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With New Poll Results, Candidates Scramble for Edge in Caucuses    [

    Polls: Iowa Caucuses Too Close to Call
    MSNBC News

    Sunday 30 December 2007

MSNBC survey finds Edwards, Romney have reason to be optimistic.

    Des Moines, Iowa - Two opinion polls show the Democratic race in next week's Iowa caucuses too close to call, while Republican Mitt Romney appears to have regained some ground over rival Mike Huckabee.

    A poll by MSNBC/McClatchy shows the Democratic race remains a virtual three-way tie between John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

    Where Edwards previously had lagged slightly behind Clinton and Obama, the poll showed him at 24 percent, compared with Clinton at 23 percent and Obama at 22 percent.

    While that difference is within the poll's margin of error, it could indicate late momentum for the former North Carolina senator and 2004 Democratic presidential running mate.

    Among Republicans, the poll shows Mitt Romney regaining a slight lead over Mike Huckabee - 27 percent to 24 percent - although the difference is within the poll's margin of error, making the race a virtual tie.

    In the last month, Huckabee had surged from the GOP's second tier to the front of the pack in Iowa, overtaking Romney, who long had held the lead there. But the former Arkansas governor's lead appears to have evaporated - he's fallen 8 percentage points since a poll taken Dec. 3-6.

    The poll also found, however, that one in five Iowa Democrats and one in three Iowa Republicans said they could still change their minds before the caucuses on Thursday - the first big test in the state-by-state battle to choose candidates for the November presidential election.

    The telephone survey was taken Dec. 26-28 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. The poll of 400 Democratic and 400 Republican likely caucus-goers has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points for each party.

    Results From Second Poll

    A Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll showed Clinton ahead of Obama by 31 percent to 27 percent, with Edwards a close third at 24 percent.

    In that same poll, Huckabee held a statistically insignificant one-point edge over Romney, 29 percent to 28 percent. Arizona Sen. John McCain was a distant third with 11 percent.

    The poll of 934 likely Democratic caucus-goers and 867 likely Republican caucus-goers was taken Wednesday through Saturday and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points for the Democrats and 3.4 percentage points for the Republicans.

    "We have two very tight races that are too close to call," said pollster John Zogby. "But there is a lot of potential for things to change here."

    Clinton, Obama and Edwards have battled for the Democratic lead for months in Iowa, where a win can generate huge momentum for later contests. The Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll showed Clinton, who would be the first woman in the White House, narrowly leading Obama among women voters and ahead among older voters, who are the most likely to participate.

    Obama, who would be the first black president, held a big lead among younger voters, whose participation is more unpredictable.

    Dedication Tracked

    The poll found Clinton's supporters were the most dedicated, with 76 percent saying their support was "very" strong, compared to 65 percent for Edwards and 56 percent for Obama.

    Under Iowa's arcane caucus rules, candidates must receive support from 15 percent of the participants in each precinct to be viable. If not, their supporters can switch to other candidates.

    Edwards was the most popular second choice with 30 percent, while Obama had 25 percent and Clinton only 12 percent.

    Among Republicans, where Huckabee's recent surge to the top of many Iowa polls has been fueled by support among religious conservatives, the former Baptist preacher led among those who said they were "very" conservative, and born-again Christians.

    About half of Romney and Huckabee's supporters described their backing as "very" strong.

    The race for third among Republicans is wide open between McCain, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul, all of whom could take some solace from a strong finish and hope to generate momentum for the next contests.

    McCain and Giuliani have barely competed in Iowa, preferring to focus on New Hampshire and a big round of contests on Feb. 5, respectively. Thompson largely ignored the state until launching a final push here in the week before Christmas.

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    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

 

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    With New Poll Results, Candidates Scramble for Edge in Caucuses
    By Patrick Healy and Julie Bosman
    The New York Times

    Monday 31 December 2007

    Newton, Iowa - The presidential candidates spent the last Sunday before the Iowa caucuses attending church services, staging big rallies and sniping at one another as new polls suggested tightening races in both the Democratic and Republican fields.

    With three Democrats scrambling for the lead in Iowa heading into the voting on Thursday, the candidates tried to paint their opponents as inadequate for the challenges facing the nation. Former Senator John Edwards, in particular, continued that line of attack against Senator Barack Obama, suggesting that he was too "nice" to fight and win against special interests and big corporations.

    "You can beat these people if you're tough enough, if you're smart enough, if you've got the fight inside you," Mr. Edwards said at a high school in Carroll, Iowa. "You can't nice them to death. You try and nice them to death, they'll trample all over you."

    Mr. Obama, speaking here at Newton Senior High School, took up Mr. Edwards's challenge and noted that he had fought and won changes in lobbying and ethics rules, to the disappointment of special interests.

    "It is true that I believe we can disagree without being disagreeable, Mr. Obama said. "I do not believe that change will come with more angry rhetoric of turning up the heat on Republicans. We don't need more heat in Washington, we need more light."

    Mr. Obama also tweaked the third leading Democrat here, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, by knocking her husband by name for suggesting that an Obama presidency would be a gamble for the nation.

    "It'll be a roll of the dice - that's what Bill Clinton said," Mr. Obama said. "I have to remind people that the real gamble in this election is having the same old folks do the same old things over and over again and somehow expecting a different result. That's the real risk."

    Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman, said, "The list of Democrats Senator Obama is attacking - John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and now Bill Clinton - gets longer and longer as we get closer and closer to the caucus."

    Mrs. Clinton did not engage either of her chief opponents directly, beyond her standard line about her belief in "working hard for change," instead of demanding it (Mr. Edwards's position, in her view) or hoping for it (Mr. Obama's). But she did push back against rivals who say her views on the economy and education and her experience were rooted in the '90s when she was the first lady.

    "One of my opponents will say, 'There she goes again, talking about the past,'" she said at a memorial hall in Traer, Iowa. "It's not like I'm talking about ancient Rome."

    A McClatchy/MSNBC poll found Mr. Obama, Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton essentially in a dead heat among likely caucusgoers.

    Seeking an edge in Thursday night's vote, Mr. Obama directly appealed to voters in Newton to consider voting for him if their chosen candidate did not have enough support in the first round of caucus voting.

    Some campaigns are also trying to maintain good relations with their rivals, in hopes that an also-ran candidate might steer supporters to a leading candidate; former President Bill Clinton, for instance, recently called Senator Christopher J. Dodd to congratulate him on a debate performance, an overture that was viewed in the Dodd camp as a warm gesture intended to encourage goodwill for Mrs. Clinton at some future point.

    The McClatchy poll also found a similar dynamic in the Republican field, with former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas tied with former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, and others lagging.

    Defending his characterization of the Bush administration's "arrogant bunker mentality" toward the Iraq war, Mr. Huckabee accused Mr. Romney of hypocrisy for demanding that he apologize to the administration.

    "He himself had talked about the major mistakes that had been made by the administration," Mr. Huckabee said on "Meet the Press" on NBC. "He demanded of me an apology, but he didn't demand of himself an apology for also being critical, as have most Republicans."

    Mr. Huckabee then attended an early service at the Cornerstone Family Church in Des Moines. When parishioners left, they found fliers on their car windshields criticizing Mr. Huckabee for signing a bill to authorize video poker at Arkansas race tracks and for accepting a speaking fee from a company involved in stem-cell research. The fliers were unsigned. Staff at other large evangelical churches in the area reported their appearance as well.

    Meanwhile, an independent group, Common Sense Issues, said it was beginning to run television commercials attacking Mr. Romney's record on abortion - the first paid advertisements returning fire at Mr. Romney after his better-financed campaign blanketed Iowa with criticism of Mr. Huckabee.

    Contrasting Mr. Huckabee's long record of opposition to abortion rights with Mr. Romney's more recent change to that position, the commercial asks, "On the most fundamental issue, shouldn't we trust a man who has always been consistent?" Patrick Davis, a spokesman for the group, said it paid $50,000 to run television commercials on the Fox News Channel in Iowa through Jan. 1.

    Mr. Romney campaigned in eastern Iowa and seemed noticeably more confident on Sunday, choosing to take questions from reporters in Columbus Junction after declining to do so a day before.

    "Two or three weeks ago, the polls said he was ahead by over 20 points," Mr. Romney said of Mr. Huckabee. "Now the polls are saying we're virtually tied."

    Rudolph W. Giuliani wrapped up his final campaign swing here in Mount Pleasant on Saturday night and left, with no plans to return to the state before the caucuses.

    His campaign began re-branding Mr. Giuliani as the candidate of religious conservatives, or values voters, handing out pamphlets featuring the endorsement from the Rev. Pat Robertson and a quotation from Mr. Giuliani in large letters: "My belief in God and reliance on His guidance is at the core of who I am."

    Senator John McCain, meanwhile, continued to barnstorm through New Hampshire, drawing large crowds. He also picked up his 26th newspaper endorsement, from The Nashua Telegraph.

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    David D. Kirkpatrick, Cate Doty, Michael Cooper and Michael Luo contributed reporting from Iowa, and Marc Santora from New Hampshire.