I will update later when more results are available. For now, I am taking these Nevada results from TPM:

Clinton 51 percent

Obama 45

Edwards 4

Romney 52 percent

Paul 13

McCain 13

Huckabee 8

Thompson 8

Giuliani 4

Hunter 2

Time for Edwards and Obama supporters to face some hard truths.

Even if he had won Iowa and gotten the unions to jump off the fence, it looks like Edwards would not have been able to take Nevada from Hillary.

If Obama couldn’t win this state despite getting favorable media coverage, more than 80 percent of the black vote (according to entrance polling), and the key union endorsements in Nevada, then it seems that no one could have beaten Clinton here.

Hillary won at least 6 of the 9 at-large precincts on the Las Vegas strip, and one of them was a tie. Those precincts supposedly were going to be dominated by the Culinary Union, which backed Obama. That’s why Clinton supporters went to court (unsuccessfully) to try to block the at-large precincts. But Culinary was not able to deliver for Obama in most of those precincts.

I haven’t seen any data yet on what percentage of Democratic caucus-goers were independents or Republicans who switched party affiliation. Total turnout shattered predictions and exceeded 114,000.

Many of the February 5 states will hold closed primaries, which means Obama will not benefit from strong support among independents and Republicans.

Entrance polling in Nevada suggests that Clinton led Obama 51-38 among women (who made up 59 percent of caucus-goers) and crushed Obama 64-26 among Latinos. That suggests a steep uphill climb for Obama in some of the larger February 5 states.

Obama supporters have been calling for Edwards to drop out, but I am not convinced that doing so would benefit Obama. In South Carolina, Edwards is  taking more away from Hillary.

Whichever candidate you favor, it’s obvious that Clinton is in the driver’s seat. She will have to make some big mistakes to lose the nomination now.

Obama was not able to put her away in New Hampshire, and it’s going to cost him big.

I just learned about the blog 2008 Democratic Convention Watch. It looks like a good place for political junkies to bookmark and check from time to time. The focus is “News and views about the 2008 Democratic National Convention and the race for the nomination.”

There’s a delegate counter and archive of past blog posts on the left-hand side of the page.

Recent posts include this one listing all of the “superdelegates” who have endorsed each of the Democratic candidates. If you click through, there is a link to a list of all the superdelegates who have not yet committed to a candidate.

You can also learn about the DNC’s standing committees on credentials, platform and rules, including who will co-chair each of those committees.

Some of you may be interested in this post about how to apply to be one of the DNC’s official state bloggers. Apparently one blogger from each state will be credentialed at the convention in Denver.  

The Nevada caucuses and the GOP primary in South Carolina take place tomorrow. How do you think the candidates will do? Here is my stab in the dark:

Nevada

Clinton 42

Obama 38

Edwards 20

Romney 35

McCain 30

Huckabee 15

Paul 5

Thompson 3

Giuliani 2

South Carolina

McCain 32

Huckabee 28

Thompson 20

Romney 12

Giuliani 5

Paul 3

I saw in today’s Des Moines Register that a recent random phone survey of 354 registered voters in my corner of the world found that 99 percent are satisfied with the quality of life in Windsor Heights, and 89 percent described the city services and quality of life as “above average.”

The poll reached a substantial proportion of adults in Windsor Heights, which has a total population of just under 5,000.

I am not too surprised by the survey. Windsor Heights is no more than a 10-15 minute drive from most spots in the Des Moines metro area (it takes about 20 minutes to get to the airport and the zoo). There are some nice locally-owned shops and restaurants, as well as a huge Hy-Vee and Wal-Mart for those who like big box stores. The city services are generally good, and houses for sale usually move quickly, unless they are obviously overpriced.

There are two good elementary schools in the suburb (Cowles Montessori in the Des Moines Public Schools and Clive Elementary in the West Des Moines school district). Windsor Elementary in the Des Moines Public Schools is just a few blocks over the border in Des Moines and also has a good reputation.

I live in the house I grew up in, which my parents bought in 1968. When I started volunteering as a precinct captain for the Kerry campaign in 2003, I was amazed by how many parents of my childhood friends still lived in the homes they bought in the 1950s or 1960s. A lot of Democrats I didn’t know recognized my name and told me they remembered my parents or one of my siblings.

We have friends who moved to a home about a half-mile from ours this past summer, and they bought that home from the original owners.

Windsor Heights was heavily Republican during my childhood, but like inner-ring suburbs across the country, it has become more Democratic over the years. Unfortunately, we are in very Republican districts (dominated by other suburban neighborhoods) for the Iowa House and Senate.

Consider this an open thread to talk about the virtues of your city or your neighborhood.

Thanks again to Betsy for the roundup. -desmoinesdem

Here is your roundup for the eve of the Nevada Caucuses.  Scroll to the bottom and head on over to My Silver State for some excellent and balanced (they actually admit John Edwards exists) coverage of the top three Democratic candidates.

The writers at the state blogs are working hard to bring us the latest on the Dem congressional candidates.  Check them out, especially if you live in a very red district and need a Democrat to adopt.

Hillary Clinton’s surprise win in the New Hampshire primary put her campaign back on track, and most observers would agree that she is slightly favored to win the nomination now.

However, Barack Obama seems set to win South Carolina, and if he can win Nevada as well (which seems likely, given his union endorsements), then he would have more momentum going into the February 5 primaries. More than 20 states will vote that day. So far Clinton leads Obama in most of them, but momentum can change a lot.

The Obama campaign has rolled out a lot of endorsements since New Hampshire, including:

Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska

Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona

Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri

Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts

Congressmembers George Miller and Zoe Lofgren of California

Ned Lamont of the Connecticut Democratic Party

UPDATE: noneed4thneed points out that I forgot Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and former Senator Gary Hart of Colorado. And speaking of Hart, wouldn’t he have been a great president? Just bad luck to be running the cycle that the media decided an affair disqualified someone from contention.

Those people represent a mixture of red, purple and blue states. I am still not convinced that Obama is more electable than Clinton, but these people seem to disagree.

Obama’s campaign in Nevada is putting a lot of emphasis on urging Republicans and independents to vote for him. Listen to these radio ads he is running, which do not mention the Democratic Party and inform independents and Republicans that they can caucus for him:

I’ve got a post in my head in response to Obama’s recent comments about Ronald Reagan. Actually, this post has been in my head for some time, as Obama is both too much like Reagan for my comfort level, yet not enough like Reagan to realign American politics in the Democrats’ favor. I will save that post for another day, when I have more time to write.

As Chase Martyn reported for Iowa Independent, Ed Fallon officially announced on Wednesday that he will challenge Leonard Boswell for the Democratic nomination in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

Populista put up a diary here urging people to vote for Ed as Democracy for America’s “All-Star” candidate. I have already done so, and I hope you will too.

I’ll be writing more about this race in the coming months. For now, I want to briefly lay out the case for supporting Fallon’s challenge.

Leonard Boswell is a good person. I have voted for him every time and have contributed to his Congressional campaigns. However, he has been too willing to go along with the Bush administration on too many issues. He has voted to repeal the estate tax based on specious arguments from the Grover Norquist crowd. He voted for Bush’s horrible energy bill. He has voted to enable the Bush administration’s policies on Iraq and torture.

We have a chance to get a rock-solid progressive in this seat, and we should take it. While in the legislature, Ed Fallon had a 100 percent voting record on choice and labor issues, and was very strong on the environment and many other areas of importance.

Boswell sits on the Transportation Committee and has done nothing to help bring our national transportation policy back into balance. Fallon is talking about the need to get a handle on urban sprawl and invest in alternative forms of transportation as well as new road construction.

We are going to hear a lot from the Democratic Party establishment about Fallon supposedly being unelectable. I want those people to explain to me why Boswell’s winning margin in 2006 was so much less than Chet Culver’s winning margin in the counties that make up the third district.

Many Democrats, particularly progressives, simply do not feel that Boswell is representing our interests well enough.

Fallon has the potential to draw cross-over votes from independents and Republicans. He did it in the 2006 gubernatorial primary, and he can do it again. But just as important, he is a candidate Democrats can enthusiastically vote for.

Those who say that we can’t take a risk on replacing Boswell also need to explain their game plan for holding on to Iowa’s third district after the 2010 census. Iowa is going to lose a Congressional seat when the districts are redrawn. The most likely scenario I can see is that Boswell would retire in 2012, leaving us with no incumbent to run against Tom Latham or Steve King in the newly-drawn third district.

We are better off getting a new incumbent in place before that happens.

Finally, I believe that Fallon’s challenge will benefit Democrats even if he does not win the primary. As Chris Bowers reported last month at Open Left, Boswell voted against an Iraq funding bill for the first time ever after rumors about Fallon’s challenge started circulating.

I have also heard that Boswell recently signed onto a global-warming pledge that he refused to sign months earlier, when Congressmen Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack backed it.

We’ve seen the voting records of other Democratic incumbents improve after progressives challenged them in primaries. Jane Harman and Ellen Tauscher of California come to mind. If Boswell does win the primary, I expect that his Congressional votes will better represent the will of his constituents.

If Fallon wins the primary, we will be favored to elect a strong progressive to this seat, given his base in Polk County and the expected high turnout for Democrats in a presidential election year.

I respect the views of Bleeding Heartland readers who are sticking with Boswell, but I urge you to consider the case for Fallon. If you already support Fallon, please consider donating to or volunteering for his campaign. They will need all hands on deck, since the party establishment will line up behind Boswell.

I watched the rerun of the debate last night and thought all three candidates did well enough. Apparently Frank Luntz’s focus group favored Edwards, but supporters of all three candidates had plenty to cheer on.

If you want to read why Clinton “rocked,” click on alegre’s diary with video clips:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

If you want the pro-Obama version, Steven R has clips and analysis for you here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Edwards fans will enjoy NCDemAmy’s diary, also with video clips:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Check out the Nevada progressive community blog My Silver State and the MyDD posts by Las Vegas resident and precinct chair desmoulins.

As I posted a few days ago, this is the time to take action to stop a new coal-fired power plant from being built in Marshalltown. Coal not only contributes to global warming, it also increases the rate of asthma in nearby residents, as well as mercury levels in fish.

The Iowa Utility Board will hold hearings starting tomorrow, January 14, at 10 am. The hearings will take place at the Whitehall Auditorium on the grounds of the Iowa Veterans Home (1301 Summit St, Marshalltown).

The invaluable noneed4thneed has information on the testimony of Iowa native James Hansen, a climate scientist from NASA.

After the jump I’m putting information about events this week organized by the Cedar Rapids-based environmental law group Plains Justice. For more on that group, check out their website.

If you attend any of these events, or hearings at the IUB, please put up a diary with your impressions.

If you ever want to look up which states are voting on which dates this year, click on this page at the Project Vote Smart site.  

I urge all of you to click on this diary by MyDD user Silver Spring, who analyzed the county-level results from Iowa and New Hampshire.

I am not convinced by all of the arguments in this diary, but it is a great piece of work. I have asked Silver Spring to cross-post here, so I can promote it to the front page. In the meantime, you all should head over to MyDD and read it for yourself.

I haven’t yet had a chance to dig into the county-level results from Iowa, so I greatly appreciate this effort.

This kind of in-depth analysis sets the blogs apart from superficial mainstream media coverage.

Thanks to Betsy for the roundup. -desmoinesdem

Once again the writers at the state community blogs are busy staying on top of local and state news and bringing local flavor to national news. It takes longer each week to pull this together because I find myself caught up in reading the excellent coverage provided by these state blogs.

Find an interesting post and jump in the conversation. If you don’t see your state represented here, check out the state blogroll at Open Left or MyDD.

The rest is after the jump.

Dennis Kucinich and some Republican I’ve never heard of demanded full hand recounts of the results from the New Hampshire primary, and they will get their wish.

I welcome this news. I doubt there were any serious irregularities in how votes were counted, but anything that restores people’s faith in the election process is good in my view.

In case you haven’t been following this story on other blogs, some Obama supporters have alleged that voting machines were rigged to hand victory to Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.

Oh, my. Watch this ad Mike Huckabee is currently running in Michigan (hat tip to noneed4thneed).

Key line:

I believe most Americans want their next President to remind them of they guy they work with, not the guy who laid them off.

Michigan is must-win for Mitt Romney, whose father used to be governor of the state. That line should be devastating for him.

Huckabee has long been despised by the Club for Growth set. He wisely decided that as a presidential candidate, he would do better to advocate for middle-class interests rather than pandering to the business wing of the GOP. Noneed4thneed put up this amazing clip of Huckabee on Hardball a few months ago. It’s worth watching. I still can’t believe a Republican presidential candidate is willing to say his party should stop being “a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street and the corporations.”

If you missed this a few weeks ago, take Politico’s “populist pop quiz” and try to guess which quotations are from Huckabee and which are from John Edwards.

I do worry about the prospect of running against Huckabee. He is a strong communicator, and he could pull Reagan Democrats his way.

On the other hand, a lot of moderate Republicans would probably vote Democrat if he were the nominee. Also, it shouldn’t be hard for our candidate to make the public understand what a truly awful idea the “fair tax” is.

I'm not watching, but if you are, please share your impressions of that crowd.

While I still think Edwards would be our best candidate against the Republicans, lately I've been thinking that if we only could choose among the front-runners, Obama would do better against Huckabee, while Hillary might do better against McCain. Either of them would crush Romney. What do you think?

UPDATE: I caught most of the rerun on Fox. Apparently the focus group liked Thompson, which amazes me. Huckabee is clearly the superior communicator in my mind. He has a talent for keeping your attention without overdoing it.

MyDD user desmoulins, who has been trained as a temporary precinct chair for the upcoming Nevada caucuses, posted this useful diary on the differences between the Nevada caucus rules and the ones drafted by the Iowa Democratic Party.

I encourage you all to click the link and read his diary, along with the discussion thread. We would benefit from incorporating some of the changes Nevada Democrats have made.

One key difference is that in Nevada, only supporters of non-viable candidates will be able to switch to a different corner during the realignment period. That will cut down on the gamesmanship whereby precinct captains of viable candidates direct a small number of people to a rival corner in order to change the delegate count.

UPDATE: desmoulins put up this interesting post about the campaign on the ground in Nevada:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008…

It’s one of those rare days when I largely agree with David Yepsen’s latest column: Parties must probe caucus complaints, make fixes. He points out that any problems with the way the caucuses were run will be fodder for those who will try to deprive Iowa of first-in-the-nation status for the next campaign.

Already the Republican Party will be looking to ditch Iowa, because the GOP establishment can’t stand Mike Huckabee. If Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee and wins, or if Barack Obama becomes the Democratic nominee and loses, the Democratic Party establishment will also have the knives out for Iowa.

Yepsen suggests moving the caucuses to Saturday at 5 pm, a time when fewer shift workers are on duty and young families may find it easier to get a baby-sitter. I would support that change.

Yepsen lists some of the alleged problems with the caucuses, but he left out some very disturbing problems I’ve heard about. One of the most troubling reports, written by observers in a precinct on Des Moines’ south side, maintained that counting was rushed to prevent second-tier candidates from becoming viable.

I was also sorry to hear some accounts of bullying the supporters of non-viable candidates. Daily Kos user neia was disturbed by what happened at the caucus in Strawberry Point (northeast Iowa). While I am sure this is the exception, not the rule, the Iowa Democratic Party should train precinct chairs to prevent anyone from exerting undue pressure on caucus-goers during the realignment period.

UPDATE: This Daily Kos diary includes more allegations about irregularities:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Several people have asked me what happened at my precinct caucus. I told part of the story last week, but in case anyone is interested, the longer version is after the jump.

Use this as an open thread to tell the story of your precinct caucus, whether or not there were problems with the way it operated.

Barack Obama is sitting pretty ten days before the Nevada caucuses, having snagged the endorsements of the Nevada chapter of the Service Employees International Union as well as the Culinary workers and their parent union, UNITE HERE. UNITE HERE is the first national union to endorse Obama.

In September, the national SEIU was very close to endorsing Edwards, but backed off and left the decision to state chapters. Since then, 11 state chapters of the SEIU have backed Edwards, and four or five have backed Obama.

We are seeing the consequences of Iowa failing to deliver for John Edwards. The Nevada unions were ready to jump in for him if he had won here. He also would have been helped in Nevada by the California SEIU, which has already endorsed him. But now that the Nevada SEIU is behind Obama, state chapters backing other candidates can’t send their members to campaign in Nevada.

Edwards was never likely to do well in New Hampshire, but he would have had a real shot at Nevada with union backing. Now he is forced to focus on South Carolina, where he is substantially behind Obama and Clinton in the polls.

If Obama does win the nomination and the presidency, I seriously doubt he will do much for labor unions. That would interfere with his posturing as the bipartisan president pushing a unity agenda.

But it isn’t the first time labor unions have picked the candidate they viewed as most likely to win, rather than the candidate most likely to become their champion. That’s the way the world works.

UPDATE: Over at MyDD, Jonathan Singer wonders if these endorsements post a danger to Obama by raising his expectations in Nevada, where he has trailed Clinton in the polls:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008…

SECOND UPDATE: Daily Kos user greenmountainboy was just in Nevada and has this to say:

The union workers and precinct captains are PISSED that their leaders pulled this crap of not supporting Edwards. They continue to run house parties for him and love the man. The power structure (Clinton and Obama) know that if Edwards gets any roots in ANY ONE of these states they are in for a real fight. If that happens watch how quickly Clinton and O’Baby join forces for “change”.

I got this e-mail from a fellow Sierra Club member:

Now that the caucuses are behind us, there is another way to get involved in energy and environmental issues.  We have a special treat for you this month – international global warming spokesman and Iowa native Dr. James Hansen of NASA will be returning to Iowa the week of January 14th to testify against the construction of a new coal burning power plant in Marshalltown.  We need your help today to convince Governor Culver and the Iowa Utilities Board to listen to the scientific experts, and the people of Iowa, and reject the construction of this major new source of pollution.  Our leaders should choose a clean, efficient energy future that will help Iowa’s economy grow.  They should put off any decision on dirty, expensive coal until we determine if efficiency and renewable power are sufficient to power the state.  Please take thirty seconds to contact the Iowa Utilities Board by clicking on the link below:

http://capwiz.com/iowacci/issu…

Then let us know you wrote the Iowa Utilities Board by just replying to this email (mark.kresowik AT sierraclub.org).  An even more powerful action would be writing a letter in hard copy and faxing it to the Governor’s Office at 515-281-6611 (fax) or sending it to:

Governor Chet Culver and Lt. Governor Patty Judge

State Capitol

Des Moines, IA 50319

515-281-5211 (phone)

Best yet, come testify in person to the Iowa Utilities Board starting at 10:00 AM on Monday, January 14th at the Whitehall Auditorium on the grounds of the Iowa Veterans Home (1301 Summit St, Marshalltown) .  

According to a recent survey nearly four out of five Iowans think that “Iowa should focus on increased (energy) conservation steps and more fuel efficiency to reduce demand for electricity before it constructs new coal-fired power plants” (http://plainsjustice.org/survey-iowa-voters-say-no-new-coal/). Coal burning power plants are the single largest source of global warming pollution in the United States and Iowa is over-dependent on this dirty form of energy.  The first step we need to take to combat global warming is to stop the construction of proposed coal plants in Marshalltown and Waterloo and invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy.  The Governor should continue his pledge to make Iowa the renewable energy capitol of the world and stop these plants.  Please contact the Iowa Utilities Board and the Governor today:

http://capwiz.com/iowacci/issu…

You can also hear Dr. Hansen and other expert witnesses for the Office of the Consumer Advocate and Plains Justice – who have concluded unanimously that the Marshalltown plant is unnecessary and will in fact put Iowa ratepayers at far greater risk than more prudent alternatives – in person on January 16th at 7:00 PM at the State Historical Building (600 East Locust) in Des Moines or January 17th at 7:00 PM at Old Brick (26 E. Market) in Iowa City.

So it’s the day before the important New Hampshire primary. What is the political press obsessing about? Whether Hillary Clinton teared up and what the other candidates had to say about it.

It goes back to what CBS correspondent Chip Reid revealed not long ago:

Let’s face it – a lot of what political reporters report on is mistakes.

Please, journalists, stop insulting our intelligence. I don’t care if you think getting emotional is a mistake. It’s ridiculous for you to ask other candidates to comment on Hillary’s emotion. The only purpose of a question like that is to trick them into committing a gaffe.

None of this trivia has anything to do with who would be the best president. Try reporting on some issues for once.

Last month I put up this post on Republican culture, inspired by an article about a Republican focus group watching a presidential debate.

Reading this piece by Joe Klein today, I noticed that the Republican focus group watching the latest debate preferred Mitt Romney to John McCain. Among other things,

They just adored his position on illegal immigration (their dials plummeted when McCain said we had to be “humane.”)

No, we sure wouldn’t want to be humane in our approach to a complicated issue affecting the lives of millions. That’s Republican culture in a nutshell.

I have a lot of questions about the deal struck between the Obama and Richardson campaigns, and I would be grateful to Bleeding Heartland readers who can shed light on any of them.

1. How much initial support did Richardson have last night? The Iowa Democratic Party does not report this information. I would like to hear from as many people as possible about how many people were in Richardson’s corner after the first division into preference groups. In my precinct he had 28 out of 293 people, or about 9.6 percent.

2. Was this a one-way deal, or did the Obama campaign promise to instruct its captains to help Richardson become viable where he was close to the threshold?

Obama volunteers out there, did you get any encouragement to help Richardson out at the caucus?

I’m assuming that either this wasn’t part of the deal, or Obama volunteers did not follow through, because Richardson only ended up with 2.1 percent of the state delegates. Clearly he fell below the threshold in many, many places.

3. Did the Richardson supporters predominantly go to Obama during the realignment? In my precinct a lot came to Edwards–perhaps even more than the number who went to Obama, though I can’t be sure of that. However, a friend who’s an Obama precinct captain near Hoover High School told me that in her precinct the Richardson captain brought pretty much the whole group over. Marc Ambinder observed something similar.

If Richardson had 8-10 percent support in a lot of precincts, and this deal really did transfer his supporters overwhelmingly to Obama, that alone accounts for Obama’s winning margin.

I would like to hear from as many Iowans as possible about how the Richardson supporters moved during realignment at your caucus. If you don’t want to post a comment, please e-mail me at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.

4. Was there some kind of falling out recently between Richardson and Clinton? For most of the year people assumed that if Richardson struck any kind of deal, it would be with Hillary. Bill Clinton elevated him from Congress to UN ambassador and later to secretary of energy, and Richardson and the Clintons have a similar outlook on trade and other economic issues.

If any Bleeding Heartland readers were involved in the Clinton or Richardson campaigns and can shed light on this question, please let us know or e-mail me confidentially.

UPDATE: I am hearing more stories from friends all the time. In one neighboring precinct, the Clinton people sent enough supporters to make Richardson viable so that Edwards would not get an extra delegate. In another precinct, the Dodd, Richardson and Biden groups combined were 19 short of viability. Obama’s group had more than enough people to send over 19 without losing any of their delegates, but they refused, so most of the Dodd, Richardson and Biden group went over to Edwards.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos and MyDD. Please take the poll and comment. Now’s a good time to discuss the merits of the system we experienced last night.

When I publish a diary criticizing the caucus system, I usually hear from at least one person defending the caucuses.

This diary lists the arguments I’ve heard in favor of the caucus system, along with my responses.

More is after the jump.

I was skeptical, but clearly the strategy of focusing on first-time caucus-goers paid off in a big way for Barack Obama.

Turnout in my precinct went from 175 in 2004 to 293 tonight. That was way more than I ever imagined possible.

We had first-timers in our Edwards group, and so did Hillary, and for all I know Richardson and Biden did too. But there’s no question that the Obama group had the most first-time caucus-goers.

After the first division into preference groups, we had Obama 86, Edwards 83, Clinton 63, Richardson 28, Biden 24 and Dodd 9. To be viable, candidates needed 44 supporters.

After the second division into preference groups, Edwards had 115, Obama had 103, and Clinton had 72, but unfortunately, the math worked out to 2 delegates for each candidate.

In retrospect, the Edwards and Obama groups would have been better off helping Richardson to be viable. Then the delegates would have been split 2 Edwards, 2 Obama, 1 Clinton and 1 Richardson. But there was no way to know that, and during the realignment of course the Edwards and Obama groups were focused on attracting enough supporters to win that third delegate.

It’s very similar to what happened in my precinct in 1988. The delegates split 2-2-2 despite a fairly large difference in size between the largest and the smallest. That’s the caucus system for you.

By the way, the Richardson precinct captain confirmed that the campaign was advising people to go to Obama. However, a lot of them came over to Edwards anyway. The Biden precinct captain told me he did not receive any similar instruction from that campaign.

Various media and blogs are reporting that Richardson's campaign is instructing precinct captains to advise supporters to go to Obama if Richardson is not viable.

So far no official confirmation from the Richardson campaign.

I find it hard to belive that most Richardson supporters will go to Obama, but who knows? I'll ask the captain in my precinct later today.

Anyone else have information on this?

It’s put up or shut up time. How are the candidates going to do tomorrow night?

I don’t think all three will finish closely bunched together. Either someone will win by a clear margin, or someone will be in third by a clear margin.

I am having trouble making my final prediction, because I wouldn’t be too surprised by any one of the top three winning. Here goes:

Edwards 35 percent

Obama 28 percent

Clinton 27 percent

Biden 5 percent

Richardson 4 percent

Dodd 1 percent

Kucinich 0 percent

In my precinct: 2 delegates for Edwards, 2 for Clinton, 1 for Obama, 1 for Biden

I would so love to get that third delegate for Edwards, but I fear we will fall short.

On the Republican side, I have no clue about the numbers, but I think the order will be Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Giuliani, Paul, Thompson, Keyes, Cox, Hunter. I don’t think Steve King is going to deliver anything significant to Fred Thompson.

UPDATE: I forgot to include my prediction for Democratic turnout: 140,000. I have no clue about the Republican turnout, except that it will be less than 100,000.

I was knocking on doors in my precinct on Sunday, and I noticed a few Ron Paul brochures stuck in the doors of Democratic households. At first I thought they might be homes where one spouse is a Democrat and the other is a Republican, but checking my list, they seemed to be homes where both residents are registered Ds.

I did not examine the flier closely, so I don’t know whether it came from Paul’s campaign or from an outside group supporting him.

On Sunday night or Monday night, I got a robocall supporting Paul. The script emphasized that Democrats in Congress have failed to end the war, and none of the Democratic candidates would be able to end the war. It urged me to caucus for Ron Paul because unlike the Democrats, he has always been against the war and would be able to end the war. It also mentioned a few of Paul’s other policy positions.

My kids were making too much noise for me to hear the name of the group that paid for the robocall. I did catch the “not authorized by any candidate or any candidate’s committee” at the end, so it wasn’t the Paul campaign.

This seems like a complete waste of money to me. Are there really a bunch of Democrats who can’t find anyone they like in our current field? Even hard-core antiwar Democrats can still caucus for Kucinich if they like.

But maybe I’m wrong and these tactics will persuade a significant number of Democrats to cross over and caucus on the GOP side.

Anyone else get this phone call or leaflet? Do you know any Democrats who plan to caucus for Ron Paul?

and anyone asks me how she did it, I will point them to this recent article in the New York Times. Yes, Hillary’s got a lot of advantages: she raised a ton of money, she’s hired a huge Iowa staff (approximately 400 people), she’s got a former two-term governor and former two-term president campaigning for her.

But there are smart ways and dumb ways to spend money. Reading this article, I was impressed with some of her campaign’s tactics.

We Iowans joke about how there’s always a presidential candidate willing to pour us coffee, take out the trash and shovel our snow. But Hillary’s precinct captains really are going to shovel snow for her supporters:

Mrs. Clinton’s office here is filled with hundreds of new green snow shovels that were being strategically distributed on Saturday to precinct captains to clear the walks of older women who might be particularly wary of going out to the caucuses in bad weather. The campaign has printed doorknob hangers with caucus locations printed in extra-large type, also to accommodate these older first-time caucusers.

The article talks about microtargeting methods that both the Clinton and Obama campaigns have been using. That’s not surprising, but I thought this was truly a master stroke:

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, in the first mailing to first-time caucusgoers who pledge to support her, includes porcelain lapel pins identifying them as Clinton supporters. Mrs. Clinton looks for women wearing those pins at her events and praises them for caucusing for the first time.

What a great idea. A lot of women will wear that lapel pin, and it’s an easy way for Hillary to spot first-time caucus-goers in a crowd. I would think that once someone has been singled out and thanked by Hillary, she would feel an extra obligation to show up on caucus night.

It is not easy to turn out thousands of people who have never caucused before. Hillary’s not my first, second or third choice, but if she can pull this off, her campaign deserves a lot of credit.

The article also alludes to Clinton campaign plans to have caterers bring food to serve to her supporters at pre-caucus parties on the caucus sites. Nate Willems suggested that was treading close to the vote-buying line and sparked an interesting discussion at MyDD tonight.

Finally, a quick question for Bleeding Heartland readers. The NY Times article quotes Michael Whouley, who came to Iowa last time to help with John Kerry’s field operation. It identified him as “a veteran Iowa caucus organizer, who is supporting Mrs. Clinton but is one of the few major Democratic strategists who have not come to Iowa for this fight.”

I thought I heard somewhere that Whouley was in Iowa to help the Clinton campaign. Anyone know if he’s been here?

UPDATE: Another thing money can buy is two minutes of television during the 6 pm newscasts in Iowa. Here is her final pitch. I think it hits the themes she needs to emphasize, but I am not convinced it will bring over a lot of undecided voters:

cross-posted at Daily Kos

In December 2003, as John Edwards yard signs were sprouting like weeds around Des Moines, I knew Edwards was coming on strong when I spoke to a friend who had described himself and his wife as firm Howard Dean supporters in the spring. Not only were he and his wife now backing Edwards, he had signed up to be a precinct captain.

I was surprised, because he had indicated that the war was his number one issue, and I wanted to know why he was willing to overlook Edwards’ vote on the AUMF.

I can’t remember his exact words, but they went something like this: I want Edwards to make the case against George Bush with the American people as the jury.

In other diaries, I have explained how I came to support Edwards for president, and have written about various policies he is proposing.

Today I want to focus on Edwards’ skills as an advocate. I think he’s the best in our field to make the case for Democrats and for the progressive change we need.

I’ve been feeling for months that in December, when undecided Iowans started making up their minds, there would be significant movement toward one of the second-tier candidates. Some politically active Democrats are not satisfied with any of the top-tier candidates and are willing to give underdogs a chance.

This diary is about how Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd are campaigning in Iowa, how I think they will do on January 3, and how their showing could affect John Edwards, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

A few other observations related to these candidates’ prospects can be found in How the Iowa caucuses work, part 8, which you may not have seen over the weekend.

Much more is after the jump.

Gordon Fischer put up this post at Iowa True Blue, titled “Ten Reasons to Support Barack Obama on Thursday, January 3”:

http://www.iowatrueblue.com/Bl…

10.  Barack Obama opposed the Iraq War from the start.

9.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2002.

8.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2003.

7.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2004.

6.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2005.

5.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2006.

4.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2007.

3.  The Iraq War may well be the biggest foreign policy fiasco in our nation’s history.

2.  Barack Obama had the right judgment from the start, all the way until now — the Iraq War was a tremendous mistake.

1.  The Iraq War has cost us several thousand American lives, many more wonded, and literally billions of dollars.  And, ultimately, it has made our great country less safe.

Since Gordon does not post comments on his blog, I am asking my question here.

In what way was Barack Obama opposing the Iraq War in 2005 and 2006, when, as a senator, he voted for Iraq War supplemental funding bills?

As a candidate for Senate in the spring of 2004, he said it was time for Democrats to stop getting “steamrolled” by Bush on war funding. That was around the time that John Kerry and John Edwards voted against the $87 billion supplemental funding bill (the vote was 88-12–that was way before the majority of Americans turned against the war).

Then Obama got elected and voted several times to keep funding the war.

This spring, Chris Dodd led the opposition to the latest supplemental funding bill within the Senate, but Obama sat on the sidelines. Edwards urged Congress to reject any more war funding with no timeline for withdrawing troops. (“No timeline, no funding. No excuses.”)

But Obama didn’t even announce how he would vote, let alone lead the charge to attach a timeline for drawing down troops. He and Hillary sat there until almost everyone else had voted, then finally cast their “no” votes.

Tell me again, what has Obama done to oppose the Iraq War in 2005, 2006 and 2007? Other than continually give speeches reminding people that he called it a “dumb war”?

Obama has failed to lead on defunding the war, despite suggesting before he was elected that he would take a firm line on war funding.

It’s been obvious for a long time that Bush will never draw down troops unless Congress forces his hand by using the power of the purse.

P.S. in response to this post:

http://www.iowatrueblue.com/Bl…

John Edwards has never taken money from federal PACs or federal lobbyists. And it’s a bit rich for an Obama supporter to complain about people backing other candidates trying to “buy” the Iowa caucuses, when Obama has spent more than $8 million on tv ads alone in Iowa. Who knows how many millions he will have spent on his campaign here when it’s all over?  

In a primary or general election, you win your precinct by getting more people to vote for your candidate than for any other candidate.

But in the Iowa caucuses, there must be 50 ways to win your precinct.

OK, maybe not 50, but a lot of ways. I’ll go over them after the jump.

I got a flier today from the American Federation of Teachers, which has endorsed Hillary Clinton. The mailer cites part of the Des Moines Register’s endorsement of Clinton to make the case that, “Hillary is prepared to bring real change.”

I’ve noticed that all of the candidates have been reaching out to teachers, referencing their education plans in campaign appearances and direct-mail pieces. Bill Richardson has emphasized his “bold” education plan in more than one piece, and he and Joe Biden have both emphasized that they would scrap No Child Left Behind.

Daily Kos user teacherken (teacherken.dailykos.com) has reviewed several of the candidates’ education proposals and has had high praise for both the Edwards and Obama plans.

The teachers I know seem to be all over the map–I don’t see any one candidate dominating this group, which will account for a large number of caucus-goers.

Those of you who are teachers, are married to teachers, or know a lot of teachers, who do you think will win this group?

Well, well, well. The conservative establishment loves when evangelicals vote Republican, but apparently they don’t love it when evangelicals plan to vote for one of their own.

Blogger Jeff Fuller, who supports Mitt Romney, put up this incredibly long list of “conservative/GOP icons” who have criticized Mike Huckabee lately. (hat tip to Jerome Armstrong)

Will Huckabee be able to withstand so much incoming fire?

By the way, a homeschooler who supports Huckabee tells me that Ron Paul supporters are circulating the hit piece I referenced a few days ago, which claims Huckabee is no friend to homeschoolers.

Jerome Armstrong put up this post at MyDD with graphs comparing the Clinton, Edwards and Obama campaigns with the Kerry 2004 campaign in terms of paid staff in Iowa, field offices in Iowa, days spent campaigning in Iowa, and money spent on tv in Iowa:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007…

It’s worth your time to click through and read the post.

The Des Moines Register reported on Saturday that some family farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates are upset about Hillary Clinton’s choice of Joy Philippi to co-chair “Rural Americans for Hillary.”

Clinton has talked about more regulations of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), but  

Philippi is a recent past president of the National Pork Producers Council.

“That’s the poster organization for corporate agriculture,” said [family farmer Garry] Klicker, who owns about 120 acres in rural Bloomfield and raises about 130 cows and calves.

Klicker said that because Clinton picked Philippi, he doesn’t believe the candidate when she says she will champion small farms if she is elected president.

“I’m just very disappointed that Hillary would turn her back on us like this,” said Klicker, who said he is unsure whom he will caucus for but is leaning toward Democrat Joe Biden. “She says she’ll do one thing, yet when you surround yourself with people who are against the rest of us, we can’t expect anything good to happen on family farm issues.”

I know some Hillary supporters believe that she is just campaigning as a moderate and would govern as a true progressive. Stories like this are why I have a lot of trouble believing that. Corporate ag interests have too much power, and I can’t see Hillary taking them on.

cross-posted at Daily Kos and MyDD

A few weeks ago I wrote a diary on where the Democratic presidential candidates have field offices in Iowa.

My purpose was to document the information so that after January 3, we can see whether campaigns with the most field offices did better in the counties where rivals had field organizers and volunteers working without the visibility of an office.

I am publishing a new version of this diary because several campaigns have added more field offices this month. Also, someone at the Iowa Democratic Party informed me of slight adjustments to the number of state delegates awarded by a handful of counties.

More information than you probably wanted to know is after the jump.

Earlier this year, Bleeding Heartland co-founder Drew Miller created a caucus math spreadsheet so we could play around with different scenarios and see how delegates would be allocated:

http://www.bleedingheartland.c…

Now Daily Kos and MyDD user asahopkins has created an Iowa Caucus Calculator website, which also is a user-friendly way to explore caucus math:

http://caucusmath.com/

You enter the number of delegates for your pretend precinct as well as the total number of attendees and the number of supporters for each candidate, and it tells you how the delegates would be assigned.

Have fun!

More than a month ago I put up a few political trivia questions, inspired by Chris Dodd’s ability to name the five Iowa counties that voted for John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election (Dubuque, Wapello, Carroll, Chickasaw, Palo Alto).

1. How many counties did Bonnie Campbell carry during the 1994 gubernatorial election? (Sadly, I remember this all too well.)

2. What was the only Iowa county that voted for both JFK and Bonnie Campbell?

Extra credit if you can name all of the counties Bonnie carried in 1994 (without peeking).

I forgot to post the answers, so I’m putting them after the jump, along with a story about why I know the answer to the extra credit question.

Earlier today someone called asking for my husband (mispronouncing his name). I offered to take a message, and she said she'd call back later.

She called back during dinner. We took the call, and once he realized what kind of poll it was, my husband put it on speakerphone so that I could listen.

After the jump I've put the questions as closely as we can remember them.

Mike Huckabee’s rapid rise in the polls, both national as well as early-state, may have come a bit too soon. Romney has been running negative ads against him, and other information that does not cast Huckabee in a flattering light is trickling into the media discourse.

Mike Allen is reporting on the Politico blog that Huckabee is still earning an undisclosed amount of money from speaking fees while campaigning for president. It’s nothing like the kind of cash Rudy Giuliani pulls in, but could this story damage Huckabee’s image?

Meanwhile, below the radar, a hit piece claiming Huckabee is “no friend of homeschoolers” is apparently making the rounds on conservative homeschoolers’ blogs.

I’m betting Huckabee can ride this stuff out, at least in Iowa. But probably he would have been better served by peaking a few weeks later. What do you think?

It’s the day after Christmas, and hundreds or perhaps thousands of Democrats from all over the country will soon travel to Iowa to volunteer for their favorite presidential candidate.

I know we are supposed to laugh at the “fish out of water” trying to persuade Iowa caucus-goers, but I appreciate the level of commitment these people show by coming here and walking the walk.

Gordon Fischer linked to this article from the New York Observer: Hillary Bundlers Canvass, Humbly, in Iowa. He titled his post, “Future Presidential Candidates Take Note: How NOT To Run An Iowa Campaign.”

I admit that I laughed a few times when I read the article, but mostly I give these rich New Yorkers a lot of credit. They’re wealthy enough to pay other people to do everything for them, but here they were on a cold day in December, walking the streets of Ames to encourage Iowans to caucus for their personal friend, Hillary Clinton.

I like reading diaries by out-of-state volunteers, no matter which candidate they are supporting. So if you are visiting Iowa to help out with a campaign, consider putting up a diary like this one by icebergslim or this one by clarkent to tell us about your experiences.

If you’re in the Des Moines area and need restaurant recommendations, e-mail me at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com. We have a lot of good options!

Merry Christmas to all of the Bleeding Heartland readers who celebrate the holiday!

And for those of you who are Jewish like me, enjoy the day off and maybe pick up some ethnic food.

Speaking of which, it turns out that Mike Huckabee’s family has a tradition of going out for Chinese food on Christmas Eve–who’d have thunk it?

Link is here:

http://www.politico.com/news/s…

I can be tough on David Yepsen from time to time, but the worst columnist at the Des Moines Register has to be John Carlson. It wouldn’t be so bad if he stuck to his usual human-interest columns, but whenever he strays into the political arena, the results are embarrassing.

His latest column on Christmas wishes has this passage buried in the middle:

To Mike Huckabee and Joe Biden. Huckabee, because he showed that an unknown with very little cash can travel Iowa, deliver a popular message and become a national political figure. It is the point of our first-in-the-nation caucuses. Biden, because he is possibly the most qualified and thoughtful of all the candidates running for president, and, sadly, he’s losing out to celebrity and money.

Excuse me? Carlson is now disappointed that a qualified and thoughtful candidate hasn’t broken out?

Is this the same Carlson who just a week ago was making fun of campaign staffers who call him about the caucuses?

The same Carlson whose column after the Des Moines Register-sponsored debate was full of approving quotes from cynical people who watched the debate while getting their haircut? The tone of that column is classic Carlson: while politicians are yakking, most Iowans (read: normal people) have better things to do and don’t believe anything the politicians say.

Carlson should stick to writing about church suppers and heart-warming charity projects. If he’s such a fan of Joe Biden, he could have done more during the year to encourage his readers to take the campaign seriously, get out there and listen to the second-tier candidates.  

As you recall, a federal jury recently acquitted Matt McCoy after deliberating for less than two hours–an embarrassing outcome for the prosecution.

Marc Hansen, who for my money is the best columnist at the Des Moines Register, wrote a good column about speculation that politics influenced McCoy’s prosecution. Key passage:

Most Democrats you talk to around here say politics was behind the prosecution of state Sen. Matt McCoy.

They have their reasons. Some even sound legitimate, especially in light of a recent University of Minnesota study that brings hard numbers to the discussion.

For every elected Republican the Justice Department has investigated during the George W. Bush years, seven elected Democrats have been investigated, the research says.

Can that be right? Are there really that many more bad-apple Democrats?

The jury took about an hour and a half last week to decide that McCoy wasn’t guilty of attempted extortion. And that includes lunch.

Rekha Basu wrote a good column last week: Question lingers: Why was McCoy prosecuted? Click the link–it’s worth your time to read the whole thing. This passage toward the end was news to me:

McCoy’s defense tried to get access to memos between the FBI, Justice Department and local U.S. attorney’s office, but was turned down in U.S. District Court. His lawyers wanted to see whether anything indicated a political motivation. There’s nothing else they can do, says attorney F. Montgomery Brown. “Prosecutors have near absolute immunity. There’s just no remedy there.”

There is one, but it would have to come from a member of Congress. Sens. Tom Harkin or Chuck Grassley can and should request access to the correspondence. Voters and taxpayers deserve to know whether this was just a poorly conceived and badly bungled effort by the government – or whether something else was going on.

Grassley would never help on this matter, but I wonder if Harkin would consider it.

Also, I wonder if anyone on the Talking Points Memo muckraking staff has looked into this prosecution.

I’ve always been skeptical that the deal between Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards was a big factor in 2004. A lot of Kucinich supporters did go to Edwards where Dennis was not viable, but a lot went to Howard Dean despite the deal.

The Dick Gephardt supporters who flowed to Edwards as a second choice were much more numerous, and they overwhelmingly chose Edwards in the absence of any formal deal between the candidates.

I see a lot of speculation on the blogs about Bill Richardson instructing his supporters to choose Hillary Clinton if he is not viable. I don’t expect him to make that kind of announcement, and even if he did, I don’t expect that most of his supporters would move that way.

The little deals that precinct captains all over the state will make could be important, especially if Clinton’s captains try to deprive Barack Obama of delegates and vice versa.

But I don’t expect any kind of public instruction from the Democratic candidates about whom their supporters should back as a second choice.

What do you think?

CBS reporter Chip Reid is “embedded” with John Edwards’ campaign and posted this on the CBS blog:

I’m a bit unhappy with John Edwards. I’ve been covering his campaign for 10 days and he hasn’t made a lot of news. Let’s face it – a lot of what political reporters report on is mistakes. The campaign trail is one long minefield, covered with Iowa cow pies, and when they step in one – we leap.

I’ve done very little leaping – and I blame Edwards. While other candidates misspeak, over-speak, and double-speak, Edwards (at least in these 10 days) has made so few mistakes that I end up being transported — newsless — from town to town like a sack of Iowa corn .

He has a remarkable ability to stay on message. Not just in “the speech,” but even in Q and A. Nothing throws him off. He turns nearly every question into another opportunity to repeat his central theme. Global warming? We need to fight big oil. Health care? Fight the big drug and insurance companies. Iowa farmers’ problems? Blame those monster farm conglomerates. And the Iowa populists eat it up. We’ll see how well it works in other states.

He’s even disciplined in his daily routine. While most reporters use the campaign trail as an excuse to over-eat and abandon their exercise routines, Edwards squeezes in a run EVERY DAY, rain, sleet, or shine.

Come on John – relax. Step in an Iowa cow pie and let me do my job.

Like my grandmother used to say, many a truth is told in a joke. Reid is half-joking, but the truth is that journalists would much prefer to cover a gaffe than report on a non-eventful day on the stump.

Here’s an idea: how about coming up with story ideas on your own, rather than waiting for the candidates to slip up?

Reid could tell us what the crowds are like at the Edwards events he covers. How many people are showing up? What’s the average age? More women or men? Are the people at these rallies mostly committed Edwards supporters, or are there significant numbers of undecided voters?

Alternatively, he could spend some time analyzing an issue Edwards brings up in his stump speech. How does that issue relate to the lives of Iowans in town X where Edwards is speaking? How does Edwards’ approach to that issue compare to what other candidates propose?

On any given day, Daily Kos users post numerous substantive diaries about the various presidential candidates. Some are about candidates’ stand on important issues, and some are about campaign strategy.

While Reid complains that Edwards isn’t giving him anything to write about, the Edwards Evening News Roundups are packed with information every day.

If these citizen journalists can come up with something interesting to write about, why is a CBS reporter sitting around waiting for a candidate to make a mistake?

“Gotcha” journalism does not serve voters well. Reporters following the campaigns need to figure out a better way to do their jobs.

I don’t read the Washington Times, but MyDD user Piuma noticed a piece there about El Latino, Iowa’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, endorsing Barack Obama. Here is a link to Piuma’s diary.

The El Latino editorial includes this line, which appears to be aimed at Hillary Clinton:

No other presidential candidate, particularly divisive candidates, can unite Congress and secure the votes to finally pass comprehensive immigration reform.

(I would add that it’s a fantasy to think that any presidential candidate will be able to unite Congress on any controversial issue, but that’s a matter for another post.)

In the comments below the diary, Piuma notes:

The Obama campaign has made an outreach to the Latino community and he is endorsed by Perla A., the Vice-President of Siouxland Unidad Latina, the area’s oldest and largest Latino organization, as well as City Councilmember Sara Monroy Huddleston, one of four Latino elected officials in Iowa.  This may be one of the many surprise groups Obama will turn out who have been ignored by polling.

Obama has several field offices in Iowa towns with significant Latino populations.

I have felt all year that Obama is the candidate who would benefit most from a primary rather than a caucus, because his support appears to be more concentrated in some parts of the state. However if his campaign can turn out large numbers of Latino supporters, then he could get a significant number of delegates in towns and neighborhoods where there are a lot of Latino residents.

This newspaper endorsement is a good get for Obama and has to be disappointing for Bill Richardson.

I have seen national polling suggesting that Hillary Clinton has much more support among Latinos than Obama does. Jerome Armstrong recently argued that Obama would fare poorly against John McCain among Latino voters. It will be interesting to see if Obama can win strong support among Latinos in Iowa. If so, that could help him in several of the states that will hold primaries on February 5.

It’s obvious from the recent polling in Iowa that the top three candidates are bunched closely together. The ground game will decide the outcome on January 3.

Jerome Armstrong, founder of MyDD and “blogfather” of Daily Kos, came up with this prediction about how turnout will influence the Democratic results:

Turnout numbers        Favors

<150,000               Edwards

150-170,000            Clinton

>170,000               Obama

Basically, if it’s all the tried and true 2004 caucus goers, plus another 25% or so, that Edwards has the advantage. If it winds up being a blown out caucus that has greater than 50,000 more attendees than 2004 (most of the polls are working off this assumption), then Obama wins. If it’s somewhere in the middle, bigger than what would be usual but less than what’s being projected in the polls, then it’s basically going to be something like this poll.

Although many speculate that a record turnout would favor Obama and Clinton, I am hoping for good weather and a strong turnout on January 3. I don’t want an Edwards victory to be spun away as the result of a snowstorm.

I highly doubt turnout will exceed 150,000, though. Many regular caucus-goers will miss the caucuses this year because they’d already made vacation plans and will be out of state on January 3.

What do you think about Jerome’s prediction? And how do you think an unusually high or low turnout would affect the Republican results? I have to believe that Huckabee’s ground troops will turn out for him no matter what the weather.

As Chris Woods predicted, Tom Tancredo dropped out of the presidential race at a Thursday press conference. The Des Moines Register reports that he endorsed Romney, saying the former Massachusetts governor “is the best hope for our cause.”

The cause that vaulted the Colorado congressman into the race illegal immigration also motivated him to abandon his pursuit of the nomination, Tancredo said.

His continued presence in an election he could not win, he said, may have helped the campaigns of Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sen. John McCain candidates Tancredo says are soft on immigration.

If you want to relive some highlights from Tancredo’s Iowa campaign, check out this post by Don at Cyclone Conservatives, which includes links to previous posts he wrote after seeing Tancredo in person.

Alternatively, check out noneed4thneed’s posts at Century of the Common Iowan about Tancredo’s tv ads:

http://commoniowan.blogspot.co…

http://commoniowan.blogspot.co…

Interesting how these social conservatives are desperate not to see Huckabee win. First Sam Brownback endorsed John McCain, then Steve King went with Fred Thompson (the two campaigned together on Thursday), and now Tancredo is going with Romney.

Earlier this month, Romney started running this ad in Iowa hitting Huckabee on the immigration issue:

Incidentally, FactCheck.org found some problems with that ad.

I found this short anti-Huckabee YouTube focusing on immigration:

Now Huckabee is touting his own immigration plan on the stump in Iowa. Will he be able to withstand attacks from so many rivals? I’m betting he will as long as the anti-Huckabee forces are divided among several candidates.

Incidentally, a college student I know who interned for Brownback’s campaign this summer and is now volunteering for McCain says the mood is VERY upbeat at McCain’s Iowa HQ.

I’m tired of reading comments like this piece by Des Moines Register columnist John Carlson. Look how he mocks staffers for presidential candidates, who are just doing their jobs:

Campaign staffers, invariably Democrats, call my house every night. I haven’t a clue why they’re calling me. I’m registered independent. I’ve never caucused for a candidate in either party.

Typical conversation:

Do you have any questions about the caucuses?

Not really.

Am I going to caucus?

I dunno, I doubt it.

Do I have any questions about their candidate?

No.

If I did attend a caucus, would I consider their candidate?

I give them an audible shrug. Maybe.

They want to make the sale, but not push too hard. I say nothing more and they take the hint, thank me and hang up.

The truth is, newspaper policy prohibits me from caucusing. I just want to hear what they have to say, and for a while I egged them on.

Look, why doesn’t he just tell them he can’t caucus because of his job at the Register? Why is he making fun of people for calling him, even though he’s a registered independent who hasn’t caucused? Aren’t we supposed to want more participation in the caucuses, so the results have more legitimacy?

I’m also tired of letters to the editor like these ones recently published in the Register.

One letter complains about the frequent phone calls asking their opinions about the race. What’s wrong with polling firms trying to assess the state of the race here? What’s wrong with campaigns trying to identify their supporters?

Two letters complain about political ads on tv. At our house we usually keep the tv turned off, so this isn’t a problem for us. But are the political ads really more offensive than the ads for all kinds of other products viewers are bombarded with every day of the year?

One letter complains about a robocall for Obama by the lady who scuplts the butter cows at the Iowa State Fair. If his campaign thinks people will be influenced by her opinion, what’s wrong with them putting it out there?

One letter complains about the 80-page policy book the Edwards campaign has mailed to some Iowans. Why criticize him for trying to inform potential caucus-goers about more details on policy matters than newspapers have provided? Why blame him for giving Iowans more substance than can fit into a 30-second tv ad? A lot of people I know were glad to get that book in the mail or from a canvasser.

I’m tired of comments like this one that user JSN recently posted at the political blog MyDD:

Evidently 40% of those polled hang up (I am one of them) and we are getting called frequently. Under those circumstances all you can do is average as many polls as possible and hope for the best.

Early on I was called four times in one day. I have friends who have been called twice in a day. In the past week my wife and I have been called five times. In addition we get a giant post card a day from Edwards (after the third card he moved from second choice to 13th).

A long time ago in a galaxy far away it used to be fun to caucus in Iowa. It has not been fun for quite  awhile. We are all looking foreword to Jan 4th when all of the candidates, campaign staff and reporters leave Iowa.

Well, speak for yourself, JSN. Would you rather live in a state that had no influence on the process? Millions of Americans would love to be able to participate in selecting our president. My husband grew up in New Jersey, where the late primary meant they never got any candidate visits until the whole thing was wrapped up.

I don’t mind answering a few pollsters’ questions, and I don’t mind getting some knocks at the door from people trying to engage me in the process.

I also find it fun to meet my Democratic neighbors at the caucuses, even though I have criticized the caucus system in some of my diaries about the process.

As a precinct captain, one question I struggle with is how many times can I contact an undecided caucus-goer without making them angry and therefore less likely to support my candidate. I was struck by this part of a recent article by Roger Simon:

John Norris, who was Kerry’s Iowa director in 2004 and is now an Obama volunteer, thinks any campaigning that matters will end about Dec. 20, which is why the ground game is reaching a fever pitch right now.

Norris talks about a woman who supported Edwards in 2004 but who is now supporting Obama. Why?

“Because an Edwards volunteer only knocked on her door once and we knocked on her door several times,” Norris says.

I have huge respect for John Norris. As a precinct captain for Kerry, I remember how he held that campaign together during the fall of 2003, in the face of so many bad opinion polls.

But I would be afraid to knock on any particular voter’s door too many times, even if I had unlimited time for voter contacts in my precinct. It seems more likely than not that people would start griping about the Edwards precinct captain who kept bothering them.

Upon hearing that the Obama campaign is calling known supporters every three weeks to check on them, Nate Willems, who was a regional director for Howard Dean in Iowa, had this to say:

A late 2003 Dean focus group produced the comment from a participant, “I’d give anything for those Dean people to just quit calling me.”

I find it sad that Iowans, who are privileged to lead the nation in selecting a president, can be so quick to criticize people who are just trying to drum up support for a candidate they believe in.

I appreciate the efforts of all the candidates’ volunteers and staffers. So what if I get a few extra phone calls? It will be over soon enough on January 4.

If you visit Daily Kos, you know that it would practically be a full-time job to read all of the diaries and comments posted there.

As you can see from this post by “jotter,” who keeps track of the “high-impact” diaries at that community blog, there were 1,876 diaries posted on the site just during the week of December 8-14.

I can’t even keep up with all of the diaries about John Edwards at Daily Kos. Many days I rely on the “Edwards Evening News” crew, who summarize the stories of the day and link to many of the good diaries. (Here is a link to all the back issues of the Edwards Evening News Roundup.)

While it’s impossible for me to cite every diary worth reading, I want to call your attention to two from the past week that I found particularly moving. The year we stole a Christmas tree by “chuckles1” was the fourth most-recommended diary out of the 1,876 posted. It inspired “karateexplosions” to write The Timeline of My Decision, which became the highest-impact diary of the week, recommended by more than 750 Kossacks.

I encourage you to click the links and read those diaries. They are compelling first-person accounts of how quickly middle-class Americans can find themselves living in poverty.

Many of our presidential candidates talk about this fine line between a middle-class lifestyle and life below the poverty line. For instance, Hillary Clinton’s “trap door” ad deals with that kind of economic insecurity, and she used the trap door metaphor in the Des Moines Register-sponsored debate last week.

But ultimately, I feel John Edwards is the candidate best able to address the issues that contribute to this problem. Not only has he drafted a plan to end poverty within 30 years, a wide-ranging plan to address hunger and food insecurity and a Rural Recovery Act, his own parents occasionally had trouble making ends meet. Chuckles1 noted in a comment below his diary,

I’ve heard John Edwards talk about this before, that look on your fathers face when he realizes there isn’t enough money. The guilt, the pain.

AND, not having done anything wrong, having worked hard, tried to get ahead, just to be left behind.

I don’t mean to suggest that other candidates in our field feel less compassion for struggling families. But I think Edwards would invest more of the president’s political capital into dealing with poverty. Karateexplosions likes all of our candidates,

But my primary vote goes to Edwards and his message of hope.  I never wanted my children to have to see That Look.  But now that they have, I want to work for an American future that means my children’s children will never have to see That Look.

My spell-checker doesn’t recognize it yet, but I just read on the e-mail list of the Iowa Network for Community Agriculture that

Locavore is 2007 word of the year

The New Oxford American Dictionary chose locavore, a person who seeks out locally produced food, as its word of the year. The local foods movement is gaining momentum as people discover that the best-tasting and most sustainable choices are foods that are fresh, seasonal, and grown close to home. Some locavores draw inspiration from the 100-mile diet or from advocates of local eating like Barbara Kingsolver. Others just follow their taste buds to farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture programs, and community gardens. Check out Local Harvest to find sustainably grown food near you, and make a New Year’s Resolution to be a locavore in 2008!

Source:

Union of Concerned Scientists  FEED – Food & Environment Electronic Digest – December 2007

The ultimate “locavore” is No Impact Man, who recently completed an intense yearlong experiment in sustainable living in New York City.

Buying local food and eating food in season is one of most pleasurable ways to do your bit for the environment. Also, we need to do more to promote local foods in schools or large institutions such as hospitals and nursing homes. The Farm to School Program is a good start, but we need more action in this area.

If you’re interested in local foods and sustainable agriculture, check out the Golden Apple Press blog from time to time.

They say that a great political ad gets the message across even if you watch it with the sound turned down. Check out the bookshelf that looks like a white cross in the background behind Huckabee as he wishes us all a merry Christmas:

(hat tip to Don at Cyclone Conservatives)

Today is a big day in the Senate. Majority leader Harry Reid has decided not to honor Chris Dodd’s hold on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Dodd objects to a provision that would grant retroactive immunity to telecom companies that illegally helped the U.S. government spy on Americans.

For background on the issue and Dodd’s filibuster plans, see this diary by DavidNYC and this diary by drational. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a version of this bill that would not give retroactive immunity to telecoms, but unfortunately, Reid is going to introduce the version that came out of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which would grant immunity.

In light of some Senate Democrats’ inability to stand up to the Bush administration on a whole range of issues lately, I am not optimistic that we will find 41 votes to uphold Dodd’s filibuster. Or, to put it another way, I fear that the other side will easily get enough Democrats on board to reach the 60 votes needed to break Dodd’s filibuster.

But let’s all hope I am wrong.

Memo to Senators Clinton, Obama, and Biden, who often tout their leadership qualities on the stump: show us you’re a leader by standing with Dodd today.

UPDATE: Head over to Daily Kos (www.dailykos.com) and MyDD (www.mydd.com), where several posters and diarists are keeping us all up to date on what’s going on today in the Senate. Video clips of Dodd speaking on the Senate floor are at MyDD.

SECOND UPDATE: The maneuvering was a little confusing today, but Dodd was able to buy us some time as Harry Reid pulled consideration of this bill until next month. Watch Dodd explain who helped him accomplish this and what still needs to be done:

Thank you, Senator Dodd. He’s my second choice, and I will absolutely try to help him get a delegate in my precinct if I can do so without costing John Edwards a delegate.

As we’ve noted, Hillary Clinton received the endorsement of the Des Moines Register over the weekend, and Congressman Leonard Boswell backed her last week.

The Des Moines Register reported on Monday that Congressman Dave Loebsack will endorse Barack Obama:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

“We’re incredibly fortunate this year to have this field of candidates,” Loebsack said in a telephone interview. “There is one candidate who stands out and that’s why I’m backing Obama.

[…]

“I think we’ve got to have a leader who can bring all Americans together for a single purpose,” said Loebsack.

Congressman Bruce Braley recently endorsed John Edwards, and now he has been joined by Iowa’s first lady, Mari Culver:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

“I think John is a winner. He’s electable,” she said. “He’s been tested. He’s been on the national ticket before. The national polls show him beating all Republicans in the general elections. He inspires me. I think he inspires other Iowans, and I think he can really rally Americans in the fall.”

In that article, Mari Culver confirms that Governor Culver does not plan to endorse a candidate. Senator Tom Harkin has also said he doesn’t plan to endorse this time (his wife, Ruth Harkin, has campaigned for Hillary).

Anyone else know of any possible endorsements coming down the pike? How about the other major newspapers in Iowa?

They are revealing.

Looking at this piece by the editorial page editor, Carol Hunter, you can see that even they feel a little guilty that they didn’t endorse Biden:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

Also, this piece on “rating the other candidates” has some fascinating passages:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

It’s clear that they almost went with Biden:

Even in our last major round of deliberations, we kept coming back to the question, “Why not Joe Biden?”

Many of the arguments we have made on behalf of the tested leadership of Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain apply to Biden as well. He knows how to get legislation passed. He, too, has deep foreign-policy expertise. We’re inspired by his fierce defense of civil liberties. His work on legislation to combat domestic violence has no doubt prevented injuries and saved lives. He might, indeed, make a good president.

But spending virtually his entire adult life in the Senate also makes his experience somewhat narrower than that of some other candidates. And in making sometimes slim distinctions in this talented bunch, we see his well-known loquaciousness as a weakness. It reflects a certain lack of discipline, and it’s gotten him into trouble on occasion with ill-considered remarks related to race. (We do, however, wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment expressed uniformly by his campaign rivals that his heart is in the right place.)

It’s also clear that they don’t disagree with Edwards on anything of substance:

We still believe he’s right about two Americas, the one for people who have everything they need and the one for people who struggle to get by. He’s right about the stagnation of middle-class wages. He’s right that the tax system and overall economic policy have become too tilted toward the affluent, making it virtually impossible for poor and middle-class families to get ahead.

He’s right that the baby-boomer generation risks breaking the “one moral commandment” of Americans: “To give our children a better future than we received.”

Edwards is most persuasive when he appeals to America’s goodness to do better by the vulnerable among us, as he did in last week’s Register Democratic debate:

“…Somewhere in America tonight, a child will go to bed hungry. Somewhere in America tonight, a family will have to go to the emergency room and beg for health care for a sick child. …Somewhere in America today, a father who’s worked for 30 or 40 years to support his family will lose his job. That’s what’s at stake in this election. What’s not at stake are any of us. All of us are going to be just fine, no matter what happens in this election. What’s at stake is whether America is going to be fine.”

Edwards has set the ambitious goal of eliminating poverty in a generation. He’s developed creative proposals to help families save and make college more affordable. (Other Democrats have outlined similar plans.) Edwards or whoever is the party’s standard-bearer should work to take those plans to the White House.

The question on Edwards is whether a self-described fighter for change, who wants to “cast aside the bankrupt ways of Washington,” can get results in Washington. For someone trying to reunite the two Americas, would he be too divisive a figure?

This part of their analysis on Barack Obama also tells you a lot about the people on the Register editorial board:

One board member described the case for Obama in the Clinton vs. Obama discussion as a bank shot versus a straight shot in pool. Success is less certain with a bank shot, but the gamble (in this case for a more cohesive, hopeful country) might be worth it.

Another veteran editorial writer described the choice as similar to picking Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a calculating but masterful politician at maneuvering needed legislation through Congress, versus John F. Kennedy, whose youthful vigor inspired the nation to take on new challenges. That’s not a bad choice.

This endorsement shows how risk-averse the Register editors are. They were worried about a few gaffes Biden has made (as if Clinton doesn’t have 10 times as much baggage). They didn’t want someone who would antagonize corporate interests like Edwards, even though they can’t point to anything he’s wrong about. And they think Obama would be too big of a gamble.

They also fondly remember FDR for his “calculating” skills at maneuvering legislation through Congress.

Although I don’t doubt FDR’s talents in this area, I think of him first and foremost as someone who had tremendous vision. He didn’t shy away from proposing huge changes to deal with the crises of the day, even if they were a gamble, and even if they risked upsetting the powerful corporate interests of his day.

Also, FDR was a very combative and partisan president. He did his best to pin every economic failure onto the Republican Party, and his presidency succeeded in realigning American voters for a generation.

That’s very different from the Register’s praise of Hillary’s legislative skills in reaching across the aisle.

Just wanted to bring this piece to your attention.

Just a quick-hit diary to note that a federal jury didn’t take long to acquit Senator Matt McCoy of Des Moines on charges of attempted extortion:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

I haven’t followed the case closely, but it always seemed fishy to me, given what we know about how Bush’s Department of Justice has encouraged U.S. attorneys to prosecute Democrats.

cross-posted at MyDD and Daily Kos

When I talk to friends or family from other parts of the country, they always want to know how I think the candidates are doing in Iowa.

This diary is about why that’s a tough question to answer.

First, I’ll discuss why opinion polls can’t necessarily tell us who would win the caucuses if they were held tonight.

Then I’ll explain why it can even be difficult for active volunteers to gauge who is ahead in their own neighborhoods.

Finally, I will go over the unscientific methods we foot-soldiers in Iowa use to figure out where our candidates stand.

Before you analyze another Iowa poll, read this post by Mark Blumenthal about his efforts to obtain more information from pollsters about their likely voter screens and the demographic makeup of their respondents in Iowa. (Hat tip to DemFromCT.) Blumenthal notes:

So why did we go to all this trouble? As should be obvious now, the differences in the way pollsters measure “likely caucus goers” in Iowa are huge, not just in how narrowly they define the electorate but in the kinds of voters pollsters select as “likely caucus goers.” But these issues are not unique to Iowa. In 2004, 21 states held Democratic primary elections with single digit turnouts (as a percentage of adults), and only New Hampshire had a turnout that topped 20%. Over the next year months, results from hundreds of polls will be released, polls that will set expectations and drive media coverage, and yet those of us that consume the data will know very little about how tightly the pollsters screen and the kinds of voters they select. If we want to be educated poll consumers, we are going to need to do something to change that. We need to push toward greater routine disclosure of methodological details.

Really, everyone, click the link and read the whole thing. Thanks to Blumenthal of pollster.com for embarking on his “Disclosure Project.”  

A draft opinion out of the Federal Election Commission suggests that money contributed to Democratic candidates through the ActBlue clearinghouse may not be eligible for public matching funds, because ActBlue is registered as a PAC.

However, ActBlue does not function like an ordinary PAC–it’s just a convenient way for individual donors to direct online contributions to different candidates.

This issue came up because John Edwards’ presidential campaign has opted into the public financing system for the primaries. He has raised more than $4 million on ActBlue. Some of that would not be matchable anyway (because only the first $250 from each donor can receive public matching funds), but a significant amount should be eligible for the matching funds.

For background on this issue, read this post by Kos.

Adam Bonin, an attorney who covers regulatory issues at Daily Kos, is sending this letter to the FEC on behalf of Kos and BlogPAC.

Neither Kos nor Adam B supports Edwards, but as Adam notes,

This isn’t about supporting the Edwards campaign — I’ve made my feelings clear on that subject.  It’s about protecting ActBlue and the public financing system, and pushing for a legal regime which respects technological innovation.  Please join us in this fight — you only have until noon on Thursday to submit comments.

I encourage you to read Adam’s whole post–it’s quite informative.

The Edwards campaign is making it easy for citizens to submit comments to the FEC on this issue. Check out this diary by Tracy Joan, who works for the campaign.

The non-profit group Public Campaign is urging people to contact the FEC as well. After the jump, I’ve posted the full text of an e-mail I received this morning from Public Campaign. Or, you can click here and go to the Public Campaign website, where you can add your name to the letter they are sending to the FEC.

Did anyone watch? Did anything interesting happen?

Let us know what you thought.

cross-posted at MyDD and Daily Kos

A while back I wrote a diary on how tax reforms proposed by John Edwards would help the middle class. I am returning to the topic of Edwards and the middle class because I still occasionally see bloggers claim that his campaign is mainly focused on issues affecting poor people.

As it happens, a direct-mail piece that arrived in Iowa Democrats’ mailboxes late last week focuses on “The Edwards Economic Plan to Strengthen the Middle-Class.” I’ve reproduced the text of this mailer after the jump and added some thoughts.

In his column for the Des Moines Register on Tuesday, David Yepsen repeated assertions he made on his blog not long ago, implying that the Obama campaign is somehow not playing fair because they are encouraging students at Iowa colleges to return to campus for the January 3 caucuses.

As I’ve written before, the right of students at Iowa colleges to caucus is well-established.

Mike Connery goes into more detail about why Yepsen is wrong here. He notes that several rival campaigns have jumped at the chance to imply Obama is cheating in Iowa. I am proud that the Edwards campaign is NOT among those.

The Iowa caucuses should never have been scheduled so early, while colleges are on winter break. I encourage all of the campaigns to identify their student supporters. Why shouldn’t students come back to their campuses for caucus night?

I’m disappointed that the Register would seem to endorse the idea that it is illegitimate for students enrolled at Iowa colleges to caucus.

The Edwards campaign announced today that they have opened 10 new field offices in Iowa in recent weeks. I have updated my diary on Where the Iowa field offices are accordingly.

As of today, 42 Iowa counties have at least one field office for a Democratic presidential candidate. The current tally of Iowa field offices is:

Barack Obama 37 (includes two in Des Moines)

Hillary Clinton 34 (includes two in Dubuque and two in Cedar Rapids)

John Edwards 25

Bill Richardson 16

Chris Dodd 13

Joe Biden 9 (with possibly two more to be added)

Click the link if you want more detailed information.

The Des Moines Register ran an interesting piece today about the network of conservative Christian home-schoolers who are going to volunteer countless hours for Huckabee in the coming weeks: Home-schoolers propel Huckabee

I have secular progressive friends who are home-schoolers, but they seem divided among several candidates, and I don’t think they are contributing significantly to any Democratic campaign the way conservatives are to Huckabee.

I spend a little time on non-political blogs related to mothering/parenting (not posting as “desmoinesdem”). I noticed support for Huckabee on a few of those blogs back in the spring and summer. For instance, see this Christian home-schooler’s blog Making Home. It’s full of Bible interpretation and marriage tips for Christian wives and mothers, with a constant link to a pro-Huckabee site on the right side of the screen.

By the way, you may recall that Making Home is the blog where I was banned from commenting after only a few months. I had to laugh–I’ve hardly ever been troll-rated in several years at Daily Kos and MyDD.

Obama supporter “worldtrippers” put up this fun diary at Daily Kos yesterday comparing the top three candidates’ caucus-training videos:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Click the link to read the diary and view all three videos, which are embedded there.

What do you think? Do you agree with worldtrippers’ analysis?

cross-posted at MyDD and Daily Kos

I decided to write this diary when I learned that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton each have more than 30 field offices in Iowa.

After January 3, we will see whether campaigns with the most field offices did better in the counties where rivals had field organizers and volunteers working without the visibility of an office.

More information than you probably wanted to know is after the jump.

I have listed the counties in descending order, based on the number of state delegates they will assign on the Democratic side. I took the numbers from this post by Drew Miller, who calculated how many state delegates each Iowa county would contribute to the 2,500 total. [UPDATE: I corrected the delegate totals for a few counties after hearing from Drew Miller.]

I also give the 2004 caucus results for each county. Those numbers come from this table on the Des Moines Register’s website. The results reflect the percentage of county delegates assigned to the various presidential candidates (not the percentage of raw votes each one received in the county).  

I haven't seen the documentary “King Corn,” but I have read some of Michael Pollan's writing on this issue, and it sounds like a movie worth seeing. Information about the film can be found at:

www.kingcorn.net

I saw this schedule of screenings in Iowa on the e-mail list of the Iowa Network for Community Agriculture:

December 8–Algona, Berte's Back Nine (old Algona Theatre), 7 pm

December 9–Sioux City, Orpheum Theatre, 4 pm

December 10–Greene, Community Center, 7 pm

December 11–Waterloo, Crossroads 12 Theatre, 7 pm

December 12–Cedar Rapids, CSPS, 7 pm

December 13–Eldora, Grand Theatre, 7 pm

December 14–Cedar Falls, Marcus College Square, week-long run, first show approx 7 pm

December 15–Clear Lake, The Lake Theatre, 4 pm

December 16–Fairfield, Film for Thought at the Co-Ed Theatre, 11 am

Discussions will follow each showing. If you catch this film, please put up a diary and tell us what you thought.

UPDATE: The House passed this bill 235-181, with 14 Republicans voting with the Democratic majority and 7 Democrats voting against the bill. Bush says he will veto. Will Senate Democrats cave and remove the tax and renewable electricity standard provisions (see below)?

The U.S. House is set to vote on a big energy bill today (Thursday), and it’s the best bill we’ve seen yet on this subject. After the jump I am posting a detailed statement from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office describing some of the key provisions in the bill:

http://www.speaker.gov/legisla…

Title XIV would break new ground at the federal level by establishing a “renewable electricity standard”:

Establishes a 15 percent national renewable electricity standard (RES). This market-based mechanism will require electric utilities to use renewable energy to generate 15 percent of their electricity or to purchase renewable energy credits from others to meet this standard by 2020.

That provision will be a major sticking point with Republicans in the Senate, as will this:

Upholding Fiscal Responsibility and Bipartisanship

•    This legislation does not add to the deficit and all revenue offsets resulted from bipartisan negotiations.

•    Revenue raisers include $13 billion in scaled-back provisions that repeal tax breaks that were needlessly given to Big Oil companies at a time of record profits. The bill also includes other revenue raisers from the President’s budget.

•    Specifically, the bill closes a loophole written into the international tax bill (H.R. 4520) and rolls back the 2005 Energy Bill tax break for geological and geophysical expenditures. These provisions are narrowly targeted toward the large integrated oil companies.

•    In addition, to ensure that oil and gas companies are paying their fair share of taxes, it closes a tax loophole that allows big oil and gas companies to game the system by understating their foreign oil and gas extraction income.  

•    Other revenue raisers in the bill come from the President’s budget and from bipartisan negotiations with the Senate, the largest of which strengthens reporting on the value of stock to make sure that gains are taxed.

On the e-mail loop of the Iowa Renewable Energy Association, there has been some discussion of whether these measures could survive a Senate vote. An excerpt from a piece in “Energy & Environment News” (I am not a subscriber so can’t post a link) quotes Tom Harkin as saying that some of the good provisions may be stripped from the bill so that it can be passed this year without President Bush vetoing it.

Although Chuck Grassley apparently would vote for the renewable electricity standard himself, his top priority is securing a multi-billion-dollar giveaway to the corn-based ethanol industry. If the renewable standard or tax credits for solar and wind power have to be stripped from the bill to get it through the Senate, he is likely to go along with that.

Alternatively, Harry Reid may delay consideration of the energy bill if he thinks he doesn’t have the 60 votes to break an expected Republican filibuster. That would make passage of the bill this year very unlikely.

Bottom line: the House picture is encouraging, but the Senate picture is depressing. Please consider donating to one of our fine Senate candidates in other states, so we can elect more and better Democrats to the Senate in 2008.

The full text of the statement from Pelosi’s office is after the jump. 

John Deeth posted an update on legislative endorsements, along with a helpful chart showing which candidates Iowa Democratic legislators endorsed in 2004, and which counties the legislators represent.

The latest tally is Clinton 19, Obama 18, Biden 14, Edwards 10, Dodd 3 and Richardson 1. 

Deeth's chart also shows who has yet to endorse, and who those legislators backed (if anyone) four years ago. 

I listened to most of the NPR debate this afternoon. Although I am usually more interested in hearing the candidates debate domestic policy, I thought it was good for NPR to go in depth on a few foreign-policy issues. The questions were solid and substantive, and the candidates had to go beyond their usual sound-bite answers on Iran, China and immigration policy.

It’s too bad Richardson couldn’t make it because of a funeral he was attending, because the format probably would have suited him. I have heard him answer questions on immigration, and he makes a strong case on that issue.

I thought Edwards, Obama, Clinton, Biden and Dodd all did pretty well.

If you listened to the debate, what did you think?

Mark Halperin’s post-debate scorecard is here:

http://thepage.time.com/excerp…

Come on, Steve King, jump in against Tom Harkin! You are clearly thinking about it:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007…

Harkin would trounce King. We wouldn't pick up the 5th CD, but almost any other Republican would be an improvement on King. Getting that bigot out of Congress would take his megaphone away.

In related news, I saw a Rathje bumper sticker in Des Moines the other day. That's a first.

I just got a robocall paid for by “Common Sense Issues,” whatever that is. It was a brief survey with questions intended to generate interest in Mike Huckabee. The voice said the phone number at the end of the call too fast for me to catch it. The voice referred me to this website, “Trust Huckabee”:

http://www.trusthuckabee.com

These were the questions, as closely as I can remember them. I may have missed some–I didn’t have a pen and paper handy–but I sat down at the computer within a minute of the call ending, so my memory is fresh.

Do you plan to participate in the Republican caucus on January 3?

Do you plan to participate in the Democratic caucus on January 3?

On the issue of abortion, do you consider yourself pro-life?

Do you believe that a marriage should be between one man and one woman?

[I can’t remember the wording, but it was something about Bill Clinton praising Mike Huckabee saying everyone likes him, followed by a question about whether that makes me want to learn more about Mike Huckabee.]

Does the fact that Mike Huckabee raised his state’s education rating from 49th to [can’t remember, some number in the 20s] make you interested in learning more about Mike Huckabee?

Does the fact that for the last 19 years there has been either a Bush or a Clinton in the White House concern you? [I think that was the question–it may have been: does the possibility of having either a Bush or a Clinton in the White House for 27 years concern you?]

Those are all the questions I can remember. The voice was talking very fast at the end, encouraging me to go to www.trusthuckabee.com, saying the call was paid for by Common Sense Issues and giving a phone number with a 719 area code. (I couldn’t catch the whole number, and I don’t have caller ID.)

I don’t know if I would have gotten more questions if I had answered some of the robocall questions differently (e.g. if I had said yes, I identify as pro-life). Probably the questions would have been the same no matter what I said, though.

I am not an expert on campaign finance law. I noticed this disclaimer on the Trust Huckabee website:

Trust Huckabee is a grassroots independent organization committed to educating voters to support Governor Mike Huckabee for the Republican Nomination for President of the United States. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Since the robocall did not explicitly ask me to caucus for Huckabee, I assume there is no potential FEC problem. But I also saw this on the Trust Huckabee website:

Governor Huckabee can win the Iowa Caucuses if you commit yourself to attending your Precinct Caucus and become a Precinct Captain. It is all about numbers and organization. We have the numbers, we have the names, we need to build the organization.

Join Now!

Can an independent group recruit precinct captains for Huckabee’s presidential campaign? Do FEC disclosure requirements come into play here? Any election lawyers in the house?

UPDATE: Daily Kos user “omegajew” got the same call and reminded me that there was an anti-gay marriage question in there, so I added that to the list above. I can’t remember the exact wording, but what I wrote is a decent paraphrase.

Almost every day there’s a new Iowa poll released, and I haven’t been able to keep up with them all. If you are a poll junkie, I recommend checking MyDD and Open Left frequently, because the front-pagers and diarists there never miss a chance to analyze a new Iowa poll.

Several polls released during the last week, including the latest from the Des Moines Register, show the top three candidates bunched closely together (typically within the margin of error), with Obama leading, Clinton in second and Edwards in third place.

Obama supporters are triumphant to see him taking the lead in the Real Clear Politics five-poll averages for Iowa. However, there is good news for all of the top-tier candidates in these polls.

Obviously, Obama has to be happy with his overall lead in Iowa, which is small but has been found in several polls. His favorability rating seems high, and he seems to be tied with Hillary, or even leading a bit, among women.

A cautionary note for Obama is that he has blowout leads among voters under 35 (in the Des Moines Register poll, a 48-19-17 lead in this age group). Not only are younger voters historically less likely to caucus, they are also virtually absent from many precincts. We have very few residents under age 40 in my precinct, for instance.

Depending on the survey, it also seems that Obama is trailing Clinton and Edwards among rural and small-town voters, who punch above their weight when the state delegates are tallied. Obama would clearly be better off if Iowa had a primary.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has to be concerned that her overall support has slipped slightly, and she may no longer be leading Obama among women voters.

Most worrying for Clinton, several surveys have shown that she trails Edwards and Obama among second choices, and the Des Moines Register poll indicates that her unfavorable rating among Iowa Democrats is about 30 percent.

On the other hand, Clinton still seems to have a slight lead among older voters, and her support may be more evenly spread across the state than Obama’s. If she can bring out large numbers of new women voters, Iowa is still winnable for her. Remember that Obama has not yet faced much scrutiny in the media, but that will change now that he is leading in Iowa.

As an Edwards supporter, I am satisfied with the recent Iowa polls. He is within touch of the lead, and often leads among Iowans who have caucused before. The Des Moines Register poll assumes that one-third of caucus-goers on January 3 will have never caucused before, but I do not believe there will be that many newcomers.

Several polls indicate that Edwards leads among second choices as well, which could help him pick up as much as 5 to 10 percent on January 3.

I anticipate that on caucus night, the precinct captains for Clinton and Obama will be focused on keeping the main rival’s delegate count down, and will not be trying to undermine Edwards in the same way.

Richardson and Biden don’t seem to be surging or dropping considerably in Iowa. I still sense that both candidates have room to gain support as undecided voters make up their minds. Frankly, as an Edwards supporter I would like to see Richardson and Biden stay below the threshold in as many precincts as possible.

What do you think?

The Yepsenity of the day is causing a stir on the political blogs. Yepsen published this post about the so-called “Illinois caucus”:

Barack Obama’s campaign is telling Iowa college students they can caucus for him even if they aren’t from Iowa.

His campaign offers that advice in a brochure being distributed on college campuses in the state.  A spokesman said it’s legal and that 50,000 of the fliers are being distributed.

The brochure says: “If you are not from Iowa, you can come back for the Iowa caucus and caucus in your college neighborhood.”

Given that lots of students in Iowa’s colleges and universities are from Obama’s neighboring home state of Illinois, the effort could net him thousands of additional votes on caucus night.

[…]

Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, said “we have no intention of doing something here that is in any way illegal or that will raise questions about the credibility of the caucuses.”  He said election laws allow students to register and vote where they go to college and that means they can caucus in those precincts as well.

That’s fine but these are the Iowa caucuses.  Asking people who are “not from Iowa” to participate in them changes the nature of the event.

I think Yepsen is wrong and owes the Obama campaign an apology. Students from other states who attend colleges in Iowa can choose to vote either in their home states or in Iowa. That is well-established.

The Obama brochure is aimed at students attending schools in Iowa. It urges them to come “back” and caucus in their neighborhoods. Clearly they are not trying to bring in thousands of students who are neither from Iowa nor attending school in Iowa.

If the caucuses were on January 21 instead of January 3, this wouldn’t even be an issue. Many students from other states caucused in Iowa City, Ames, and other college towns in 2004. There is nothing unfair about that.

I would hope that all the campaigns are trying to identify college students supporting them and trying to encourage those students to come back to campus to caucus, if their home towns are outside Iowa.

Mike Allen picked up the story for Politico, quoting staffers for other campaigns who tried to imply that Obama is cheating:

A Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign official said: “We are not courting out-of-staters. The Iowa caucus ought to be for Iowans.”

And a Clinton spokesman leveled a thinly-veiled accusation at Obama later in the day.

“We are not systematically trying to manipulate the Iowa caucuses with out-of-state people,” Mo Elleithee said.

“We don’t have literature recruiting out-of-state college students. We didn’t bus in folks from out of state to the [Democratic party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner]. We didn’t bring in out-of-state activists to the Heartland Forum.”

In fact, Clinton is counting on the support of some out-of-state students attending Iowa universities. Sarah Sunderman of Iowa State University, who was announced in a news release as a leader of the “Hill Yea” Students Leaders for Hillary, told the Des Moines Register in October that “she will drive back early from her home in Minnesota to take part in the Jan. 3 caucuses.”

Chris Dodd for President Iowa State Director Julie Andreeff Jensen said in a statement on Saturday:

“I was deeply disappointed to read today about the Obama campaign’s attempt to recruit thousands of out-of-state residents to come to Iowa for the caucuses. … ‘New Politics’ shouldn’t be about scheming to evade either the spirit or the letter of the rules that guide the process. That may be the way politics is played in Chicago, but not in Iowa.”

I see no evidence Obama’s campaign is trying to get volunteers from other states to come here for a short time and then caucus on January 3.

Julie Andreeff Jensen worked on John Kerry’s campaign in Iowa before the last caucuses. She must be aware that there were college students from other states who caucused for Kerry.

Shame on the Clinton staffer who accused Obama of trying to “manipulate” the caucuses. It is totally legitimate to encourage your own supporters to come back to their college campuses for caucus night.

If Obama wins the caucuses, Hillary’s going to have to come up with a better excuse.

I'm going to have to catch the rerun later on C-SPAN. If you saw the candidates speak, let us know what you thought.

Noneed4thneed is posting his thoughts at Century of the Common Iowan:

http://commoniowan.blogspot.com/

UPDATE: If you’ve seen the Brown and Black forum, share your thoughts here as well.

Ben Smith of Politico broke this story, but Josh Marshall's team at Talking Points Memo is doing the most follow-up. (By the way, Josh should get the Pulitzer next year for his coverage of the Bush administration's abuse of power in firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons.)

Anyway, click the link. It turns out the NYPD didn't just drive Rudy to visit his girlfriend, and didn't just drive Rudy's girlfriend when he wasn't around, they also sometimes drove her friends and family in a city-owned car. 

Also, New York City cops sometimes walked her dog.

No way can Rudy's campaign last another month. 

UPDATE: Take a minute and fourteen seconds out of your life to watch this video.

I was raised by a Rockefeller Republican. Some Bleeding Heartland readers are old enough to remember what they were like. There are some still around in the Republican Party rank and file, but not many among public figures. You hardly ever see them in the news, except in a story like this one, where they complain that no presidential candidates are seeking their support.

I went to college in the late 1980s in Massachusetts, where most of the Republicans were like my dad: liberal on social issues, for protecting the environment, somewhat conservative on economic issues, but not supportive of supply-side (aka “voodoo economics”) either.

There was a very close gubernatorial election while I was living in Massachusetts, and a lot of liberal Democrats voted for the Republican, William Weld–just like my mother, a lifelong Democrat, used to vote for Bob Ray in the 1970s.

I lived overseas for most of the 1990s, and when I returned to Iowa in 2002, the biggest change (aside from the ubiquitous SUVs and minivans) was in Republican culture. I was aware of the religious right’s growing power during the 1980s, so I knew the party had become much more conservative. Chuck Grassley, considered a right-winger when he was elected to the Senate in 1980, was considered a moderate Republican two decades later.

But I missed the talk radio explosion during the 1990s. Watching Bill Clinton’s presidency from afar, I could tell that there was a lot of over-the-top Clinton hatred among Republicans. But I had no idea of how the Rush Limbaughs and Michael Savages of the world had changed the core values of so many conservatives.

If you haven’t seen it already, check out the piece Joe Klein wrote after he attended Frank Luntz’s focus group of Republican voters during the latest GOP presidential debate. Here’s one key passage:

In the next segment–the debate between Romney and Mike Huckabee over Huckabee’s college scholarships for the deserving children of illegal immigrants–I noticed something really distressing: When Huckabee said, “After all, these are children of God,” the dials plummeted. And that happened time and again through the evening: Any time any candidate proposed doing anything nice for anyone poor, the dials plummeted (30s). These Republicans were hard.

I am not at all surprised by the focus group’s mean-spirited reaction toward any mention of a program that helps the poor. Today’s Republicans are told repeatedly by their opinion leaders to be suspicious of anything that would spend their tax dollars on poor people.

If you heard about a plan to require lead testing for all Iowa children, you might ask some questions: is lead poisoning a big problem here? What health and behavioral problems does it cause? What proportion of kids are already getting tested for lead? What are the main sources of lead poisoning in children?

In contrast, look at this young Republican’s knee-jerk reaction to the news that a Democratic legislator wants mandatory lead testing in Iowa:

Another example is a bill that requires mandatory testing of children for lead. Odd bill I thought. Why would this be such an issue? Until Representative Ford tells a sob story of a child in his district that ate paint and got sick. Blah, blah, blah…kids could get sick…and apparently it’s the state’s job to baby-sit every child in Iowa. Though I can’t help but wonder what dumb child would eat paint! And what irresponsible parent would not know their child is eating paint?

Impressive combination of ignorance and heartlessness there, you have to admit. We must be vigilant against any attempts to protect children’s health! Never mind that a lead test is much less expensive than paying to deal with developmental disabilities caused by lead poisoning.

Getting back to Klein’s piece about the Republican focus group that watched the debate:

But there was worse to come: When John McCain started talking about torture–specifically, about waterboarding–the dials plummeted again. Lower even than for the illegal Children of God. Down to the low 20s, which, given the natural averaging of a focus group, is about as low as you can go. Afterwards, Luntz asked the group why they seemed to be in favor of torture. “I don’t have any problem pouring water on the face of a man who killed 3000 Americans on 9/11,” said John Shevlin, a retired federal law enforcement officer. The group applauded, appallingly.

Part of me agrees with Todd Beeton’s reaction to Klein’s commentary:

Truthfully, this could only come as a surprise to someone who dismisses principled criticism of the right by the left as “partisan bickering;” someone who, for every criticism levied on the right, feels the need to balance it out with a similar criticism of the left as though both parties, both sides were created equal. No, Mr. Klein, they really are out of their minds. Welcome to the world.

In fairness to Klein, I know intellectually that a lot of Republicans hate any programs that benefit poor people, and particularly the children of illegal immigrants. But I can see how it might be shocking to sit there in a room of typical conservatives and see them frown on a politician pointing out that immigrants are also “children of God.”

For me it remains beyond belief that so many conservatives, who ostensibly believe in individual liberty and small government, have no problem with the United States torturing suspects who haven’t been charged with a crime, much less convicted.

I don’t know what can be done to steer mainstream Republican culture back toward constitutional values and limited government power. Any ideas out there? Would a big Democratic election victory in 2008 bring back the Bob Rays, or would it just convince Republicans that they need to be more like Tom Tancredo?

P.S.- I was checking in with the Edwards supporters in my precinct a few days ago, and one of them told me she recently saw a car driving around the Des Moines area with an “Impeach Hillary” bumper sticker. The deranged Clinton hatred among some Republicans is remarkable.  

Sorry, I don't have a link for this story–I just heard about it from someone who teaches at Drake University in Des Moines. Apparently a faculty member in the political science department was able to convince Drake administrators to open the Olmsted Center on the night of January 3, when the dormitories will still be closed.

So if students want to come to Des Moines to caucus and then camp out in Olmsted with their sleeping bags, they will have a warm and safe place to stay.

Of course, Drake students from other parts of Iowa may prefer to caucus in their home towns, and Drake students from far away may have friends in the Des Moines area to stay with.

But kudos to the Drake administration for giving students who want to participate in the caucuses another option. 

Students out there, who besides Obama has significant support in the Drake student body? I'm curious about Republicans as well as Democrats. 

UPDATE: The Des Moines Register ran this story on Saturday about efforts to get college students to caucus:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

Well, I thought Rudy Giuliani’s campaign would go down in flames because of his connections to the federally indicted Bernie Kerik, or because he blew off attending the Iraq Study Group meetings in order to give $100,000 speeches.

But little did I know that the mayor billed city agencies for his security detail during daytime visits to his mistress and allowed said mistress to use the New York Police Department as her “personal taxi service”.

The guy is more brazen and corrupt than I ever imagined.

Anyone think his campaign can last until January 3?

UPDATE: Keep an eye on Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo blog. His crew are digging into various aspects of this story, and he is posting frequent updates:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

I didn't watch the debate, but the consensus on the liberal blogs seems to be that Huckabee did very well.

I have been saying for months that we are in a world of hurt if Republicans nominate Huckabee, particularly if we end up having to run Hillary against him.

Anyone out there watch the debate? What did you thnk? 

UPDATE: Over at Daily Kos, grannyhelen posted these hilarious YouTubes of a woman in CNN’s focus group of undecided Republican voters saying that after watching the debate, she leans toward John Edwards:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

When the presidential candidates release plans to deal with important issues, such as education, global warming, or veterans’ affairs, the Des Moines Register more often than not buries the story in the middle pages of the Metro Iowa section.

That is especially true for the second-tier candidates.

Tuesday morning I picked up the Register and saw a photo of Chris Dodd and Joe Biden on the front page of the main section. Wow, that’s unusual. But what do you think the story was about?

Both Dodd, a senator from Connecticut, and Biden, a senator from Delaware, each are hoping to emerge and knock out a front-runner. But both facing an increasing amount of questions about whether they are different enough for voters to tell them apart.

Increasing amount of questions? From whom? I talk to Democratic caucus-goers literally every day, and while I have heard undecided voters praise Dodd and Biden many times, I have never heard anyone express concern that they may not be different enough for voters to tell them apart.

The Register goes on to tell us that Dodd and Biden get along well, charter planes together sometimes, and are “old school” senators. It mentions a recent Saturday Night Live sketch making fun of their similarities and quotes experts suggesting they are political insiders who lack “sex appeal.”

I expect meaningless process stories from most of the national press corps, but couldn’t the Des Moines Register at least pretend to cover the substance of the campaign on the front page?

Haven’t the Register reporters who cover the town-hall meetings and house parties all over this state noticed that caucus-goers want to hear where the candidates stand on the issues?

That is especially the case for the second-tier candidates, because most Iowans are less familiar with their records. Dodd and Biden have plenty to say about how they would govern and what their priorities would be–not that you’d get any idea about that from the article.

I noticed this quote near the bottom of the piece:

Kathy Elsner, a dentist in Des Moines who supports Dodd, said voters should look seriously at people running for president, and not just their campaign style.

Please, Des Moines Register editors, take Elsner’s advice and assign your reporters to compare and contrast the candidates’ proposals for dealing with the issues.

cross-posted from MyDD and Daily Kos

I’ve noticed a meme developing in the blogosphere, that John Edwards supposedly is only attacking and not providing any positive message for his campaign. I encourage you not to confuse what you read on the blogs (reports by journalists obsessed with process stories or diaries based on a campaign press release) with what Iowans have been seeing and hearing from Edwards lately.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, volunteers hand-delivered the 80-page policy book containing details on Edwards’ proposals to thousands of Democratic households in Iowa.

Since late October, active Iowa Democrats have received direct-mail pieces from Edwards about once a week. I diaried the first two of these, about his biography and his most important policy proposals and about his plan for Iraq. Since then, he has sent out a mailer on health care, a Thanksgiving card, a piece on proposals to benefit American families and a piece on providing a better life for our children. At the bottom of this diary I will reproduce the text of one of these mailers, “Fighting for American Families.”

But before I do that, I want to talk about a theme underlying Edwards’ communications with Iowans, which I believe will resonate with caucus-goers.

More is after the jump.

Oprah will travel to Iowa to campaign for Barack Obama, and his campaign has come up with a counter-intuitive way of doling out tickets that is either brilliant or foolish:

In a news release announcing the events, Obama's campaign said tickets to the Iowa events will be given first to precinct captains, then campaign volunteers, then to supporters and undecided caucus-goers.

 

It said volunteers can be guaranteed a ticket by completing a four-hour volunteer shift or attending local caucus training before the event.

I would never have thought to do this. When a big event for John Edwards is planned, I try to get as many undecided voters from my precinct to attend as possible. I figure, it's more helpful to put undecided voters at an exciting event than it is to pack the room with supporters.

Obama's campaign seems to have calculated that if they can get hundreds of supporters to step up their involvement by becoming precinct captains or volunteering for at least four hours, that will eventually bring in more caucus-goers than they would win over by putting several hundred undecided voters in front of Oprah.

On the other hand, isn't the whole point of Oprah's visit to excite and win over women who may not ordinarily be engaged in politics? Maybe having her address a roomful of fired-up Obama volunteers is not the best use of her star power.

What do you think–brilliant or foolish? 

UDPATE: Tom in the comments says volunteers will get preferred seating, but that others will be able to attend Oprah's events in Iowa too. 

I think Barack Obama made a mistake earlier this year by proposing a health care plan that was less than universal. First Edwards and later Clinton outflanked him on that issue with proposals that would cover every American.

So speaking to voters in Council Bluffs, Obama made the case against mandatory health care insurance:

Health care insurance should not become a government mandate, Barack Obama said here today, referencing plans posed by John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.

Obama said such mandates for health care coverage is a wrong step. He told a crowd of about 350 people at Thomas Jefferson High School that his plan would lower costs on average by about $2,500 per family, making health care affordable for all without placing demands.

He compared Clinton and Edwards’ proposed mandates to car insurance, noting that some states with required auto insurance still have a pocket of 15 or more percent that still go without coverage even though it’s illegal.

“Their essential argument is the only way to get everybody covered is if the government forces you to buy health insurance. If you don’t buy it, then you’ll be penalized in some way,” Obama said. “What I have said repeatedly is that the reason people don’t have health insurance isn’t because they don’t want it, it’s because they can’t afford it.”

Of course many of the uninsured cannot afford coverage now, but many are currently uninsurable, which would change with better regulation of insurance companies and more options for the public (such as letting people buy into a public plan).

Also, the Edwards and Clinton plans include many things that would lower premium costs, making it easier for more people to afford coverage.

The experts on health care policy say you need mandates to get everyone covered. But even leaving that aside, Obama ignores the fact that the president has to set the bar very high in terms of what he asks Congress to pass.

Maybe a comprehensive universal health care plan would not pass during the first year of the next administration. But you don't take the compromise that you might need to settle for and make that your starting offer to Congress.

I have written about this before. My biggest concern about Obama as potential president is that in his desire to appear post-partisan and conciliatory, he would give half the game away before negotiations with the other side begin.

If Obama won't even submit a universal plan to Congress, then what he would get out of Congress would be even less than what he is advocating.

Now, the conservative New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper has praised Obama's health care plan as “a smaller pill to swallow” (hat tip to MyDD user “silver spring,” a Clinton supporter). Of course, conservatives would prefer not to do anything to expand health care coverage. If I'm running for president in the Democratic primary, I don't think I want Republicans praising my health care plan because it does less than other Democrats' plans.

UPDATE: Ezra Klein, one of the blogosphere's leading wonks on health care policy, weighs in on “Obama's excuse”.

Come on, no one wants to take a stab at answering my two trivia questions? Watch the Chris Dodd video a few posts below, then try to guess which Iowa county voted for both JFK in 1960 and Bonnie Campbell in 1994.

Also try to guess how many counties Bonnie carried in that 1994 election (out of 99 total). 

I have to hand it to Hillary Clinton's campaign. This is a good video:

Exercising is hard. Dancing is hard. Singing is hard. Caucusing is easy.

It's important to let people know that they can show up at the precinct caucus. Just last night I ran into two people I know who are fairly politically informed. I asked them if they caucused in 2004. They didn't because they are registered independents, and they never got around to changing their registration. I told them they could change their registration right there at the caucus–they had no idea. If they had known, they might have come out in January 2004.

With the caucus set for January 3, I am not expecting a big turnout, but I give all the campaigns credit for trying to get new caucus-goers involved. That will strengthen the Iowa Democratic Party.

UPDATE: At Iowa Independent, John Deeth noticed something I missed in the video:

http://www.iowaindependent.com…

1:23 in: “Bring a friend, a family member or a neighbor.”  Sure, the more the merrier — as long as they live in your precinct.  Your across-the-street neighbor might caucus somewhere else, and your friend who lives across town almost certainly will.

He is right–Clinton’s campaign should not be encouraging people to possibly bring friends and family to the wrong precinct location.

A few years back I sent a small donation to Bev Harris's group Black Box Voting, which was investigating alleged electoral fraud. Since then I've been on their mailing list. I haven't donated again because I have read about controversy surrounding the group and the alleged evidence they have produced.

The latest fundraising letter from Black Box Voting arrived in my mailbox today. The letter opens with this passage:

Dear Patriot, 

Black Box Voting has been examining checks and balances for the Iowa presidential caucuses.

What we have found is grim: The Iowa caucus system lacks critical checks and balances. In reality, political party machinery controls procedures, documents, voting machines (yes, the machines are used in the caucuses in many locations), and chain of custody. This means that political party machinery has ultimate control over results.

-Unlike publicly run elections, Iowa caucuses are not subject to Iowa public records laws.

-Results for the caucuses come in precinct by precinct, but Black Box Voting has learned that these results are not committed properly into permanent public records at the time they are announced and a complete set of the recinct results can be very difficult to obtain. Even when individual precincts are carefully monitored by attendees, tracking down discrepancies for the whole chases a moving target–that is, if you can get a detailed accounting at all. Not acceptable!

-Use of voting machines in caucus and upcoming primaries: Manipulation of voting machines can achieve wholesale alteration of election results. The mechanisms are easier to understand when you watch the detective story as it unfolds in the HBO documentary Hacking Democracy. (See below). Computerized voting is locked into 2008. Paper trail? Necessary, but doesn't guarantee honest elections. Manual spot checks? Nice, but don't guarantee honest elections. The biggest risk is insiders, who have access to voting machines and ballots.

The letter goes on to say that Black Box Voting has designed a “Caucus Watch Project” for Iowa citizens. They don't give details in this letter–it seems that you would have to fill out a slip promising to volunteer in order to find out what they have planned.

I am not going to send them money or volunteer for this “caucus watch.” First of all, I am not aware of voting machines being used in any precinct caucus. Someone correct me if I am wrong about that, but at the caucuses I've attended, individuals count people in each group and report the numbers to the precinct chair, who calculates the delegate equivalents using a pen and paper or a manual calculator.

No one fills out a ballot or feeds any paper into a voting machine that I have seen. 

Second, I think this fear-mongering about “insiders” tampering with the caucus results is unfounded. The caucus is public, and the results at each precinct are announced to all who are present. I will be “watching” my precinct in my role as precinct captain for the Edwards campaign.

Precinct captains will report the results of their caucuses to the various campaigns, which will keep track of how many county delegates their candidate has won from the precincts.

I think it would be hard for party insiders to alter the results at the county level without one or more campaigns becoming aware that they were being cheated.

That said, I do agree with Black Box Voting that the Iowa Democratic Party and the Iowa Republican Party should make precinct-level results publicly available to allay any suspicions about the process. 

Side note: has anyone out there seen this HBO documentary Hacking Democracy? I am interested, but I don't want to send Black Box Voting a contribution of $45 or more (they are giving away the DVD to all donors at that level). 

After shattering one-day fundraising records on Guy Fawkes Day (raising more than $4 million), Ron Paul supporters are planning a $10 million “tea party” on December 16, the anniversary of the famous anti-tax revolt in Boston. They are collecting pledges at the Tea Party '07 website.

I see Ron Paul yard signs and bumper stickers every so often in the Des Moines area, but I have no idea how active the campaign is here. He seems to be putting most of his effort into New Hampshire.

Anyone else seeing signs of a Ron Paul revolution in Iowa? The gang at Iowa Independent put Paul fourth in their Republican power rankings–ahead of Fred Thompson and John McCain.

Thanks again to Katerina for sending me the cached page with the 2004 Iowa caucus results by county. I contacted someone at the Des Moines Register, and they fixed the page so that those results can be seen again:

http://www.desmoines…

In case anyone wants to check how the candidates did in this or that county.

Keep in mind that in 2004 there were 3,000 state delegates up for grabs; this cycle there will only be 2,500. So the counties are assigning different numbers of state delegates than what appears on this page.

cross-posted at Daily Kos and MyDD

Field organizers for the presidential campaigns in Iowa have many jobs, and one of the most important is lining up precinct captains. Mike Lux laid out why Precinct Captains are the Key at Open Left this summer, emphasizing what these volunteers can do for their candidates on caucus night.

In this diary I will focus on how precinct captains can help their candidates during the weeks and months before the Iowa caucuses.

I covered some of this ground in a recent diary on my house party for John Edwards. I think it's worth going over a few points again for readers who don't click on diaries with “John Edwards” in the title.

Political junkies and hacks, join me after the jump.

Watch Chris Dodd display some impressive knowledge of Iowa electoral history:

I had no idea how many Iowa counties John F. Kennedy carried in the 1960 general election, and I was surprised by a couple of the ones he did carry.

Now, here are two trivia questions for you Bleeding Heartland readers.

1. How many counties did Bonnie Campbell carry during the 1994 gubernatorial election? (Sadly, I remember this all too well.) 

2. What was the only Iowa county that voted for both JFK and Bonnie Campbell? 

Extra credit if you can name all of the counties Bonnie carried in 1994 (without peeking).

I will post the answers in a couple of days. 

Richard Doak, a retired editor and columnist for the Des Moines Register, wrote an interesting piece on presidential endorsements in the Sunday paper. I encourage you to click the link and read it. He wrote the endorsement editorials for 20 years.

My only quibble is that I think Doak exaggerates the importance of the Register's endorsement of John Edwards four years ago. The Register published the endorsement eight days before the caucuses. I was working my precinct hard for John Kerry and started noticing a surge in support for Edwards more than a month before then. I distinctly remember calling my field organizer in mid-December to tell him that Edwards was gaining a lot of strength and would probably be viable. He said, “I know.” The field organizers were hearing the same thing from all of their captains.

The endorsement certainly gave Edwards good publicity, and probably convinced some leaners that he was a viable candidate, but it was by no means the spark that helped him finish a close second to Kerry. 

Doak describes the editorial board's endorsement process and notes that there are two endorsements he regrets: choosing Bill Bradley over Al Gore and George W. Bush over John McCain in 2000. I'm cutting the Register some slack on the first one, because I too made the mistake of supporting Bradley over Gore. I even sent him money.

But endorsing Bush over McCain? That was gutless. Doak admits that the editorial board almost endorsed McCain, but balked because they were charmed by Bush and anyway, McCain had written off Iowa.

The composition of the Register editorial board is different from four years ago. I wouldn't be too surprised to see them go with the establishment choice, Hillary Clinton, like they went for Bush as the establishment candidate in 2000.

Then again, maybe they will try to mix things up by picking a longshot, like they did in 2004. In that case my money would be on the Register backing Joe Biden, although Bill Richardson might also be a possibility.

What do you think? 

I've been saying for a long time that Rudy Giuliani will not be the GOP nominee. Others say he's got a plausible path: finish in the top three in Iowa, the top two in New Hampshire, then hang on until the big states vote on February 5. 

Now, this would be realistic if Rudy were actually going after Republican moderates in Iowa. Religious conservatives clearly call the shots in the party, but if the goal is just to finish in the top three, you could do that with a united front of moderates.

But read this article from the Sunday Des Moines Register on the lack of outreach from Giuliani's campaign to Republican moderates. It is beyond belief. Three former Republican members of the Iowa legislature (all women) are quoted about how Rudy is just pandering to the religious right. And read this part:

Diane Crookham Johnson's telephone has been quiet.

The moderate Republican from Oskaloosa led the Iowa Republican Party's 2004 fundraising effort and helped one-time presidential prospect George Pataki begin organizing in Iowa before the former New York governor decided last year not to run.

Johnson said she heard from Giuliani's staff once several months ago but not from the former mayor nor any other candidate, she said. In Iowa, it is common for party activists to hear directly from presidential candidates by telephone or in person.

“There are candidates who it's worth my time to caucus for. But I've not found a campaign worth giving up my time for,” she said. “Giuliani would have come the closest. But even that campaign is not fully committed in Iowa.”

Rudy hasn't even called the woman who led the Iowa GOP's fundraising in 2004. How connected do you think she is? I knew Rudy was lazy and not making much of an effort in Iowa, but come on–how could he not call this woman? It's insane.

If you are interested in sustainable agriculture, check out the new Golden Apple Press blog. Front-pagers include Natasha Chart, who occasionally posts at MyDD, and Orangeclouds115, whose “Vegetables of Mass Destruction” diaries have gained quite a following at Daily Kos.

The latest post at Golden Apple Press is on farm-to-school programs. You may recall that the Iowa legislature approved and funded a farm-to-school program on the last day of this year's session.

This article from the New York Times has made a splash in the liberal blogosphere:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has nearly doubled the size of her staff in Iowa and has substantially increased her advertising here as her campaign reinforces its effort to prevent Democrats from coalescing around a single alternative to her candidacy.

In the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Mrs. Clinton, whose campaign has been on the defensive lately because of her own missteps and increasingly aggressive attacks from her rivals, is moving to double or triple the amount of time she has spent here in recent months. Seldom will a day go by, aides said, when either she or former President Bill Clinton will not be on some patch of Iowa soil trying to solidify her support and win over an unusually high number of uncommitted voters.

“We’re going to begin using all the assets we have,” said Tom Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa who serves as co-chairman of the Clinton campaign. “We haven’t been bashful about asking for the moon here.”

If I were running Hillary's campaign, I would also use Bill as much as possible. His favorables have been higher than Hillary's for the last 15 years, and he generates a lot of excitement and free media coverage everywhere he goes.

That said, to my mind this is the key passage in the article:

More than 60 percent of those who have identified themselves as Clinton supporters, senior strategists say, have never participated in the Iowa caucuses. It is a far higher share than the campaign had been anticipating, which suggests that many of the reliable rank-and-file Democrats have chosen another candidate. So the Clinton campaign is working to expand its universe of supporters to women who have never participated.

The New York Times article goes on to say that Hillary now has 34 field offices in Iowa,

arriving in many cities more than two months behind the local operatives for Mr. Obama or Mr. Edwards. Last week, the Clinton campaign’s national headquarters sent a top communications operative to Iowa and hired eight deputies charged solely with drumming up media coverage in smaller cities across the state.

The big question is, will Clinton's staff be able to get those first-time caucus-goers to show up on January 3?

I know Hillary has been doing lots of robocalls. I've received several myself. Presumably those are aimed at all Iowa Democrats, not just the universe of past caucus-goers. Hillary is talking about whatever issue, and then at the end she says, press 1 if you are ready to support me, press 2 if you want more information about my campaign.

It would take very little effort for a non-regular voter to listen to this call and press 1. I imagine that is how they are compiling a large list of supporters who have never caucused before.

If she can turn those people out, she deserves to win, and the Iowa Democratic Party will benefit from having more people engaged in the process.

A diary on the New York Times article generated a heated discussion last night on Daily Kos.

Jerome Armstrong posted an interesting commentary on the article at MyDD. He inferred that

The Clinton campaign must have polled and segmented and projected that, with the given caucus universe, they just can't win in Iowa– recall their internal memo earlier this spring that considered ditching the state. So instead, the focus moves to the technique of expanding the caucus universe.

This post by Nate Willems seems to support this analysis as well, especially his observation that

In making calls through a list of rural Democrats who are consistent primary voters, but who lack a history of attending a caucus, my anecdotal notes show that Clinton is significantly stronger than any other candidate.  Accordingly, it does seem that she would benefit from a larger turnout.  

Amongst rural Democrats with a record of attending their caucus, my notes show a very competitive race between Edwards and Clinton with Obama distinctly behind.

What do you think? Is the Clinton campaign truly concerned that recent Iowa polls showing her in the lead include too many people who are unlikely to caucus? Or are they mainly trying to lower expectations for their candidate in Iowa?

The Des Moines Register revamped their website recently, and now this page, which used to show the 2004 caucus results by county, no longer has any information:

http://desmoinesregi…

Does anybody else know an online reference for detailed county-level results? I am working on the next installment in my Iowa caucus diary series.

I am kicking myself for never printing out that chart. I figured, why waste the paper? I've got it bookmarked. 

Good for him. Got this today from the Iowa Environmental Council:

 

 

IOWA ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERS HAIL HISTORIC AGREEMENT ON GLOBAL WARMING REDUCTION
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver exercised bold leadership to reduce the critical threat of global warming and promote economic development when he signed a historic multi-state agreement Thursday to significantly reduce carbon emissions, Iowa environmental leaders said.

 

Culver joined leaders of five other Midwestern states and the Premier of Manitoba, Canada in a pact to cut carbon pollution 60 to 80 percent, as recommended by scientists.  The agreement, signed at a meeting of the Midwest Governors Association, will spur investment in clean, renewable energy and energy efficient technology – fueling the growth of local industries in Iowa.

 

“Our governors today will propel Iowa and the Midwest to a clean energy economy. Boosting our use of wind, solar, and biomass will create thousands of new jobs,” said Nathaniel Baer, energy director at the Iowa Environmental Council.

 

Already wind turbine manufacturers have brought nearly 1,000 new jobs and over $100 million in capital investments to Iowa. Studies by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Environmental Law & Policy Center show that thousands of additional jobs and investments are in store from the kind of clean energy policies recommended in this platform.

 

The multi-state accord finalized Thursday should also yield major reductions in Iowa’s total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, which rank in the top half of the nation, according figures obtained from the website of the Energy Information Administration in the U.S. Department of Energy.

“With the stroke of Governor Culver’s pen, Iowa has reversed its legacy as a major source of global warming pollution and emerged as part of the solution to the problem.   We thank him for his leadership in securing our energy future,” said Marian Riggs Gelb, executive director for the Iowa Environmental Council.

The Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club sent out an e-mail later in the day, hailing the accord while urging citizens to call Culver's office at 515-281-5211

to thank him for his support of this accord and ask him to prevent the construction of two new dirty coal burning power plants in Waterloo and Marshalltown. If built those two plants would eliminate all of the good work that Governor Culver is trying to accomplish by emitting as much carbon dioxide every year as the entire passenger vehicle fleet of the State of Iowa, more than 1.6 million cars.

I'll make that call today. 

UPDATE: The Union of Concerned Scientists has declared an “urgent action” to thank Culver for this while asking him to block the proposed coal-fired power plans. I've posted an e-mail from that group after the jump.