates in polls of Iowa caucus-goers.

If either of these contests finishes as closely as they could, it is possible that the winner will not gain the momentum that traditionally follows from an Iowa victory. But this all remains to be seen. Two more days and we should have some answers.

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Just for fun, here are my predictions for the Iowa caucuses:*

GOP:
1. Mike Huckabee - 29%
2. Mitt Romney - 28%
3. John McCain - 12%

DEM:
1. Barack Obama - 30%
2. John Edwards - 28%
3. Hillary Clinton - 27%

*Disclaimers:
1) These are not the views of the Institute for Law and Politics.
2) These are just guesses, not expert analysis.
3) I just want a record of my predictions in the unlikely event that I am exactly right.

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Why don't Republicans understand the value of technology in political campaigns?

We've mentioned the divide between Democrats and Republicans in the use of campaign technology before.

Earlier this week, the Democratic presidential candidates participated in the first CNN/YouTube debate. Though not perfect, it was broadly seen as a successful melding of the traditional debate format with a new, more engaging, citizen-produced question format. Today the blogosphere is abuzz with news that only two (Ron Paul and John McCain) of the nine Republican presidential candidates have so far agreed to participate in the next CNN/YouTube debate scheduled for September.

From the Washington Post:

"In an interview Wednesday with the New Hampshire Union Leader, Romney said he's not a fan of the CNN/YouTube format. Referring to the video of a snowman asking the Democratic candidates about global warming, Romney quipped, 'I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman.'"

From the New York Times:

"So, today, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani seemed rather reluctant to attend. A spokeswoman, Katie Levinson, told The Times’s Marc Santora that the campaign had a likely scheduling conflict on that date."

I'm happy to grant that some of the videos in the first debate were silly. Most of them, however, were quite earnest. And why can't a debate have a little levity? We certainly don't need more debates like the one where the Republican candidates were given hypothetical scenarios out of "24" and had to tell us how they would be the best candidate to torture a confession out of a terrorist. There's certainly a middle ground - of actually issue discussion - between snowman YouTube videos and Jack Bauer torture scenes, but that doesn't give much of an excuse for the candidates failing to adapt to this new era of political campaign technology.

User-generated content and citizen participation in the creation of political dialogue should not be partisan. If it remains so, the Republicans are going to have a harder time than normal attracting young people to their side next year.


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Is the McCain campaign winding down?

The New York Times reports that Presidential candidate John McCain's top two campaign leaders resigned in unison today.

Yesterday we noted that Ron Paul now has more campaign money than Senator McCain (and certainly momentum in a different direction).

These facts, and the the Senator's poll numbers in Iowa, lead us to believe that the McCain campaign might be winding down. That's quite a rapid descent for the front-runner of just a few months ago.

If the front-runner can tank that quickly, might some of the other long-shot candidates (Duncan Hunter, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, Tommy Thomson - but never Ron Paul!) be next?

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Is Ron Paul now a top tier candidate?

On July 15, presidential candidate Ron Paul will report raising $2.4 million in the second quarter of 2007 with over $2 million remaining in his campaign account after paying expenses. This is more cash on hand than any of the other Republican candidates except Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. Texas Congressman Ron Paul now has more money than John McCain. [Thanks to the "Colbert bump"!]

Ron Paul has for months been the darling of the libertarian-leaning internet crowd, but apparently his fans are willing to back up their blog presence with real campaign cash.

With the #3 war chest in the race, should Ron Paul now be taken seriously by the mainstream media? And how will Congressman Paul use his $2 million? Is he going to build a traditional Iowa/New Hampshire/South Carolina staff operation, or will he leverage it in online ads for even more cash come 2008?

Another note: Is there anything John McCain can do at this point to even remain on the Iowa ballot by next January?

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Drudge Report Poll has top three finishers of last night's GOP Debate: Romney, Giuliani and Ron Paul

(10:25am CDT, 05/04/2007)
DRUDGE POLL
WHO WON THE REAGAN DERBY?

Brownback
2% 2,239
Gilmore
2% 1,503
Giuliani
20% 19,928
Huckabee
4% 3,592
Hunter
3% 2,725
McCain
6% 5,736
Paul
18% 17,904
Romney
37% 36,546
Tancredo
5% 4,891
Tommy Thompson
5% 4,928

Total Votes: 99,992