Tag: Iowa 08 (page 4)

Update: Chelsea is in Iowa today as well.

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While Oprah stumps at two events in Iowa for Obama today, Hillary has her own plan. She'll be bringing her mother to three events and promoting the "buddy system."

More than a mother-daughter act, the appearance was designed to illustrate an urgent point of her campaign: The Buddy. “I wanted to bring a buddy with me!” Mrs. Clinton said. “So I brought my mother, Dorothy Rodham.”

The idea is that women will be more likely to attend a caucus if they have someone to go with.

In her quest to win the caucuses, Mrs. Clinton is working to demystify the curious Iowa process. With women voters her key target, she believes two are more likely to attend together than one would alone.

“We have thousands of women in their 80s and 90s who live alone who want to caucus on the night of Jan. 3,” Mrs. Clinton said. “It’s very inspiring for me for people who want to be there.”

The Washington Post has more on the gender race between Hillary and Obama in Iowa. [More]

Here is news of a poll that not only shows Hillary Clinton leading, but Obama behind Edwards, thus "disproving" my theory that Edwards is done:

Dems: Clinton 31, Edwards 24, Obama 20, Richardson 11.

GOP: Romney 25, Huckabee 22, Giuliani 16, Thompson 9, McCain 8.

Margin of error: 6%

My response? All polls stink are questionable.

Obama moves up:

Obama, an Illinois senator, leads for the first time in the Register's poll as the choice of 28 percent of likely caucusgoers, up from 22 percent in October. Clinton, a New York senator, was the preferred candidate of 25 percent, down from 29 percent in the previous poll. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who led in the Register's May poll, held steady with 23 percent, in third place, but part of the three-way battle.

Can I note one more time that Sen. Edwards' attacks on Senator Clinton have NOT helped him, that he has ceded the Hillary alternative mantle to Senator Obama? Well, I just did. Note, this is all within the margin of error stuff so who is actually ahead is not easy to say. What DOES seem clear is that Obama is moving up, Hillary down and Edwards is not moving at all.

A new Strategic Vision Iowa poll among likely Democratic caucus voters in Iowa show Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tied at 29% with John Edwards trailing at 23%.

Poll results are here.

Also noteworthy:

• 85% of Dems polled say they favor a full troop withdrawal from Iraq within 6 months (compared to 51% of Republicans)
• 33% say experience is most important in picking a President
• 29% say ideology is most important, 27% say charisma.

The much touted WaPo Iowa poll gives us a clue:

Which of these is more important to you in a candidate for president: (strength and experience) or (a new direction and new ideas)?

Strength New direction

33 55

These words mean next to nothing in real life but they have become the narrative for the coverage of Iowa and I think most Iowa caucus voters will think of it that way.

These buzz words are emblematic of two candidates now - Hillary Clinton means strength and experience. Barack Obama means new direct and new ideas. Forget the fact that the phrases mean nothing. They are standins for a Hillary Clinton referendum.

For reasons unfathomable, John Edwards seems to believe that attacks on Hillary Clinton's trustworthiness and candor will make him the alternative to Hillary. He has left Barack Obama unscathed. In the face of these results, it is hard to imagine what Edwards is thinking:

Who is the most honest and trustworthy 11/18/07 7/31/07
Barack Obama 31 30
John Edwards 20 24
Hillary Clinton 15 14

Edwards is losing ground here? Not really. HE is losing SUPPORT. The attacks he is engaging in give him no benefits whatsoever.

And the end game seems set to me - Two choices - "strength and experience" (Clinton) vs. Change (Obama). Where is the Edwards choice? He ceded it to Obama. In my view, he is finished.

Well, you knew this was coming.

Obama made the disclosure while working a crowd at Central High School here, after delivering an education policy speech. A man, Ralph Hoagland, asked Obama—who was mingling and shaking hands-- if Oprah was going to stump for Obama in New Hampshire.

“First she’s coming to Iowa,” Obama told Hoagland, who in 1963 was a co-founder of what is now the giant CVS pharmacy chain. “But we’ll talk about it. We’ll get her up here.”

Was it a planted question? Hoagland is "a member of Obama’s Northeast Steering Group, which is heavily involved in fund-raising. He hopes to bundle together $100,000 for Obama..."

Here's Hoagland's reasoning, or is it Obama's?

Oprah Winfrey can help, Hoagland said, “because I think that Oprah can say to women ‘you do not have to vote for the first woman president. Vote for what you need.”

So, is Obama now resorting to the gender card?

Yesterday, I wrote about John Edwards' slippage in Iowa. Normally, I do not take great stock in polls this far out (yes, it is still too far out to take polls too seriously), especially the famously difficult to poll Iowa Caucus. My reasons for thinking the latest Iowa poll was not so much the numbers, as the fact that Edwards has dropped while Obama has risen since the end of July. Edwards now lacks a POSITIVE narrative for his candidacy for the critical last phases of the campaign. He has become the "attack Hillary" candidate (as opposed to being the Not Hillary candidate, the position he has now ceded without a shot to Barack Obama.)

At MYDD, Jerome Armstrong sees it differently:

Chiming in, it's great that the pollsters are now adding whether the voters attended the 2004 caucuses or not . . . I would tend to bank more on those that caucused in '04 . . .

With due respect to Jerome, I think he misses a very important point here, on the night of the caucus, the differences between previous caucus goers and first timers is simply not that great - both in choices and participation. For example, in 2004, the entrance polling showed:

A new WaPo/ABC poll shows Obama gaining supporters from John Edwards:

NET LEANED VOTE: 11/18/07 7/31/07

Barack Obama 30 27

Hillary Clinton 26 26

John Edwards 22 26

Edwards has decided to run a negative campaign filled with personal attacks on Hillary Clinton. If Edwards' goal is to help Obama, his tactics are working well. If he is trying to win, his tactics are disastrous.

BTW, the WaPo story is headlined "Clinton Slips . . " As you can see, it is Edwards who lost support. Clinton's support is exactly the same as this poll showed in late July.

The Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner took place in Iowa Saturday night. It's hard to credit anything any of the candidates say when you read stuff like this:

Obama's raucous supporters dominated the cheering battle, with yell leaders in each of his seating sections coordinating choruses of "Fired Up" and "Ready to Go" -- the call-and-response lines he often uses to close his rallies.

Supporters of Obama and Clinton made up more than half of the crowd, and Edwards also brought a big contingent. They were easy to spot -- Clinton's backers wore yellow T-shirts, Obama's red and Edwards' white.

Each candidate entered the darkened arena in a white spotlight and walked through the crowd to the podium in the center of the floor, giving the event the feel of a prize fight.

The lead quote from Chris Dodd:

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd promised the crowd that if he was president "You will get your Constitution back. No more Guantanamos."

Then why didn't Dodd show up to vote against Mukasey?

More....

I speak for me only as usual and I am a supporter of the Chris Dodd candidacy for the PResidency.

Chris Dodd's campaign is based on one major issue - that the leadership we will want in our next President is demonstrated by the leadership a candidate shows now on the major issues of the day. The biggest issue is, of course, Iraq, and Chris Dodd is fighting to insure a Democratic Congress does not fund the Iraq War without a date certain for ending the war. This fight is attracting notice in Iowa:

Yepsen: 1st-tier Dems' timidity on Iraq may create opening

Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd is the longest of long-shot candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. But he doesn't seem too agitated about that. He's an experienced politician. He knows how the caucus game often breaks late. Because of his 33 years of experience in Congress, he also knows something about U.S. foreign policy and the war in Iraq.

He does get agitated about that, particularly when the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination appear to be in no big hurry to get out. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama all declined in last week's debate to say they'd have U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term - in 2013. "I was stunned, literally stunned" to hear them say that, Dodd said in an interview for last weekend's Iowa Press program on Iowa Public Television."It was breathtaking to me that the so-called three leading candidates would not make that commitment. That's six years from today." . . .MORE

Hillary Clinton's first campaign ad has been released in Iowa. She says that everyone who has been invisible to George W. Bush won't be invisible to the next president.

The Sopranos' video it isn't, but I think it's what plays in Iowa.

I don't think Hillary needs to keep pointing out Bush's failures ... he's not running against her. I'd like her to compare the current Republican candidates with Bush and explain how she will be different than them.

On Monday, Bill Clinton joins Hillary for campaign events in Iowa. I don't think the question is will it help or hurt, but how much will it help?

Bill's role has been carefully crafted. He will introduce Hillary as the person who knows her best and provide biographical details of her life and talk about her accomplishments. Hillary then will speak about issues facing the country.

The theme of the tour is “Ready for Change, Ready to Lead.”