Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Could Hillary Come in Third in Iowa?

That is the question that Andrew Sullivan asks in a post today...

The Clintonites are showing signs of panic, as Marc reports:

In a variety of conference calls over the next few days, in surrogate appearances, and in memos distributed to reporters, the campaign will directly challenge Obama on points of his resume, on past statements of his, on the details of his current policy plans, and on his campaign's pushback that it is Clinton who is not electable...

Much of Barack Obama's recent success is attributable to Obama himself and his campaign's formidable Iowa field organization, which was developed by state director Paul Tewes. The Obama campaign regularly attracts more than 70 Iowans to its mock caucuses, a figure suggesting that Obama's support is wide and deep.

The answer is a definite yes. In fact, if one of the top 3 (Obama, Clinton, and Edwards) gets surpassed by Biden or Richardson, I think it would most likely be Clinton. She doesn't have the organization in the state that Obama and Edwards have. Her support isn't as strong either. Edwards and Obama are far ahead of Clinton in polls that show caucus goers 2nd choices.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The "second choice" is a huge statistic that I don't think is getting enough play from a press who doesn't think that people will understand that a caucus is different from a primary.

It also fairly well describes where I am right now when it comes to who I will caucus for. It seems people have made up their minds on whether they will support Hillary or not. I don't get the sense that people are as ironclad in their thinking on the other candidates.

Anonymous said...

To sort of come from the same angle as Ben, Hillary is sort of like an incumbent--you're either for or against her, so I think that Hillary is in big trouble in Iowa not just because of "first choice" people, but because any Dodd, Richardson, Biden people etc who aren't viable (15%) at the Caucus are probably going to be much more likely to go for Obama or Edwards.