This is definitely an outlier, but still must hurt Edwards and Clinton that this will be on the front page of the biggest paper in Iowa. What HRC and JE should be worried about is the 18 to 34 voters, if they come out to vote there is no way Clinton or Edwards wins.

according to Pollster.com, was the only one to nail the correct order of finish in 2004.

I think you are correct in assessing the "what if" dynamics of the race.  I have been following the polls closely, as have many here.

As to the reputation of the Des Moines poll, the Pollster site seems to have a heavily nuanced assessment as to which poll was the most "accurate" and included this disclaimer:

If, on the other hand, we focus on the Kerry-Edwards margin, the final Zogby poll comes slightly closer to the actual result. In any case, the differences between the pollsters are small enough on all of these criteria that random chance was certainly a factor in determining which did best. And notice that everyone was way off on the final margin between Edwards and Dean, whether we compare to the entrance poll head count (Edwards +6), or the post-realignment actual results (+14).

pollster

One of the problems in assessing the final outcome is that the caucus goers can make deals, e.g., the Richardson voters might switch to any of the three top candidates.

Is the Des Moines poll an outlier?  The Zogby telephone poll which shows Clinton up by 4 had a slightly larger sample (by 100 people) and was done a day later.
http://www.zogby.com/news/Read...  Most of the pollsters involved, e.g., Mason Dixon, all have excellent reputations overall.  Zogby is polling continuously so it will be interesting if his daily poll sees Clinton slippage.

Having said that, looking at the list of Iowa results (at RCP or TPM Election Central) it sure looks like this could go in any direction.  I would not wager one cent on this race in Iowa right now.

A side note: since October a total of roughly over 44,000 people have been polled in Iowa (some may be the same people, of course).  Depending on the turnout, it is possible that more "poll" votes will have been recorded than actual votes.  I just find some irony in this.

According to the Washington Post, "Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton each surpassed the $100 million fundraising mark for their presidential campaigns in 2007."   Clinton apparently raised $20 million in the 4th quarter, while Obama had raised $76 million through the third quarter (implying over $24 million in the 4th quarter).

Meanwhile, Ron Paul "saw money gush in through the Internet and brought in $20 million over the past three months."  

Others:

Mike Huckabee: "Web site reports that he has raised more than $5 million online since the end of September."

Mitt Romney: "expected to raise $6 million to $10 million in the final quarter...supplementing contributions with millions of dollars of his own money."

John Edwards: "raised between $4 million and $5 million for the quarter"

you are right about Obama raising $76M in the first three quarters, but Clinton raised $69.5M in the first three quarters (not $80M as you imply)
-----------------------
Q3
Hillary Clinton, $22M
Barack Obama, $19M
-----------------------
Q2
Barack Obama, $32M
Hillary Clinton, $21.5M
-----------------------
Q1
Hillary Clinton, $26M
Barack Obama, $25M

based on the Washington Post estimates of $100+ million each for Obama and Clinton. I'm not sure how to reconcile the discrepancy, exactly.  Any ideas?

Clinton had an additional $10 million transferred from her Senate to presidential campaign account.

have enough $$ that they're going to battle a ways down the primary schedule.  Iowa and NH may just weed out the lower echelon.

Positive note: there's a lot of enthusiasm for the Dem candidates if they can raise all that money.  (Or, big money operators think either have a good chance of being the next President.)

I forgot about that.

I believe that this year we will have multiple third party candidates.  Ron Paul, for one, is being courted by the Libertarian party.  I get letters by them - I think I filled out an online survey about 5 years ago have been on their mailing list ever since.  He has lots of money and I doubt he will give it to the Republicans.

Also, it seems clear that yet another 3rd party or independent candidate will emerge.  Probably Bloomberg, and I have a hunch that Lou Dobbs may also throw his hat in as an independent.  

And then there is Ralph Nadar.  Because of his endorsement of Edwards, I assume if Edwards wins the nomination he won't run.  

But at the end of the day, I suspect that a third party candidate will make the difference between a Democrat or Republican winning.  The million dollar question is which candidate will siphon off the most votes, and from whom.

If Democrats are lucky, Ron Paul will run and nobody else.  Bad news for Democrats will be a Bloomberg run, even worse news is that he is the ONLY 3rd party candidate.

I guess my point to this post is that although a generic Democrat will beat a generic Republican, that doesn't mean that a third party won't or can't spoil things.  

So don't think "Hillary can beat xyz Republican".  The question is can Hillary beat xyz Republican + a Bloomberg.

1) 3.5 point margin of error
2) It's a caucus, not a primary, and attendance can be affected by countless factors
3) People can shift votes (e.g., what if Richardson's votes go to somebody else?)
4) Still a high undecided rate
5) Close enough that some unexpected news or event can still shift the outcome

Stay tuned!

And new polls are about to come out with a different picture, according to Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com.  He has another interesting poll update:  

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/...

The Yepsen referred to is the lead writer on this for the Des Moines Register:

A few quick observations. What "will raise some eyebrows among party pros," as Yepsen puts it, is the fact that a "whopping" 60% of the Democratic caucus goers say this will be their first caucus and only 54% say they are Democrats (40% identify as independents and 5% as Republicans). Compare these results to what other polls have shown earlier in 2007 and it becomes clear that this Register sample predicts a very different set of caucus participants than in years past.

Yepsen also notes that if pollster Ann Selzer had weighted the new results by party identification "to look like they did in 2004, Clinton could beat Obama 31 percent to 29 percent."

Polls I've been sent by the Obama volunteers here in NH say that Obama is ahead by 2 points; we've read that in the papers last week as well. A win in Iowa should increase that.

The very latest poll, by Suffolk University, shows this:

http://www.suffolk.edu/25902.html

Clinton lead widens

In the Democratic Primary, the 7NEWS/Suffolk University poll also shows that Hillary Clinton (34 percent) has opened up a significant lead on Barack Obama and John Edwards.  Some 36 percent of likely voters in the Democratic Primary supported Hillary Clinton, while 22 percent chose Barack Obama, and 14 percent selected John Edwards.  Lagging behind were Bill Richardson (7 percent), Joe Biden (4 percent), Dennis Kucinich (3 percent), and Christopher Dodd (1 percent). Twelve percent of Democratic voters were undecided.

The 7NEWS-Suffolk University poll was conducted from Dec. 27 to Dec. 31, 2007. Suffolk will be doing a series of polls:

This poll kicks off a series of daily New Hampshire tracking polls to be conducted by 7NEWS/Suffolk University.  Each poll will consider 250 likely Democratic and Republican primary voters statewide each day.  A two-day rolling average of 500 Democrats and 500 Republicans will be reported every morning at 6:30 a.m.

I think Obama is likely to pull people into the process that haven't participated in the past.  Whether it's college students flying back early to caucus for Obama in Iowa or brand new primary voters in South Carolina and New Hampshire, these folks could have a huge impact.

Why?

Because they are off the radar.  These aren't "likely" primary voters; these are UNLIKELY primary voters.  If Obama can surprise Clinton and Edwards by dramatically expanding the pool of participants, he could win a shocking upset victory over the "inevitable" candidate.

http://www.southernpoliticalre...

December 31, 2007 - Using the same polling methodology that successfully predicted the outcome of the 2004 Democratic Caucus in Iowa, InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion Research *** [shows]
Clinton has 30%, Edwards 29%, Obama 22%, with 14% committed to other candidates and 5% undecided.
The survey was conducted Jan. 28-29 [sic!] among 788 likely Democratic voters in Iowa. The poll has been weighted for gender and age. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4%.  

Critically, Edwards was the second choice of 62% of those who supported other candidates that did not receive the required 15% of the vote. Clinton was the second choice of 21% and Obama of 17%.

Using the reallocation methodology InsiderAdvantage used in 2004 - which correctly indicated a fairly comfortable win for John Kerry - our new poll reveals that, if the caucuses were held today, the reallocated final outcome would be:

Edwards: 41%
Clinton: 34%
Obama: 25%
"We removed from the results the percentages allocated for 'other candidates' and 'undecideds,' and then reallocated the support of those who are supporting candidates without the required 15% level of support," said Jeff Shusterman of InsiderAdvantage's research partner, Majority Opinion Research.  

"We then merged these totals with the percentages of support the top candidates received on the first 'ballot.' This is the same methodology we used in 2004," he said.

And now yet another poll (CNN) with different results:  CNN

Among Democrats, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York wins the most support, with 33 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers backing Clinton and 31 percent supporting Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. But taking into account the survey's sampling error of 4.5 percentage points in the Democratic race, the race is virtually tied.

The poll said that a quarter of the Democratic voters are undecided.

We can say with confidence that the Iowa Democratic caucus will be won by a human.

Not sure if we can make that leap with the Repub caucus yet...