A major flap has broken out in the Iowa race over a poll that shows Democratic Senator Barack Obama picking up support and overtaking Senator Hillary Clinton — and the Clinton camp is crying “NO DICE!” because, it argues, the poll puts far too much weight on independent voters.
Yet, if it is correct, it would mean Obama is pulling off a difficult political move, perhaps even more difficult than the “triangulation” strategy that former President Bill Clinton used so adeptly during his Presidency. And in this anything-can-happen-on-election-day year, with margins of error essentially making it clear that you’d be wise not to place bets on the outcome in either party, independent voters CAN make a difference, as the Washington Post reports:
With two days before Iowans go to the polls, significant support for Sen. Barack Obama from political independents has put rival Democratic campaigns on edge, challenging the traditional model of the state’s caucuses as a low-turnout exercise dominated by partisan insiders.
Question: would that be such a bad thing? (An independent voter just has to ask that…) If candidates knew independents would carry such weight, they might indulge in more solution-based versus slashing campaigning.
The senator from Illinois received a jolt of momentum late New Year’s Eve, when the Des Moines Register’s final Iowa poll showed him leading Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) by 32 percent to 25 percent, with former senator John Edwards (N.C.) at 24 percent. But just as striking were two findings that suggest Obama may be succeeding at one of the riskiest gambits of his Iowa campaign, an aggressive push to persuade non-Democrats to participate.
The survey found that more newcomers than regular participants could turn out on Thursday: Overall, 40 percent of likely Democratic caucus goers identified themselves as independents, the poll said, double the percentage from 2004, and 60 percent said they would be attending a caucus for the first time. Both groups preferred Obama.
As rival campaigns immediately challenged the makeup of the Register sample and a poll for CNN-Opinion Research came out showing the race a virtual tie between Clinton and Obama, the candidates spent the first day of the election year courting the shrinking number of uncommitted voters.
Chief Clinton strategist Mark Penn disputed the poll, calling the Register’s turnout model “unprecedented” and “out of sync with other polling done in the race,” including several recent surveys that showed a statistical dead heat. Edwards spokesman Eric Schultz called the Register model “at odds with history.”
And, indeed, the Post notes that even Obama’s campaign was taken aback by the large sampling of independents and warned that the results could be “overblown.”
“We’re not modeling it that high,” senior Obama strategist Steve Hildebrand said of the independent pool. “We love the numbers in the Register poll, but we know this is going to be very tight.”
And if the poll isn’t accurate?
At the very least, it will now give the Obama campaign the perception that it’s gaining momentum — a perception that was NOT the case until this poll came out. In fact, Obama’s campaign was being mentioned in stories about see-saw polls, Hillary Clinton regaining strength, suggestions that perhaps he had peaked, and about him and former Senator John Edwards attacking each other.
But as CBS News National Correspondent Dean Reynolds notes, ONE POLL in a highly-prestigious, respected newspaper has given Obama a boost and irked his foes:
His campaign chairman spoke to reporters about Obama’s future “viability.”
Those are the kind of things losers say. Front runners never complain. They have the sun in the morning and the moon at night and couldn’t care less what their opponents are doing.
Obama cared a lot about what his opponents were doing. He laced his speeches with attacks on Clinton and Edwards, even naming them, which crosses some imaginary line in political discourse.
But then, with the campaign bracing for another setback, came the Iowa Poll published by the Des Moines Register, the most influential paper in the state.
In an instant, frowns turned to smiles at Obama headquarters. Suddenly, once-sullen campaign officials were in a back-patting mood around reporters they had shunned 24 hours earlier. A fund-raising letter based on the polling numbers was mass-mailed 30 minutes into the New Year.
In Sioux City, a New Year’s Day crowd of several hundred turned away from bowl games and came out to see Obama in temperatures that hovered near zero. Bigger crowd in Council Bluffs Tuesday night, again with temperatures as cold as a third place finish on Thursday.
Perception MATTERS in politics. And with Obama professing to represent a new kind of politics, he needs big crowds in order to maintain a kind of JKF-esque image.
Such print (the poll) and visual (broadcast stories of his rallies) momentum is particularly critical because Democratic candidates are finding it hard to get an edge in Iowa among two groups that will be important: women and unions.
And the poll — even if it is not totally in-tune with others — is generating perceptions that can be seen in this report in Britain’s The Independent from its Des Moines correspondent:
Barack Obama has surged into the lead on the eve of the first electoral test in the 2008 presidential elections, thanks to the enthusiastic support of young, independent and first-time voters.
Promising change from the past 15 years of Bush-Clinton bickering, the candidate’s brand of inclusive politics is lighting a fire under the political process in Iowa and nationwide.
At the end of a year-long campaign he has come from behind to be the first choice of 32 per cent of Democrats who intend to take part in the “meeting of neighbours” or caucuses across the state tomorrow night. Mr Obama’s lead in Iowa – a state that is 94.9 per cent white – also cements his role as the first black presidential candidate to be taken seriously in America’s history.
Hillary Clinton, his chief rival, is holding steady at 25 per cent and the populist John Edwards, backed by the trade unions, is virtually unchanged at 24 per cent.
But keep in mind this:
The fat lady has not yet sung.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.