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A warm up:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/02/ame...aign.php?page=1
Clock ticks down for candidates in Iowa
By Brian Knowlton
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
WASHINGTON: Presidential candidates made their closing arguments Wednesday on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, debating the reliability of polls showing close and volatile races in both parties, and pondering the impact of perhaps the greatest participation ever by independents in Iowa.
The caucuses Thursday evening, an unusual political ritual that takes place in schools, homes and libraries across the Midwestern state, constitute the first step in a five-month series of state contests to pick each party's nominee - though the outcome could be clear far sooner.
The Iowa contests remained fluid on both sides, with a variety of outcomes possible. So did the race in New Hampshire, where people vote only five days later: A CNN survey there found that majorities in both parties had yet to decide definitely on a candidate.
"Most people are deciding in this last 24-hour period," Teresa Vilmain, the Iowa director for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, said Wednesday.
Aides for all of the candidates in Iowa were still frantically organizing thousands of last-minute door-to-door visits and transportation to the caucuses for supporters. In New Hampshire, a blizzard kept many people home and campaign staff worked the phones.
The process could lead to the election in November of the first woman as U.S. president, Clinton; the first black, Senator Barack Obama; or the first Mormon, Mitt Romney.
It will, in any case, begin the succession to a singularly polarizing presidency. Democrats say they want to reverse what they consider a tragic global decline in the American image. Republican candidates, wary of association with a president inextricably linked in the public mind to failures in Iraq, largely ignore him. They focus instead on domestic issues, from a worrying economy to an immigration system that many see as out of control.
Recent surveys underscore how fluid the races are in both early states. In Iowa, Clinton, the New York senator and former first lady, is in a close contest with Obama, the Illinois senator and former community organizer, and John Edwards, a former U.S. senator from North Carolina.
A recent Des Moines Register poll put Obama in the lead by 7 points over Clinton, with Edwards only one point behind her. Clinton aides acknowledged privately that this had created some consternation in their camp. They contested the Register's sampling methods, which included an unusually large 40 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers who described themselves as independents.
On the Republican side, a onetime long shot, Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, appears to hold a lead over Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who has a large and well-financed organization in the state.
But the surveys underline an unusual dynamic that fans uncertainties: Leading candidates have mobilized large numbers of independents and younger Iowans who say this would be their first caucus; whether they in fact devote the several hours required by caucus participation, with their intensive consultations, will be known only late Thursday. In the past, participants have tended to be older, politically engaged white people.
There is fluidity in New Hampshire, as well. Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose campaign has snapped back at a crucial time from weeks of disarray in late summer, appears to have erased a Romney lead.
Each man received 29 percent support in the latest CNN/WMUR poll. Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York mayor, had 12 percent. That signified a dramatic shift from a month earlier, when Romney led McCain by 33 percent to 18 percent. On the Democratic side, Clinton led Obama in New Hampshire by 4 points, with Edwards a distant third.
"Today has been a good day for us," Christian Ferry, McCain's deputy campaign manager, told Reuters in Manchester, New Hampshire. "Good poll data get people fired up."
McCain was returning to Iowa from New Hampshire for a final burst of campaigning, hoping for a surprise third-place finish to give him additional momentum. Huckabee and Romney had events around the state as well.
But Huckabee, in an unusual move, was dropping off the Iowa trail late Wednesday to fly to California to tape the "Tonight Show With Jay Leno." He denied Wednesday that this reflected overconfidence.
"Absolutely not," Huckabee said on ABC. "I've been up since 4 this morning. I'll be campaigning to early afternoon. I fly to California. I'm back here tonight. I'll be up again at 4 in the morning. We'll still be campaigning."
On the Democratic side, Obama seemed Wednesday to have a fresh bounce in his step. He spoke to reporters about "great crowds with unbelievable energy."
He told an audience of more than 1,000 in Des Moines: "I think 2008 is going to be a good year. That's what I think. I think some big things might happen in 2008."
A two-minute video being broadcast by Clinton echoed the themes of many of her similarly hard-working, exhausted rivals. "After all the town meetings, the pie and coffee, it comes down to this: Who is ready to be president and ready to start solving the big challenges we face on Day One?" she asks.
Although the delegates Iowa and New Hampshire send to the national nominating conventions in late summer will cast only a small proportion of the overall vote, the two states' contests can cast candidates indelibly into the roles of winners or losers.
It will also soon be clear whether candidates who banked heavily on Iowa - including Edwards, who has spent more than 100 days in the state since 2005 - were wiser, or more shortsighted, than those like Giuliani, who largely bypassed it to campaign in the many states that vote on Feb. 5.
One new national poll of Republican voters suggests that Giuliani may be suffering, at least in the near term. His once-solid nationwide lead has vanished, according to the Pew Research Center. Its survey found approximately equal levels of support for McCain, at 22 percent, Giuliani at 20 percent, and Huckabee at 17 percent.
The poll, conducted from Dec. 19 to 30, found that Giuliani's support had slipped 13 points since September - the same number of points Huckabee had gained.
All those invested in Iowa are counting on a sort of "Iowa effect" that Edwards summed up thusly: "When I win the Iowa caucus on Thursday," he told an audience there Monday, "what's going to happen is the money is going to pour in. That's what always happens."
But the Clinton campaign was not waiting: It announced Monday that the senator had raised more than $100 million in 2007.
Still, some Clinton donors in New York who spoke on condition of anonymity said that they were unnerved by the Register poll showing a sizable Obama lead. They had expected Edwards to do well in Iowa, but had not foreseen an Obama blowout.
Some Clinton advisers said that if Obama has actually managed to attract a whole new crop of independents to the caucus process, he would be tough to beat.
Regardless, all but Iowans agree that the state has an impact far disproportionate to the numbers who take part. Fewer than 6 percent of eligible Iowa voters took part in the 2004 caucuses. The state itself accounts for one one-hundredth the U.S. population.
Patrick Healy contributed reporting from Des Moines.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/02/ame...aign.php?page=1
Clock ticks down for candidates in Iowa
By Brian Knowlton
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
WASHINGTON: Presidential candidates made their closing arguments Wednesday on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, debating the reliability of polls showing close and volatile races in both parties, and pondering the impact of perhaps the greatest participation ever by independents in Iowa.
The caucuses Thursday evening, an unusual political ritual that takes place in schools, homes and libraries across the Midwestern state, constitute the first step in a five-month series of state contests to pick each party's nominee - though the outcome could be clear far sooner.
The Iowa contests remained fluid on both sides, with a variety of outcomes possible. So did the race in New Hampshire, where people vote only five days later: A CNN survey there found that majorities in both parties had yet to decide definitely on a candidate.
"Most people are deciding in this last 24-hour period," Teresa Vilmain, the Iowa director for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, said Wednesday.
Aides for all of the candidates in Iowa were still frantically organizing thousands of last-minute door-to-door visits and transportation to the caucuses for supporters. In New Hampshire, a blizzard kept many people home and campaign staff worked the phones.
The process could lead to the election in November of the first woman as U.S. president, Clinton; the first black, Senator Barack Obama; or the first Mormon, Mitt Romney.
It will, in any case, begin the succession to a singularly polarizing presidency. Democrats say they want to reverse what they consider a tragic global decline in the American image. Republican candidates, wary of association with a president inextricably linked in the public mind to failures in Iraq, largely ignore him. They focus instead on domestic issues, from a worrying economy to an immigration system that many see as out of control.
Recent surveys underscore how fluid the races are in both early states. In Iowa, Clinton, the New York senator and former first lady, is in a close contest with Obama, the Illinois senator and former community organizer, and John Edwards, a former U.S. senator from North Carolina.
A recent Des Moines Register poll put Obama in the lead by 7 points over Clinton, with Edwards only one point behind her. Clinton aides acknowledged privately that this had created some consternation in their camp. They contested the Register's sampling methods, which included an unusually large 40 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers who described themselves as independents.
On the Republican side, a onetime long shot, Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, appears to hold a lead over Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who has a large and well-financed organization in the state.
But the surveys underline an unusual dynamic that fans uncertainties: Leading candidates have mobilized large numbers of independents and younger Iowans who say this would be their first caucus; whether they in fact devote the several hours required by caucus participation, with their intensive consultations, will be known only late Thursday. In the past, participants have tended to be older, politically engaged white people.
There is fluidity in New Hampshire, as well. Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose campaign has snapped back at a crucial time from weeks of disarray in late summer, appears to have erased a Romney lead.
Each man received 29 percent support in the latest CNN/WMUR poll. Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York mayor, had 12 percent. That signified a dramatic shift from a month earlier, when Romney led McCain by 33 percent to 18 percent. On the Democratic side, Clinton led Obama in New Hampshire by 4 points, with Edwards a distant third.
"Today has been a good day for us," Christian Ferry, McCain's deputy campaign manager, told Reuters in Manchester, New Hampshire. "Good poll data get people fired up."
McCain was returning to Iowa from New Hampshire for a final burst of campaigning, hoping for a surprise third-place finish to give him additional momentum. Huckabee and Romney had events around the state as well.
But Huckabee, in an unusual move, was dropping off the Iowa trail late Wednesday to fly to California to tape the "Tonight Show With Jay Leno." He denied Wednesday that this reflected overconfidence.
"Absolutely not," Huckabee said on ABC. "I've been up since 4 this morning. I'll be campaigning to early afternoon. I fly to California. I'm back here tonight. I'll be up again at 4 in the morning. We'll still be campaigning."
On the Democratic side, Obama seemed Wednesday to have a fresh bounce in his step. He spoke to reporters about "great crowds with unbelievable energy."
He told an audience of more than 1,000 in Des Moines: "I think 2008 is going to be a good year. That's what I think. I think some big things might happen in 2008."
A two-minute video being broadcast by Clinton echoed the themes of many of her similarly hard-working, exhausted rivals. "After all the town meetings, the pie and coffee, it comes down to this: Who is ready to be president and ready to start solving the big challenges we face on Day One?" she asks.
Although the delegates Iowa and New Hampshire send to the national nominating conventions in late summer will cast only a small proportion of the overall vote, the two states' contests can cast candidates indelibly into the roles of winners or losers.
It will also soon be clear whether candidates who banked heavily on Iowa - including Edwards, who has spent more than 100 days in the state since 2005 - were wiser, or more shortsighted, than those like Giuliani, who largely bypassed it to campaign in the many states that vote on Feb. 5.
One new national poll of Republican voters suggests that Giuliani may be suffering, at least in the near term. His once-solid nationwide lead has vanished, according to the Pew Research Center. Its survey found approximately equal levels of support for McCain, at 22 percent, Giuliani at 20 percent, and Huckabee at 17 percent.
The poll, conducted from Dec. 19 to 30, found that Giuliani's support had slipped 13 points since September - the same number of points Huckabee had gained.
All those invested in Iowa are counting on a sort of "Iowa effect" that Edwards summed up thusly: "When I win the Iowa caucus on Thursday," he told an audience there Monday, "what's going to happen is the money is going to pour in. That's what always happens."
But the Clinton campaign was not waiting: It announced Monday that the senator had raised more than $100 million in 2007.
Still, some Clinton donors in New York who spoke on condition of anonymity said that they were unnerved by the Register poll showing a sizable Obama lead. They had expected Edwards to do well in Iowa, but had not foreseen an Obama blowout.
Some Clinton advisers said that if Obama has actually managed to attract a whole new crop of independents to the caucus process, he would be tough to beat.
Regardless, all but Iowans agree that the state has an impact far disproportionate to the numbers who take part. Fewer than 6 percent of eligible Iowa voters took part in the 2004 caucuses. The state itself accounts for one one-hundredth the U.S. population.
Patrick Healy contributed reporting from Des Moines.
