Iowa: Who the Hell Knows...by Kos (Daily Kos)

[Catchawave]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/28/184956/72/794/427373

Iowa: who the hell knows?
by kos
Fri Dec 28, 2007 at 07:23:42 PM EST
Lots of polls coming out of Iowa, but this is my favorite:

Research 2000 for Lee Newspapers. Likely caucus goers. MoE 4.5%

12/26-27 12/10-13 11/12-14

Obama 29 33 25
Edwards 29 24 21
Clinton 28 24 27



Fitting, isn't it? The polls at this point can't tell us anything except that, well, any of these top three candidates can win. So while the numbers may be off by a point or four compared to other recent polls, the reality is that it's about as much of a "toss up" as you can possibly ever have.

Yet remember, these aren't the kind of numbers we'll see when the caucuses are over. This isn't a secret ballot situation. This is a social event, where campaigns will be herding people around trying to reach the magical "viability" numbers to garner delegates and deny them to their opponents. There will be a "first ballot" that might approximate what the polls tell us, but then the horse trading will begin, and then all predictive efforts get tossed to the wind.

more....