Notes on today's predictions and expectations re Iowa, Huckabee, and Romney
By A Texan Posted in 2008 — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Based on the current Iowa polls, I am hearing the following about the Iowa Caucuses on January 3:
1. Huckabee is pulling into the lead.
2. Huckabee's victory over Romney will be a major blow to Romney given the high expectations generated by his prior lead in the polls.
For example, Jim Geraghty writes over at National Review's "Campaign Spot," that "a second-place finish for Romney [in Iowa] would spur comparisons to this year's New York Mets collapse."
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTVjMTQ1YzQzYmU1YzA5ZjQ1Y...
NONSENSE.
First, as to Huckabee'e lead: Huckabee may be pulling into the lead in Iowa, but polls change rapidly. About five weeks ago, Rasmussen had the Iowa race as follows:
Romney 25
Thompson 19
Huckabee 18
Giuliani 13
McCain 6
The latest Rasmussen now has it as follows:
Huckabee 28
Romney 25
Giuliani 12
Thompson 11
McCain 4
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/ia/iowa_republica...
Parenthetically, note that Huckabee's rise seems to have been almost entirely at the expense of Thompson.
So, these numbers have changed considerably over the past 5 weeks. Let me make a crazy prediction--they will change even more significantly over the next five weeks.
SECOND, should Romney come in second to Huckabee, it would not be counted as a major defeat relative to expectations. Nobody is going to care much about October's numbers in assessing whether Romney met expectations. Rather, folks will be comparing results with the poll numbers from the last two weeks before the caucus.
It was this kind of comparison (plus the SCREAM) that cost Dean so much momentum after Iowa in '04.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/12/elec04.prez.democrats.iowa/ind...
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/01/20/iowa/
So let's all sit back, enjoy the next five weeks, and wait until after Christmas to make any predictions about (1) results of the caucus, and (2) those results vis-a-vis "expectations." It's too early to predict reliably, and today's expectations will be forgotten by January.
As you suggested over at Erick's post, it all depends. If Huckabee continues surging, but barely comes in first, people will start saying "Did the surge fizzle out?" Was the surge too little, too late?"
"People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors." -Edmund Burke
You read my mind. I was thinking about the same topic and I just posted a blog about it.
So you think that a second place showing by Romney in Iowa wouldn't be a devastating blow to his campaign, just a setback?
Interesting.