Cross-posted at Political Forecast.

Well, now that we’re less than three weeks out from the Iowa Precinct Caucuses, it is time for me to make a tough decision: Who am I going to caucus for?

After watching the debates, attending events, reading the profiles, and listening to my friends I decided that it was time to face the tough decision.  Our field of Democratic candidates is an amazing spectrum of leadership, experience, and real desire for change.  I would be proud to call any of these candidates our nominee.

Why did I hold off so long in making my decision?  There were numerous reasons, but the primary one was that I wanted to make sure I was going to remain unbiased for as long as possible in my coverage of the candidates and to maintain a level of openness on both Political Forecast and Bleeding Heartland.  But the time has truly come to pick a candidate.  And for me, the candidate of choice is John Edwards.

A new Research 2000 poll for the Quad-City Times shows Barack Obama with a 9-point lead over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.  Here are the overall results (500 likely caucus-goers with a margin of error of +/- 4.5%):

Barack Obama 33%

Hillary Clinton 24%

John Edwards 24%

Bill Richardson 9%

Joe Biden 3%

Chris Dodd 1%

Dennis Kucinich 1%

It is still clearly a three-person race, with the slight advantage to Obama.  To me, this is the key result from the poll:

“The poll also indicated an unsettled electorate, with 23 percent of Democrats and 34 percent of Republicans saying they were likely or very likely to change their minds before the caucuses. Only a third of Democrats, 33 percent, and just more than a quarter of Republicans, 27 percent, said they were not at all likely to change their minds. The rest, 44 percent on the Democratic side and 39 percent on the Republican side, said they are not very likely to change.”

The race is still quite fluid and second choices are definitely going to matter come caucus night when some candidate preference groups won’t be able to get viability.

You can get the full PDF of the results from Research 2000 here.  They’re usually a pretty reliable polling firm when it comes to general election or primary polling, but I don’t know where they’re at in terms of accuracy for polling the caucuses.

Does this mean Edwards can still win the Iowa caucuses?  I think so.  And Mike Lux at Open Left says we should keep our eyes on him.

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.

UPDATE (11 AM): I got the email to supporters announcing the endorsement about 45 minutes ago.  The full text is below the fold.

– – – – –

The word on the street is that Hillary Clinton is going to be receiving the endorsement of central Iowa Congressman Leonard Boswell.  He is supposed to be doing it sometime today after Clinton tapes an appearance on IPTV’s Iowa Press.

To me, the endorsement won’t matter much to many Democrats.  While Boswell has done a lot for Iowans in his years representing Iowa, he doesn’t have the kind of youth and leadership potential that folks like Bruce Braley have.  He’s an elderly man, and a very conservative Democrat.  And for those committed caucus-goers, I don’t think this endorsement will change anything or mean that much.

What have you heard?  And do you think the endorsement matters?

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.”  

I’m sitting in front of my TV trying to examine what the cable networks are saying about the debate.  The first network showing coverage was Fox News and their pundits were generally annoying and conservative; essentially, they weren’t worth their time.  But when they got to their focus group/panel of undecided caucus-goers done by Frank Luntz, they said that John Edwards won the debate.

I’m going to argue that John Edwards did indeed win the debate.  He articulated a coherent message that blamed corruption, greed, and entrenched interests for the problems America faces.  He also clearly told viewers that the only way to enact the policies and proposals that the candidates have promised is to elect a president that will unite America to stand up and fight back against these people.  His criticisms were constant, his answers honest, and his leadership potential was clear.  He told us how he is fighting for the middle class, and how he’s the candidate to truly enact change.

I’m always impressed with Obama’s rhetoric on the stump and during rallies, but I can’t seem to be impressed with his debating skills.  Maybe I’m just missing something.  And Hillary Clinton seemed like she was just there to give canned responses.  But I do have to admit they were honest and presidential sounding.  Joe Biden came to the debate with heart and passion, and even managed to keep his answers succinct.  Chris Dodd was presidential and brought the experience necessary to lead.  I was surprised how the speaking time was pretty equally divided, but amazed that Bill Richardson got the most time.  His answers and policies were good, but he seemed like he just had a list of issues and was rattling them off.

All in all, however, I’d be proud to have any of these candidates to be my presidential nominee.

In my mind, the debate was timid enough to declare any candidate a winner for the right reasons.  We want you to tell us who your winner was and why.

In about 8 minutes, the Des Moines Register’s Democratic Debate will start.  I’ll be doing what I can to live blog it–after the debate is over, I’ll move most of it to below the feed.

And if you’re interested, the Dodd Campaign will again be doing their talk clock:

Let’s go below the fold to read the re-cap…

Today at 11 AM Central Time, any and all comments to the Federal Election Commission on their pending decision regarding presidential primary matching funds on contributions received through ActBlue are due.

Multiple organizations are vocally opposing this ban, as it effectively disregards ActBlue’s nature as a grassroots fundraising system and largely violates the meaning of matching funds through public funding.  As the netroots’ own Adam Bonin wrote in his letter to the FEC on behalf of DailyKos and BlogPAC:

Obviously, while ActBlue is a “political committee” in the strictest sense of the term, in reality it does not act as such.  ActBlue is a conduit for individual contributor preferences, to track and aggregate small-dollar contributors.  It asserts no control over the recipients of its funds; the site’s only criteria is that the recipient be a Democrat. It fulfills FECA’s anticorruption goals by reporting contributors’ names, addresses, employers, and occupations to campaign, which in turn provide that information to the Commission as is legally required.

This is a clear a case as any of reformers accomplishing via technology what law alone cannot do: leveling the playing field between moneyed interests and small-dollar contributors by allowing anyone to become a “bundler”, and to allow such contributors to have visual, real-time confirmation of their impact upon the process.  In the same way that the public financing system itself is designed to encourage and magnify the impact of small-dollar contributions, ActBlue facilitates those contributions occurring in the first place.

If you’re at all interested in supporting the Edwards campaign’s position–which isn’t a tacit endorsement, but an affirmation of your belief in grassroots fundraising–please make sure to submit your comments.  You can see more by reading desmoinesdem’s earlier post here.

You can do that in a variety of ways:

– Visit JohnEdwards.com and send a comment through our simple form.

– Write an E-mail to Mary Dove, the FEC Commission Secretary at mdove@fec.gov

– Fax your comments to the Secretary at (202) 208-3333 and to FEC’s Office of General Counsel at (202) 219-3923

– Sign the letter from Public Campaign

Sorry tonight’s post is late and the past couple of days have been missing.  Remember way back when, when you had to write research papers and prepare for finals?  Welcome to my life at this point.

Anyway, tomorrow is the final Democratic debate of the season as the Des Moines Register hosts the debate in IPTV studios in Johnston.  Today’s Republican debate was criticized as being pretty tame and uninteresting, so I’m wondering if the Democratic affair will be just the same?

And what will the Republicans think about the questions posed by Carolyn Washburn after it was revealed that she violated Register policies and participated in the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial primary here in Iowa?

The blogosphere has been ablaze this week after Register columnist David Yepsen’s piece about trying to preserve the sanctity of the Iowa Caucuses by essentially banning out-of-state students attending school in Iowa from coming back to Iowa to caucus.

First of all, I think desmoinesdem is right with her post here calling for Yepsen to apologize to Obama.  As Obama’s been the most vocal of the Democrats calling for students to come back and caucus, he’s been the brunt of Yepsen’s attacks.  Instead, the Obama campaign has been busy fighting with the good progressive ally Paul Krugman instead of David Yepsen who often will smack down truly progressive ideas without indulging them fully or honestly.  So, while the Obama campaign may desperately want the Register’s endorsement, challenging his assertions and his problematic claims against students may do even more to boost your campaign than the endorsement.  But that’s another story entirely.

But secondly, I felt it was my place to respond as a college student (admittedly from Iowa) with many, many friends from outside of Iowa who plan on staying in the state to caucus.  These students spend at least nine months of the year here in the state and have the choice to register to vote here as Iowans.  When you spend 3/4 of your year in a state where you pay income tax on any jobs you might have and pay the local sales tax it seems quite clear to me that you ought to have a say in the elections the state holds, no matter who the candidates are.  The Iowa Democratic Party agrees.  From a statement released this afternoon by IDP Chair Scott Brennan:

“In running the First in the Nation Caucuses, the Iowa Democratic Party follows the Iowa Code in determining the eligibility of potential caucus goers. According to the Iowa Code, all college students who are at least 18 years old are eligible to vote and, therefore, eligible to caucus.

Any student who attends an Iowa college or university may participate in the Iowa caucuses provided they are 18 by November 4, 2008, and are a registered Democrat in the precinct in which they wish to caucus.

The Iowa Democratic Party encourages all eligible caucus goers to attend their precinct caucuses on January 3rd to strengthen the Democratic Party and declare their presidential preference.”

It is really just that simple.  And like others before me have said, David Yepsen is just being elitist in this column and implying tactics that are shady when in fact they’re completely legitimate and legal.

What is even worse is that some presidential campaigns are still agreeing with the rhetoric calling for all out-of-staters to stay away from the caucuses.  While Clinton’s campaign has been back-tracking, they still can’t offer a full answer on whether students from outside Iowa should caucus.  Chris Dodd’s campaign is the one that started the pledge, and both Biden and Richardson have tacitly or overtly signed on and offered rhetoric in support of the policy.  This is absurd to me, and I hope that the campaigns are questioned about this in tomorrow’s Register Democratic debate.  But I doubt it will come up.

And, just to rub it in David Yepsen’s face, here is the Drake student newspaper’s article on how students can sign-up to stay overnight in the Olmsted Center–Drake’s student union–and caucus on January 3rd.

College students in Iowa, stand up and have your voices heard!

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.

Google Trends is a neat little tool created by Google to chart how popular a search term has been over a given length of time–in the standard search, it's a few years' time. The tool then links spikes in search volume to news stories that came out about the time of the spike in public interest in the term. It also tells the top three cities where people are looking for this term. I ran the full names of the top democratic candidates through this tool and I'll share the results with you in no particular order.

Check it out for yourself:  http://www.google.com/trends

“Hillary Clinton”:
Peaked: Jan 21, 2007
Story: Entered 2008 race
Trending: flat for most of 2007, up since August
Top Three Cities: Washington DC; New York, NY; Boston, MA

“Barack Obama”:
Peaked: July 27, 2004
Story: 2004 Convention Speech
Trending: flat for most of 2007, up sharply this last week
Top Three Cities: Chicago, IL; Washington DC; Austin, TX 

“John Edwards”: 
Peaked:  July 6,2004
Story: Picked as Kerry's running mate
Trending:  Flat
Top Three Cities: Raleigh, NC; Washington DC; Boston, MA

“Bill Richardson”: 
Peaked: Jan 21, 2007
Story: Entered 2008 race
Trending: Flat
Top Three Cities: Santa Fe, NM; Albuquerque, NM; Washington DC

“Joe Biden”:
Peaked: Jan 31, 2007
Story: Entered Race/made controversial comments
Trending: up sharply since August
Top Three Cities: Washington DC; Reston, VA; Philadelphia, PA

“Chris Dodd”:
Peaked: sometime in October 2007
Story: Unknown
Trending: up for the year, down since October's inexplicable peak
Top Three Cities: Meriden, CT; Hartford, CT; Des Moines, IA

For the record, can anyone explain why Dodd would have seen a spike in searches for his name around late October? 

Tonight’s gonna be an open thread, simply because I’m exhausted from a weekend of paper writing.

What’s on your mind?  What will the big political stories in Iowa and elsewhere be this week?

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.

Tonight’s topic: What the hell is Fred Thompson thinking?

I just don’t get this.  Thompson is a former member of the United States Senate and he honestly thinks that the National Intelligence Estimate is something to be “suspicious” of?  Sure, so it may have said something different two years ago than it does today.  But I’m pretty sure with our long-term presence in Iraq that even Thompson can admit our intelligence gathering options have to have gotten a bit better in that area, particularly in terms of getting first-hand information.

Then again, maybe I’m just naive.