U of IA poll: Edwards 26 Clinton 25 Obama 19, Romney 28 Giuliani 12 Thompson 8

[Mr. Morden]

New poll of Iowa by the U. of Iowa:

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

There are separate sets of numbers based on "likely caucus goers" and "less likely caucus goers" and so forth, but of "likely caucus goers", its:

Edwards 26
Clinton 25
Obama 19
Richardson 9

Romney 28
Giuliani 12
F. Thompson 8
Tancredo 5
Brownback 4
McCain 3
Huckabee 2

Terrible for McCain.

[Mr. Morden]

Lol, McCain at 3%

To be fair though McCain got only 4.71% in 2000 in Iowa, and then he was a highly serious candidate.

But that's because he was explicitly skipping Iowa and wasn't campaigning there.  This time around, he *is* campaigning there....devoting more resources to Iowa than any other state save NH and SC.  OTOH, he's skipping the straw poll, and it's possible that he and the other candidates skipping the straw poll are currently being hurt by negative local media attention associated with skipping the straw poll.  And of course, folks like Brownback and Tancredo are currently making a big push in the state for the straw poll, so their numbers might be somewhat inflated because of that.

[Mr. Morden]

You're right, he skipped it because he didn't expect to do well there.  But I'm pretty sure he would have gotten more than 5% if he'd actually campaigned there in 2000.  And while he's always been weaker there than NH and SC, it really wasn't that bad for him there just a few months ago.  Earlier in 2007, he was only narrowly trailing Giuliani in the state, even while Giuliani had a double digit lead nationally: