It's less than one week until a few residents of Iowa - if they don't have anything better to do, mind you - get to decide 50% of the 2008 Presidential election. The other 50% of the decision rests on those residents of New Hampshire who decide it's worth it to tunnel out from under the snow to vote.
Yay.
But this post isn't really about the idiocy of our current system. That issue has simultaneously been discussed to death and has seen the breadth of its dysfunction barely addressed.
What is interesting is the campaign to be the nominee for both parties. This cycle the Democrats and Republicans are mirror images of each other. On the Democratic side, we suffer from an embarrassment of riches, with several quite good candidates. For all the fussing and fighting we do about Hillary, Obama and Edwards, any one of them has the definite potential to be an excellent President, and that's not even just compared to Bush.
On the Republican side, they're just suffering from embarrassment. The successful recruitment of Grandpa Fred to the roster apparently cured them of their search for a political messiah, and Republican voters understand that "None of the Above" isn't going to be on the ballot no matter how much they might wish it to be. I don't really care that much about the GOP side; Huckabee will win Iowa, the Republican leadership and Village media will completely lose their minds, and it'll be fun to watch.
Since the Democrats have the only people worth caring about, let's look at them in depth.
Straight from the lovely folks at Pollster.com, here's the current Democratic race:
What this means is that no one is in the lead. The margins are too small, and the data points, as Mark Blumenthal explains, are all over the place. Edwards has clearly lost ground, Obama has clearly been on an upward trajectory, and Hillary probably actually is the frontrunner, though with a lead that small and a campaign based upon inevitability and little else, she might as well be in third.
The way the Iowa Caucuses work for the Democrats is that a candidate needs 15% of the precinct vote to go on to the county convention. Those who support candidates getting less than that threshold can form a coalition with one another, switch to one of the candidates over the threshold, or take their ball and go home. With Hillary, Obama and Edwards pretty much tied, the winner will be decided by the supporters of Richardson, Biden, Dodd, Gore(?) and Dennis Kucinich. So how will they break?
- Richardson As a proud New Mexico native, I wish he'd run a better campaign, but it's just been a mess. How can he be so good one moment and so jaw-droppingly bad the next? His main message has been anti-Iraq War. He's the only one of the candidates to have done anything positive about gay rights, making it so NM state employees get domestic partner benefits, but like all of them except Kucinich mixes that with personal opposition to gay marriage for some stupid reason or another. He's an option for those who want a male Hillary Clinton. Obama, despite his opposition to the Iraq War when he wasn't in a position to cast a vote on it, isn't going to get the anti-war crowd. But he might get some votes from people who want a "centrist." Advantage: Edwards/Obama
- Biden Can anyone tell me what his platform is? Anyone? Advantage: Are you kidding me? They're not going to show up.
- Dodd He has to have a couple of supporters, and they will show up. Advantage: Edwards, because Hillary and Obama have just been too late and too soft on Constitutional issues.
- Kucinich Advantage: Edwards. Like any of Kucinich's supporters would vote for Obama or Hillary.
- Gore He kept showing up in polls until the pollsters dropped his name. So did Gore's people move on to other candidates, or did they all become Undecideds? Advantage: Edwards, if Gore's former supporters haven't already moved into his camp.
- Hillary/Obama They've gotten pretty negative recently. I believe that negative campaigning actually works, which is why people always do it. But it can be dangerous. It's possible to soften your opponent's support while coming across as a jerk, and in a race with a viable third option the space between "X candidate is a bad person" and "I'm a huge jerk" is very small. Advantage: Well, "advantage" may be a bit strong, but Edwards might get a few disaffected votes.
Edwards will get Iowa, barely. Obama will come in second and Hillary will be third. The Village media, if they don't have public meltdowns at the thought of an Edwards nomination, will spin it as an Obama victory. And the Hillary campaign just might go into panic mode when they see that not only have their attacks against Obama been ineffective, they've apparently been worrying about the wrong candidate. Obama won't change anything.
Next up is, of course New Hampshire.