The first/second choice net is only revealing, though, if you know what percentage of second-choice support is coming from each candidate.  If a sizeable chunk of Obama or Edward's second-choice support comes from Hillary, they can't rely on those caucus goers to help defeat her--they'll be supporting her first.  If either Obama or Edwards has a considerable claim for second-choice support from second- and third-tier candidates, on the other hand....

Something else interesting to note are the trends for question 10.  On all categories (strongest leader, understands my problems, trustworthy, most experienced, campaigned hardest, electibility) Obama has trended upwards.  Hillary has trended downwards on ever point except e., "has campaigned hardest in Iowa," and she *plummeted" on the question of experience from 50% of caucus goers saying she had the best experience to 38%.  That's still more than any two other candidates put together, but it's interesting to see how far that number fell.

Finally, Obama has a huge lead on Hillary in terms of his perceived trustworthiness.  Trends make it look like that's always been the case, and it makes me suspect his subtle criticism of Hillary's straightforwardness is a well-selected dagger.

Now this is interesting!

An interesting alternate point of view has been expressed in different venues, posing the idea that the national Democrats who have been in control of Congress since the 2006 elections are setting the party up for a surprise loss in 2008.

How so? They have proven to be utterly disconnected from the American public, especially independent voters, whose rebellion gave the Democrats control of Congress, that independents and moderates may well stay home in disgust in 2008, whereas the Republicans fully plan to energize their base with immigration, fear of terrorism, warnings about tax raising Democrats, not to mention hatred of Hillary. The Democrats were elected in 2006 to end the Iraq War and save the Constitution, and just maybe work on the economy. The Democrats in Congress have done none of this, and are simply rocking along enabling Bush to continue on his merry way, like members of a Inside the Beltway Club. For such a discussion, see http://www.opednews....

Don't get me wrong.  My mother grew up there and I have some great cousins still living there whom we love to visit.  However, why should anyone in the rest of the country care about Iowa in a Presidential election year?  How many non-incumbent candidates since 1972 have won the Presidency after winning the Iowa Caucus?  Two:  Jimmy Carter in 1976 (who actually came in a distant second behind "none of the above") and George W. Bush in 2000.  Not quite a predicter of campaign success, is it?  The track record of those who won Iowa and became their party's nominee (but didn't win the election) is only slightly better.

Why?  Well, for three reasons.

First, the caucus goers represent the absolutely most skewed "activist effect" of any primary election.  Everyone knows that primary results tend to be skewed as an indicator of general population preference since the politically active tend to turn out in a much higher proportion than in a general election.  Multiply the interest level necessary to get someone to spend an entire evening at a caucus rather than just stopping by the polls for five minutes and you can see how skewed the turn-out is in relation to the general voter population. 

Second, the arcane caucus rules, esp. in the Democratic caucuses, could not be further from producing the consensus of a secret ballot.  The horse-trading and swaying of opinion means that relatively few caucus attendees finish the event supporting the candidate they favored at the beginning of the event, compared with a secret ballot.

Third, the issues that drive support during the Iowa caucus are frequently splinter issues that do not concern the vast majority of the remaining states.  Ethanol is a case in point.  Any candidate who doesn't promise to base his energy policy on ethanol is dead meat in Iowa, whereas the rest of us recognize ethanol for the fraud that it is.

but I wonder if all the media emphasis is not the guiding principle now that the corporate media turns everything (including war) into a kind of sports event, by which I mean not exactly a horse race, more like a sports extravangaza kind of thing, with points being scored by stylish  haircuts, pearls and diamonds, or how many flunkies are on the field, etc. In other words, trivializing the process into a form of entertainment. No real debates, just kindergarten slapping matches.

Could this be an indication that, in some subliminal way, everyone knows it's all a staged show, that no matter who (quote)wins the same people will still be behind the scenes in Washington, running things just the way they want, and the elections are window dressing to intrigue and occupy the masses?

...and then I take one of my anti-depressants and everything looks better.

Seriously, you touch on one of my problems with the current two-party system.  Money, media, and mischief seem to trump experience and electability in picking the party nominee.  For example, I personally think that Bill Richardson is the best qualified candidate in either party.  Think of what our next president will face as major issues:  nuclear proliferation--Bill was Secretary of Energy, UN Ambassador, and special envoy to North Korea.  Illegal immigration across our southern borders--Bill is half Hispanic and a border state governor.  Globalization and NAFTA--see all above.  The list goes on and on.  However, he gets very little attention in the "debates" and spends most of his time during them banking his position as Hillary's most likely running mate.  (Sorry, Lowell and all the other people here who are gah-gah about Wes Clark.  He brings nothing to the Clinton ticket compared to Richardson.)

I personally think that the reason that our nominating process is so out of whack is because of "primary activistism."  The candidate in each party who works hardest to energize the "base" of each party, winds up being unacceptable to the majority of independent, swing voters in the general election.

BTW, my next rant will be about New Hampshire, where the Republican winner is largely chosen by a newspaper publisher. 

...a 4-point lead in a poll with a 4-point margin of error is actually a tie.  And in this case, it's basically a 3-way tie, which is where it's been stuck for a while.

So where's the news?

Here's MyDD's take.

Biden support doubles in Iowa.

n/t

11% is a decent chunk of people

Richardson defends Clinton in debates and is running as an experienced candidate

Looks like these votes will swing around to Clinton and provide her the victory.  Still lots of time for changes to occur however.

Those voters clearly wanted someone OTHER than Clinton, otherwise they wouldn't be Richardson supporters.  I like Richardson.  I despise the idea of Clinton as our nominee.

Don't make that kind of assumption--caucus voters are fairly infamous for being easily swayed...and not always in ways that you'd expect...

Do you think you could summarize the commentary on the Ken Cuccinelli scandal?  Where are we at this point; obviously Cooch denied it and the media hasn't done its job investigating, what next?