Cross-tabbing Religion and Obama

The Main Sequence: Cross-tabbing Religion and Obama

A Gallup poll which ran over the weekend notes that Vermont identifies itself as the least religious state. As usual with such things I cross-tabbed it against Obama's share of the vote.



I found some of what I expected: the more self-identified "religious" states leaned redder and vice versa. But there were a couple of interesting clusters and as I mulled it over I was reminded of nothing so much as... astronomy?



Astronomers describe stars with what they call the Main Sequence. This chard is what's called a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (universally abbreviated to "H-R") which plots luminosity against mass. In general, the more massive the star, the hotter it burns. Most stars fall somewhere on the Main Sequence, which runs from blue giants through ordinary Sun-like stars to red dwarves.

And much like the stars, the states graph out diagonally. Even the colors match: bluer on the upper, less religious left, and the heavily Republican red religious states on the lower right.

But the H-R Diagram has a couple of odd clusters, in the corners opposite the ends of the Main Sequence: white dwarves and red giants.

There are no red giants, massive yet cool, on the upper right of the political chart. Though Texas would qualify as a huge red political Antares or Betelgeuse, no states are at once highly religious and strongly Democratic. (If North Carolina gets a little more Democratic, it might edge up that way.)

But there is a cluster in the lower left where the white dwarves hang out, less religious yet more Republican. They are Ronald Reagan's Sagebrush Rebellion states: Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Arizona, and Alaska. The last two may have been more GOP than average in 2008 because they were represented on the ticket. Remember for a couple weeks, just before the Palin pick, when Alaska was at the fringes of in-play? Montana was a possibility till the end, and Arizona went for Bill Clinton in `96 and would likely have been in play if not for McCain being the nominee.

These white-dwarf, libertarian states had smiliar voting performance to the "red dwarf" states at the lover right, highly religious and weak for Obama. It's a predictable cluster: South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi.

There's an odd, two-state bridge of sorts between the Sagebrush west and the fundamentalist South: Utah and Oklahoma. They're moving in opposite directions. Utah trended a little Democratic this time; still very Republican but Obama actually carried Salt Lake County. Oklahoma, more Southern than Western, trended Republican and McCain won every county (the only state where he can make that claim).

Republicans have a choice here, and Democrats have an opportunity with the white dwarves. If the GOP retreats to the religious base, they risk alienating places like Arizona, and similar spots like Colorado and Nevada that they held until this year. For the Democrats, moving down the main sequence, the Dakotas and Nebraska are a better bet for the future, at least for the Obama era, than the Appalachia belt of West Virginia and Kentucky.

Other than that, some of the neighboring pairs are interesting. Some are obvious: the Dakotas, Washington-Oregon. I can see where Iowa and Minnesota are similar, right in the middle like the Sun, but matched with Pennsylvania? Wisconsin-New Jersey? The two closest pairs that voted differently were Indiana-Missouri and North Carolina-Georgia. Good signs for 2012.

Early Vote Percentage and Obama Percentage

Early Vote Percentage and Obama Percentage: No Direct Link Seen

“No Such Thing as 'Election Day'” trumpets the Political Wire headline, as 2008 was the national breakout year for early voting. My favorite theory is that people were so sick of Bush that they literally couldn't wait to vote.

But when I look at a George Washington University study, my theory crumbles. The link between The percentage of vote cast early and the percentage for Obama isn't an exact, one-to-one thing. Some of the strongest Obama states had low early voting,

Of course, here in Johnson County we've known about early voting for years, and the early voting rate has grown the last five elections in a row, even in the dull 1996 Clinton-Dole race.



The 1988 Johnson County rate was 6 percent. Notaries and reasons were required way back then, so early voting was restricted to shut-ins and people who were actually absent. State law changed in 1990, and Iowa became one of the first states to allow unrestricted early voting (oddly, Texas was an early voting pioneer.) The pace picked up, aided by aggressive Democratic Party efforts, until 2008, when 36 percent of Iowa voters voted before Election Day. In Johnson County, for the first time in a presidential year, more people voted before Election Day than on Election Day. (We did it once before in a 2003 school bond.)

Ten whole states can make that claim for 2008. Oregon tops the list; by statewide referendum, all elections are mail-only for a by-definition 100 percent early voting rate. Most of Washington is also all by mail. Western states dominate the top tier of early voting states, and Obama ran well on the Left Coast.



But a graph sorted by early vote percentage shows no direct relationship between Obama percentage and turnout percentage. As early voting percentage declines, overall turnout averages out fairly flat and Obama percentage is all over.

There's actually a slightly inverse relationship between early voting percentage and Obama percentage, and that inverse relationship is almost all geographic. The Northeast, where Obama ran strong and led from the beginning, lags behind the rest of the country in early voting law. New York and Pennsylvania are at the bottom of the list with rates of less than 4 percent, and all the bottom states are in the Northeast except Alabama and Kentucky. There must be some link to the political culture in those states; Eastern states also tend to have larger state legislatures than the West but that's just coincidence. Anybody got a better explanation? Anybody want to get the first Democratic New York state senate in decades on the task?

Interestingly, given the history of vote suppression, there's a cluster of early voting states in the South: North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia and Texas. Obama and McCain split these states, and Georgia in particular got a great deal of attention for huge early vote totals and long lines.

Kos notes that of the top 12 early voting states, "five were formerly Red states flipped by Obama. Obama flipped a total of nine. Only Virginia was flipped without substantial early voting performance. Missouri, which Obama lost by a little under 4,000 votes, has no early voting. It's no stretch to assume that had early voting existed in the Show Me State, it would've kept its "bellwether" status by flipping Blue."

It's hard to see if there's a relationship between early voting and Election Day voter registration. North Dakota, Iowa and Maine are in the upper middle of the pack, Minnesota and New Hampshire are very low, and Wisconsin didn't report statistics.

Number geeks, see if you can find any other patterns in the table below.

State	% Early Votes	% Obama	% Turnout (of eligible voters)
Oregon	100.00%	56.75%	67.40%
Washington	89.20%	57.43%	50.60%
Colorado	78.90%	53.66%	69.40%
Nevada	66.90%	55.15%	57.50%
New Mexico	62.30%	56.91%	59.60%
North Carolina	60.60%	49.70%	65.80%
Tennessee	59.20%	41.83%	57.00%
Georgia	53.10%	46.90%	61.10%
Arizona	52.90%	44.91%	55.90%
Florida	51.80%	50.91%	67.10%
California	44.80%	60.95%	61.40%
Texas	44.00%	43.64%	54.50%
Montana	39.70%	47.17%	66.10%
Hawaii	38.50%	71.85%	50.60%
North Dakota	37.20%	44.47%	64.80%
Arkansas	37.10%	38.86%	53.40%
Utah	37.10%	34.27%	66.60%
Iowa	36.00%	53.93%	69.80%
Kansas	34.70%	41.57%	62.60%
Maine	31.30%	57.71%	71.10%
Alaska	30.00%	37.89%	67.90%
Idaho	29.60%	35.96%	62.80%
Vermont	29.00%	67.46%	67.60%
Ohio	25.20%	51.36%	66.90%
South Dakota	25.20%	44.75%	63.70%
Wyoming	25.20%	32.54%	61.60%
West Virginia	23.70%	42.57%	72.50%
Indiana	23.60%	49.91%	59.30%
Nebraska	21.80%	41.60%	62.50%
Michigan	20.40%	57.37%	68.60%
South Carolina	17.40%	44.90%	58.60%
Louisiana	14.70%	39.93%	63.40%
Virginia	13.50%	52.63%	66.80%
Oklahoma	13.00%	34.35%	56.40%
Missouri	11.10%	49.25%	68.00%
District of Columbia	10.50%	92.46%	60.90%
Connecticut	10.40%	60.59%	67.00%
Minnesota	10.00%	54.06%	77.80%
New Hampshire	10.00%	54.13%	71.00%
Illinois	8.70%	61.92%	62.70%
Maryland	7.90%	61.92%	67.80%
New Jersey	7.40%	57.15%	65.90%
Kentucky	6.30%	41.15%	57.60%
Delaware	5.20%	61.94%	65.90%
Rhode Island	5.10%	63.13%	62.00%
Alabama	4.10%	38.74%	61.80%
Pennsylvania	3.90%	54.48%	64.10%
New York	3.60%	62.80%	58.30%
Massachusetts	N/A	61.80%	66.70%
Mississippi	N/A	43.00%	61.30%
Wisconsin	N/A	56.22%	65.20%
National average	30.00%	52.87%	53.80%

Advice for Republicans

Advice for Republicans

The 2012 Republican caucuses begin today with Mike Huckabee's Iowa visit, as Republicans continue the navel-gazing that inevitably comes with a loss. (Been there, done that.)

I know I'm probably the last guy who should offer the GOP advice. But consider this week's must read, Kathleen Parker's Washington Post piece provocatively headlined "Giving Up on God." No, not existential angst; political angst.

"Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that."

Marc Ambinder analyzes: "There are two secrets, actually: one -- that the 'leaders' of the various movements within social conservatism are ill-adapted to modern politics and can exacerbate tensions between the movement and outsiders; and two--that a large part of the Republican establishment believes they can pander to these voters, not address their core concerns, and still rely on them for support."

Social conservatives are at once the GOP's greatest strength and greatest weakness. I'm not telling Republicans to abandon the social issues; that's not my place. And frankly I have a bias in wanting to win those issues and get them off the table.

As a member of the left end base of the Democratic Party, frankly, I expect to get screwed one in a while. Defunding the war, impeachment, gay marriage, Lieberman--that's an incomplete list from just this year.

In the process of endless disappointment, we've learned to choose our battles. And that's all I'm recommending: choose your battles.

On some of the social issues, conservatives are popular. Stop freaking out, Barack's not taking your gun away. You won that fight. Faith-based programs have some appeal. The school voucher fight is still a live one. (Just analyzing here, not agreeing.)

But other social issues which were winners in the 1968-2008 divide and conquer alignment of Nixon and Wallace and Atwater and Rove are losers in the long run.

Gay marriage is a generational conflict. People who came of came of age before Stonewall, when homosexuality was literally classified as a mental illness, simply didn't talk about it. That age cohort drives the slim majority that voted yes on Proposition 8--and they won't be voting in many more elections. I know the religious right sees that, and it's behind the effort to cement marriage bans into constitutions before their voters die off.

Yes, a lot of people are deeply conflicted about the morality of abortion and don't like it. But you know what they like even less? The government telling them what to do. That's a conservative impulse if anything.

And some of the niche issues of the religious right are active vote-killers now. Issues like opposition to stem cell research and the Terry Schaivo circus scare middle of the roaders away. And denial of evolution makes us look like a joke to the rest of the world. Why is Darwinism good economics but bad science?

Finally, when priests start denying people communion because they voted for Obama? That's reeeeally scary. I know it's the church doing that and not the political system, but people see it as part of the same subculture.

I don't know the Christian conservative subculture. I know OF it; sometimes I see its channels as I flip through the cable, sometimes I see incongruous ads featuring "stars" I've never heard of. I've even been trained to recognize some of the dog whistles.

What I do know is numbers, and I pity the Republican dilemma. The social conservative subculture is probably 25 or 30 percent of the country. In a winner take all electoral system, with its bipolar bias toward two parties, that's enough to control a party.

But it's not enough to win.

The Republican philosophy of self-reliance and personal freedom has deep roots in American history, as does the Democratic philosophy of "I am my brother's keeper." Libertarians, like social conservatives, are quick to leap to issues that they deeply care about but which don't have mass appeal. Ron Paul was a flawed candidate, whose message was popular in spite of himself.

But the Jeffersonian argument that government is best which governs least? A party that advocates consistent freedom in matters economic and personal? That's a Republican party I'd like to engage in a dialogue.

Four Iowa Counties Flip To McCain

Four Iowa Counties Flip To McCain

Four Iowa counties which went Democratic in one of the biggest Republican landslides ever voted for John McCain last week--and one of these things is not like the others.

Swing State Project took a long-range look at voting trends and found 97 counties nationwide that backed Walter Mondale over Ronald Reagan in the 1984 landslide, yet supported John McCain while Barack Obama was scoring a--what should we call it? Let's say "comfortable victory."



Those counter-trend counties are concentrated in Appalachia, but four spots appear in Iowa. Three of these double-maverick anti-bellwethers are small rural counties: Davis, Monroe, and Ringgold. But the fourth is high-growth, suburban Dallas County.

Iowa was one of Mondale's stronger states at 46 percent, and the 1984 election was near the height of the farm crisis of the 1980s. That would help explain Davis, Monroe, and Ringgold.

Dallas County trended Republican between 2000 and 2004 as well, and a strong Republican performance there was key in George Bush taking the state back from the Democrats in 2004 after a Democratic winning streak dating back to Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Democrats are looking to Obama's election and the changed map, with wins in states like Indiana and Virginia that last voted Democratic in 1964, as a sign of realignment. One way to spot a realignment is to look for counter-trends of voters moving against the stream, and these four Iowa counties help make the case.

Swing State Project also found 85 counties nationwide that went for Bob Dole in Bill Clinton's solid 1996 win, but have now gone for Obama. None of those are in Iowa, and they tend to be large urban and suburban counties. "The sum population of all Mondale/McCain counties? 3,197,000," writes Swing State. "For all Dole/Obama counties: 25,846,000. There's pretty much the story of the 2008 election right there."

Open Left also looks at long-range trends. comparing 2008 to 1988. This map includes the eastern half of Iowa. There's not much of the green that indicates a trend from Dukakis toward Obama--but then again, Dukakis overperformed in Iowa as it was one of the handful of states he actually won. Johnson County only gets a little bit greener, but there wasn't much room for improvement. The Quad Cities are greener, as is the state's northeast corner, but the Dubuque area trended slightly Republican in the 20-year comparison.

Recounts in Iowa Senate District 10, House 1, House 37

Looks like not one, not two, but three Iowa legislative districts will see recounts in the next few days:

In Black Hawk County, Republican Walt Rogers wants a recount in Senate District 10. An administrative recount of two precincts narrowed incumbent Democrat Jeff Danielson's lead in the Senate District 10 race to 14 votes.

Also with a 14 vote margin: Republican Renee Schulte in House District 37, where the Gazette reports that incumbent Democrat Art Staed wants a recount.

In Woodbury County, Republican Jeremy Taylor is asking for a recount. Taylor is 60 votes behind incumbent Democrat Wes Whitead in House District 1.

Some recount 101: Each candidate, the apparent loser and the apparent winner, names a representative to a recount board. The two representatives then name a third board member who is mutually acceptable and presumably neutral. (If they can't agree, a judge chooses someone.) The recount board makes the decisions, while the auditor's office provides assistance.

Johnson County Canvass Facts

Election 2008: Johnson County By The Numbers

The canvass is done and the 2008 election is in the books. Time to dig really deep into the Johnson County numbers. And we can dig deeper than ever before. Thanks to changes in the law, we now get the absentees broken out by precinct, and not just all lumped together. That makes a big difference when more voters in your county vote absentee than on Election Day.

Obama won the early vote in every single Johnson County precinct. You might have guessed from the party breakdown of the requests--58 percent Democratic to 15 percent GOP with the rest no party or third-- but we now officially know. The early vote was closest in tiny Monroe Township, which Obama carried by one vote.

In four precincts -- Coralville 6, Big Grove, Madison and Monroe -- Obama trailed on Election Day but won the combined, overall vote on the absentees. So if nothing else, the new law takes away bragging rights from Republicans who, in past years, could have claimed they "won" those precincts.

But McCain did win two precincts fair and square on the combined results. Sharon and Washington, in the southwest corner, saw big enough Election Day wins to offset Obama's early vote leads. Those two townships have long leaned Republican, but weren't enough to save Jarad Klein against Democrat Larry Marek in House District 89.

Looking at the combined vote, Obama ran at 75 percent in Iowa City and 64 outside, for an overall percentage of 69.9. Better than LBJ's 68.1-- but damn, I really wanted that 70. McCain ended up at 28.4--just below Dole, just above Bush 41 in 1992. But remember, those were three way races. (Trivia: Perot wasn't the strongest third party candidate ever in Johnson. That would be John Anderson in 1980.)

The most likely McCain voter was an Election Day voter in Washington Township, at 61 percent. The most likely Obama voter would be an early voter in Iowa City 21, which went -- wait for it -- 90 percent Obama, 9 percent McCain on the absentee. (This is the precinct where, on the Election Day vote in 2000, Bush ran third behind Nader.) Still, that's not the most insane absentee margin for Precinct 21; Mary Mascher was at 91, and Harkin was at 92. That's with opponents, but it's getting near the margin you see for unopposed candidates running against the write-in line.

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Not much evidence of ticket splitting, especially on the Republican side where the top of the slate bunched tightly together. Miller-Meeks led Team GOP at 30 percent, with McCain at 28 and Reed at 25. Harkin ran about five points ahead of Obama. Loebsack ran about five points behind Obama, which roughly equals the five points that the third party candidates won.

The Election Day voter was more likely to choose the straight ticket (30.5 percent) than the early voter (23 percent). 24 percent of all Election Day voters marked Straight D, vs. 14 percent of early voters. Democratic straight tickets led Republicans 4 to 1 on the early vote and 1.5 to one on Election Day. That's roughly in proportion to the rest of the voting behavior.

But a lot of voters who don't mark the straight ticket line still vote mainly in one party. How else to explain the 55 percent that Rebecca Spears polled in House District 79 despite dropping out of the race months before and not even having the ambition to bother getting her name off the ballot?

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None of that is really all that crucial, beyond the bragging rights of "Democrats won really big" vs. "Democrats won really, REALLY big." The breakdown is more interesting when you look at Johnson County's closest race, the conservation bond.

When the absentees went up at 70 percent Yes on Election Night, I thought: "It has to break even at the polls to win" the required 60 percent. It didn't quite happen, as Election Day was 51 percent no, but with five absentees for every four ballots at the polls, Yes made it with 60.8 percent. (The biggest loser on Election Day? No, not Chris "Not Tom Harkin" Reed. The jail.)

Opponents got a late start on their Flip No campaign, while supporters worried that the earliest early voters would "undervote," or skip the issue.

The problem with comparing early vote and Election Day is that the early voters were a heavily Democratic pool, so it's hard to figure out whether the margins are because the No campaign started late, or if the early voters were more inclined to support Yes in the first place. But it turns out the undervote was pretty much comparable across the board, ranging from 8.9 percent for rural Election Day voters to 13.5 percent for Iowa City absentee. The rurals were slightly more tuned in to the race, and significantly more opposed, but were outnumbered by Iowa City.

Even in the student precinct absentee vote, a lot of which was cast at satellites three weeks before Election Day, the undervote peaked at around 25 percent.

Overall, it was a little higher than the 10 percent undervote rate we saw in the 2000 jail vote, and just a little below the 12.6 percent undervote on the Idiot Amendment.

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Way, way below the 47 percent undervote on the last judge on the ballot. Just anecdotally, the judge percentages seemed almost identical to four years ago, maybe slightly up. I'm seeing 79 percents where I was seeing 77s or 78s. Guess the Iowa Christian Alliance campaign--vote no on all judges till they answer our surveys the way we want with details on abortion and gay marriage--didn't have much traction in the People's Republic. (It also got announced late, which doesn't help in a 55 percent early vote county.)

One voter in 300 skipped the presidential race, which is comparable to past years. Weird, but it's a free country. One interesting thing: presidential write-ins were way up. The county had 60 or 80 of those each of the last four elections, but this year there were 342, more than any one of the third-party candidates. I haven't looked at them, but I suspect the Hillary PUMAs and the Ron Paul diehards are behind it.

The president-only vote is in the range of the 4 percent that skipped the two-way Senate race or the 5 percent who blew off the multiple-choice congressional contest. But there's no way to cross-reference that. Someone could have voted, say, for president, skipped the other high-on-the-ballot races, and jumped down to the conservation bond.

No particular geographic pattern to the write-ins or third parties, who all rounded down to 0 percent. Nader finished third, but waaay below the 6 percent he polled here in 2000. Almost the same exact number of votes as he got in 2004; 90 percent of the Nader vote evaporated after 2000 and didn't come back.

Libertarian Bob Barr was fourth, followed by Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party, with Cynthia McKinney at sixth. In fact, McKinney polled fewer votes than the Green straight ticket line. In Iowa, an individual ballot mark overrides the straight ticket. That means at least 23 people marked the Green straight ticket, and then crossed over to vote for someone else for president.

McKinney may have been hurt by the change in state law that gave the Greens and Libertarians a minor party, "political organization" status. Until this year the only way to get any sort of party status was to poll 2 percent for president (like Nader did in 2000) or governor. Now that there's a petition process, there's much less impetus to vote Green Party at top of the ticket. You don't have to choose between the presidency and the G on your voter card, and I'd guess that some Greens felt getting the Republicans out of the White House was a higher priority than McKinney's percentage in an obscure canvass book. Unless they were among the four people who read my world exclusive interview and voted for Gloria LaRiva.

Woodbury County Concludes Counting

Dems Hold 3 of 4 Close Races as Whitead, Wendt Win in Woodbury

While recounts remain possible, incumbent Democrats appear to have won three of the state's four closest races while losing one seat.

In Woodbury County, Democrats held on to win two tight House races. In Iowa House District 1 incumbent Democrat Wes Whitead had 6,152 votes and Republican Jeremy Taylor won 6,092. At the end of Election Night, Whitead had a six-vote lead. In Iowa House District 2, incumbent Democrat Roger Wendt had 4,709, ahead of Republican Rick Bertrand with 4,429.

Whitead and Wendt were both showing up as losers for several hours on Election Night due to delays in counting absentee ballots, which leaned heavily Democratic across the state. The Sioux City Journal reports that Woodbury County had absentee counting problems related to the new state law requiring absentee ballots to be tabulated by precinct.

Late absentee results also had Rep. Elesha Gayman listed as a loser in House District 84 in Scott County for a while on Election Night, but the first-term Democrat regained the lead, and the seat, with the absentees.

In Linn County, four out of nine late-arriving absentees were postmarked on time and counted in House District 37. The Linn County Auditor's office reports that two went to Republican challenger Renee Schulte and two were for Democratic incumbent Art Staed, leaving Schulte with a 14 vote lead.

An email press release from House Democrats Wednesday afternoon began with the line "After expanding their majority to 56 in last week’s election"--math which would appear to exclude Staed.

At the Black Hawk County canvass, the formal meeting where county supervisors certify results, incumbent Democrat Jeff Danielson had a 17 vote lead over GOP challenger Walt Rogers in Senate District 10. The Waterloo Courier reports that Rogers was confident enough in his Election Night lead that he gave a victory speech, while "Danielson was dejectedly leaving the Democrats' party even before President-elect Barack Obama delivered his own victory speech."

Late Early Vote Shifts House Race Perceptions

Late Early Vote Shifts House Race Perceptions

The chronology of the election returns had it backwards.

Early election results showed incumbent state representatives Wes Whitead, Roger Wendt and Elesha Gayman losing their seats as the returns rolled in. A buzz of panic rippled through an Iowa City victory party: "Did we lose the House? Did we lose the House?"

But the three incumbents had won re-election (assuming Whitead hold his six vote lead) before the polls even opened. When the absentee results were added in, their early vote totals overcame the Election Day leads of Republican challengers. It was like watching the second half of a ball game before seeing the score of the first half, making an early lead look like a come-from-behind win.

"We won on election night, and we lost when they opened the mailbox," House Republican Leader Christopher Rants told the Des Moines Register. "Election Day is no longer 24 hours, it's 24 days." 40 days, to be exact, as state law allowed any Iowa to vote early beginning Sept. 25.

Democrats carried a 92,000 voter lead into Election Day out of the record 533,000 absentee and early ballots. In places where absentees were reported first, rather than last, Democrats jumped out to a big lead fast and saw the margin narrow.

The early vote margin was less than Barack Obama's 160,000 vote margin in Iowa. But fast reporting of early ballots in big Democratic counties, including Johnson County's 23,000 vote absentee lead for Obama, may have contributed to the network's fast call of the state, almost as soon as polls closed at 9 p.m.

House and Senate Lists

Getting a Handle on the House (and Senate)

435 races is a lot to wrap your brain around. I can handle the 35 or so Senate races, that's easy: Dems picked up what they expected to win in NC, NH, VA, NM, CO. Just short in KY. Minnesota is recount tight and Georgia is runoff tight, and Oregon probably ain't gonna happen.

In Alaska, Ted Stevens probably wins and, refusing to leave willingly, gets expelled. Sarah Palin will have to win it to get it. She can't appoint herself. After Frank Murkowski appointed his daughter in 2002, Alaskans changed the law so it goes straight to a special election.

As for the house Kos has this good list and this good list and that good list and Politico has the Another One Bites The Dust list of the defeated. CQ has highlights in a nice narrative format.

Number Salad

The Numbers of the Night



54 percent: President-Elect Obama's winning margin in Iowa, to John McCain's 44.7. Obama's 9 point margin ends the string of Iowa nailbiters that had Al Gore carrying the state by 4000 votes in 2000, and flipping to George Bush by 10,000 votes four years ago.

70 percent: Obama's winning percentage in his best county, the People's Republic of Johnson County. Obama exceeded a local Lyndon Johnson record of 68 percent from 1964. The dusty old canvass books may tell if Obama's margin breaks any sort of FDR record. Johnson County had by far the biggest Obama percentage in the state.

Other counties that traditionally go heavily Democratic, such as Des Moines, were just over 60 percent. Obama had an unusual hot spot on the Minnesota border, topping 60 in Winneshiek, Worth, and in his second best county, 63 percent in Howard. Democrats picked up highly targeted state House and Senate races in Winneshiek, so the extra effort may have been a factor.

81 percent: McCain's winning percentage in his best county. One guess... yeah, Sioux County.

30,069: Obama's Johnson County winning margin. Local Democrats set a goal of 25,000 months ago, and far exceeded John Kerry's 19,000 margin.

4,173: John McCain votes in Iowa County.

4,173: Barack Obama votes in Iowa County, giving Iowa County the Golden Hanging Chad Award for close results. Cedar County got national attention in 2000 with an election night tie, but less attention for a final count that gave Al Gore the county by two votes.

55.2 percent: The percentage of Johnson County's vote that came in as early ballots. Yes, more people voted before Election Day than on Election Day. Statewide, 533,967 voters had returned absentee ballots through midday Tuesday, 16 percent higher than 2004. Absentees postmarked by Monday, Nov. 3 can still be counted, which might affect a couple of the races listed below.

62.6 percent: Senator Tom Harkin's winning margin. Some polls showed low-profile Republican Christopher Reed breaking 40 percent, but he landed at 37.4. That can now be marked as the official baseline for Republican votes in Iowa, a few points above Democrat Art Small's 2004 loss to Chuck Grassley.

O. Kay Henderson at Radio Iowa reports that Reed has still not called to congratulate Harkin, but then, neither has Jim Ross Lightfoot, who lost to Harkin 12 years ago.

35.7 percent: Republican Dave Hartsuch's count in the 1st Congressional District, lowest among the ten major party nominees. Rob Hubler made the deep red 5th District as competitive as any of the others, with 37.3 against Steve King.

42.2 percent: Republican Kim Schmett's percentage, making his race against 3rd District Democrat Leonard Boswell, surprisingly, the closest in the state.

0: Iowa women elected to Congress or governorship, as Iowa remains in the club with Mississippi. Democrats had high hopes for Becky Greenwald in the 4th, but Tom Latham held her under 40 percent.

Likewise, the Iowa Republican blogosphere was convinced, without any neutral indications to guide them, that Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the 2nd District was the sleeper candidate of the entire nation. But she only pulled 38.9 percent to Democrat Dave Loebsack's 57.1, with the remaining 4 points going to two other candidates.

31-19: The new Iowa Senate margin. Democrats gained three Senate districts. Swati Dandekar won an expected victory in open District 18 in Marion, and Mary Jo Wilhelm knocked off GOP incumbent Mark Zieman in District 8 in the northeast corner. Steve Sodders took open District 22 from the GOP in Marshall County. But two incumbent Democrats went down in defeat: Jeff Danielson in Waterloo's District 10 and Frank Wood in the Quad Cities District 42.

6: State Rep. Wes Whitead's lead in House District 1. Not percentage lead, vote lead. Six (6) votes, the state's closest. Seesaw results and conflicting reports kept the Iowa House in question during the night. For a few hours, Rep. Elesha Gayman was shown as losing, but the highly-targeted Democrat held on once the absentees were added in.

160: Democrat Larry Marek's winning margin in House in House District 89 for a Democratic gain. Marek won with a big margin in the Johnson County part of the district, the same way Becky Schmitz carried the corresponding Senate District 45 two years ago.

56-44: The new Iowa House margin, with six Democratic gains. In addition to Marek, the pickups were open District 16 in the northeast (John Beard) and 13 in Mason City (Sharon Steckman). Kerry Burt knocked off ex-TV anchor Tammy Weincek in Waterloo's District 21. Gene Ficken defeated incumbent Dan Rassmussen in District 23 in Buchanan and Black Hawk counties. Phyllis Thede, who narrowly lost a Senate seat to Hartsuch two years ago, beat incumbent Jamie Van Fossen in Davenport's District 81.

But Democrats lost three seats, including two in two northern Linn County. Nick Wagner beat Gretchen Lawyer in open District 36 (Dandekar's old seat), and Renee Schulte bashed first term Rep. Art Staed over the head with a flowerpot (a frequent ad theme) in District 37 by 47 votes, which is within the provisional ballot and late absentee ballot margin.

Incumbent Democrat Mark Davitt appears to have lost in House District 74, though the Des Moines Register reports that Davitt's campaign gathered different numbers and says they won.

If all results hold (Staed and Whitead may not), that's a Democratic gain of three from the last session, but only a gain of two over the 2006 election results. In perhaps the most frustrating result for Democrats, party switcher Dawn Pettengill held on in Benton County's District 39.

60.8 percent: The narrow winning margin for the $20 million Johnson County conservation bond. The issue got off to a roaring start with 70 percent of the absentee, but saw its margin drop through the night. Two vote No committees fought the measure, but by the time they got started many votes were already in the box. (Like mine--making their two robocalls asking me to vote no pretty much moot.) Local Republicans were urging a No vote on their headquarters answering machine, while the Democrats formally endorsed a Yes vote. With so many Democrats voting early, the election day pool of voters leaned more GOP than average. The measure won the Election Day vote in Iowa City by 60-40 but lost by the same margin in the rest of the county. Janelle Rettig of the Land Water Future vote Yes committee calculates the winning margin at 486 votes.

44: Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States. Obama frequently credited Iowa for the Jan. 3 caucus win that sent him on the road to the White House, and that should help Iowa keep its place in the front of the line for the 2012 and 2016 nomination process.

Editor's note: Some of these numbers could change before results are certified, so take them with a grain of salt.

The Beret's Big-Picture Predictions

The Beret's Big-Picture Predictions

As a self-important, self-appointed pundit, I'd be amiss if I didn't commit and make some predictions. So I've put my thinking beret on and handicapped Iowa's big races.

Iowa Presidential: Obama by at least 12 percent, with negligible third party voting (no candidate above 1 percent). The big mystery is why John McCain threw so much personal time into Iowa so late in the game. There was no way he could make up for the months of personal attention Obama showered on the state at caucus time, and for Iowan's special pride in putting Obama on the road to the nomination. And a handful of September and October visits can't make up for two caucus cycles of Screw Iowa contempt for the caucuses and hostility to ethanol.

US Senate: Harkin 59, Reed 41. Steve King might have been able to pull off a scorched earth, "Tokyo Rose of al-Qaida" campaign against Tom Harkin, but Chris Reed was just invisible. Now granted, I live in the People's Republic of Johnson County, but we are still in the top ten in number of registered Republicans just on sheer population. I've seen a lot of McCain and Miller-Meeks signs, but only one Reed sign. And that was outside of Republican headquarters. That Reed, with no money and undercut by his own party, will break 40 percent will shock some observers. But 40 percent is just the rock solid vote for Not Tom Harkin.

Incumbents will sweep the U.S. House races. Republican Dave Hartsuch's percentage in the 1st District will be the lowest of the ten major party nominees, lower than Democrat Rob Hubler's in the 5th. The most publicity Hartsuch has gotten in the late stages of the campaign was getting snubbed, and then complaining about it with a bizarre "John McCain is too pro-gay" theme, when McCain visited Davenport. But Hartsuch has raised his profile on the right for the inevitable primary challenge he'll see in 2010 for his state Senate seat. That'll be one of the landmark battles in the Iowa GOP's ongoing battle--call it a holy war--over its direction.

Oh, yeah, I forgot the incumbent. Bruce Braley will continue to entrench himself in the district. This race would have been more entertaining if 2006 Pirate Party candidate James Hill had run again.

I've seen no evidence that Mariannette Miller-Meeks has a real shot in the 2nd District outside of wishful thinking in the Iowa Republican blogosphere. Sure, sleeper races happen sometimes--like Loebsack did two years ago. But you mean to tell me than in a banner Democratic year, with with the top of the ticket a Democrat who's singularly popular in Iowa facing a Republican who's singularly unpopular, and the state's senior Democrat facing a nonentity, that a Republican who's on no national Races To Watch list is going to win in a blue district? Even Loebsack, the ultimate sleeper candidate, was on the radar at the end, and that was in a year when the tide was moving with his party, not in the opposite direction that Miller-Meeks faces.

Miller-Meeks' partisans will argue that she was also a come-from behind underdog in the primary against Peter Teahen. True, but a couple weeks out there were signs that Teahen was in trouble. Not here. MMM will lose, but will walk away with more credibility than Hartsuch.

Independent Brian White's "parties are bad" message failed to catch on, but may pull a couple percent that would otherwise have gone to Miller-Meeks. Wendy Barth of the Greens pursued a holistic, low-key "sustainability" campaign when a hard-left appeal to the zero-fund the war, Impeach Now! crowd might have been more effective. (Question for Barth, who ran statewide in 2006 for governor: Why this race? Why not the higher profile contest against Harkin? The Greens opposed Harkin in 2002, but this year it's just a two-way race.)

The 3rd District is the Republican's lost opportunity this cycle. Leonard Boswell continues to underperform in what 1) should be a safe district given his seniority and the 3rd's partisan leanings and 2 ) could elect a more progressive Democrat than rural Blue Dog Boswell. Primary challenger Ed Fallon had the right message but proved to be the wrong messenger. The "Nader, Nader, Nader" refrain over Fallon's repudiated, eight-year-old presidential vote got tiresome, but worked with Democratic primary voters. (Question: Should Obama win the presidency, especially if he carries Florida, will Democrats finally let go of their obsessive hatred of Ralph Nader?)

Editorial boards dance around the underlying issues of Boswell's age and health. The Des Moines Register made an extremely weak "endorsement" that called for a last term pledge, and the Cedar Rapids Gazette endorsed Schmett for the same reason. There's got to be a lot of behind the scenes angling going on in Polk County, but no Democrat other than Fallon seems to want to openly tell Leonard it's time to hang it up. Look for Republican Kim Schmett to land in the low, maybe mid, 40s and surprise people... and look for nothing to happen after that, as a generation of Des Moines pols wait for Boswell to retire or otherwise leave office.

The 4th District is the only Iowa race on the fringes of the national Races To Watch lists, but Becky Greenwald will fall just short. Tom Latham hasn't angered people the way Steve King has, and he saw Greenwald's challenge and the bad Republican year coming and adapted in time. Call it 53-47 Latham, and give the Sore Loser Of The Year award to Democratic primary candidate William Meyers. His bizarre, on-again off-again, on the ballot then write-in race has cost him any credibility. (But note to party activists: give long-shot primary contenders fair treatment. Meyers complained that he was denied access to central committees, and that fueled his post-primary efforts. Ten minutes of time wasted on a rambling speech at a party meeting can save you months of headaches like this.)

Just as Republicans are unrealistic in the 2nd District, Democrats are also indulging in wishful thinking with Rob Hubler in the 5th District, simply because they love to hate Steve King so much. But as Douglas Burns notes, Hubler had hoped to catch a net-driven fundraising and publicity wave based on King's frequent and deliberate outrageous comments. That's what happened in Minnesota's 6th District, where Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg is poised to knock off first-term Republican Michele Bachmann. But it just didn't happen for Hubler.

Closer to home, look for Democrats to gain a few seats in both houses of the Legislature. The Iowa GOP is throwing everything they have into House races and a few Senate races (just watch TV for the negative ad evidence), so there may be one or two counter-trend GOP pickups to cushion their losses. My pick for the big upset: Frank Best over Tom Sands in Louisa County based House 87.

Democrats are within reach of two-thirds in the Senate, which would mean Republicans would lose their de facto veto over Governor Culver's appointments--IF Democrats stick with the governor. But those intrigues will give us something to talk about this winter.

Ballot challenges could shift election

Election Could Be Decided Monday

If John McCain is going to win Iowa, it will likely happen Monday.

And if Barack Obama is going to win Iowa, it's already happened. Depending on how you look at it, it happened in the past six weeks, or it happened starting two years ago.

Record early voting, election day voter registration, and ballot challenges may have a bigger impact on Iowa's seven electoral votes than Tuesday's election day voting.

Iowa has seen unprecedented levels of early voting since ballots became available Sept. 25. Through Saturday, 553,669 voters had voted early or requested mailed ballots, and 481,179 ballots had been returned. Democrats hold a 100,000 vote edge in requests. Early voting continues through Monday.

Absentee ballot boards start the work of processing these ballots Monday, opening envelopes and dealing with challenges to absentee ballots. That's the way McCain can improve his percentages today: through the Republican Party's program of "ballot integrity" or "vote suppression," depending on your perspective.

Republicans issued unprecedented challenges to absentee ballots in 2004, concentrating on urban and academic counties. In liberal Johnson County, over 2,000 ballots were challenged for mistakes such as bad addresses and missing signatures. Of the challenged and provisional ballots that were counted, John Kerry won 77 percent, better than any single election day precinct in the county.

Democrats took note, and the seeds of an Obama victory may have been planted two years ago when the Democrats took over the statehouse trifecta of governor, state House and state Senate. The Democratic majorities quickly passed election law changes for Governor Chet Culver to sign.

Most significantly, Iowa joined neighbors Wisconsin and Minnesota with election day voter registration. It's hard to tell what the impact will be, but states with election day registration have the highest turnout in the nation, and young people use the process most frequently. Both those trends would help Obama.

The Democratic legislature and Culver also tightened the laws on ballot challenges. Each challenge must be presented individually, rather than as a group or "blanket" challenge, and the law restricts challenges to a few items such as citizenship, felony status, and residence. A voter cannot be challenged for registering or changing address on election day. Challengers must provide name, address and phone number, and are subject to misdemeanor charges for frivolous challenges.

In another legal change, auditors are directed to open the outer, "return carrier" envelope of absentee ballots when they arrive in the mail and check the inner "affidavit envelope" for problems like missing signatures. The change gives voters a chance to fix their own mistakes. In 2004, the outer envelopes weren't opened till the day before the election.

The Democratic Party also adapted to the 2004 absentee challenges by doorknocking high-turnover areas like college towns later. That way, fewer voters would be likely to move after having requested a ballot from an old address, thus subjecting themselves to a potential challenge. Democrats also steered voters toward more in-person early voting and less voting by mail.

The trend toward heavier early voting may produce some anomalous precinct results. With so many Democrats out of the election day voting pool, Republicans may "win" some precincts they haven't before. Polk County saw the dynamic a few years back in a Democratic supervisor primary, where Gene Phillips won every election day precinct, but John Mauro had an exceptional early voting program and won 80 percent of the absentee vote to win the nomination. He lost the election day vote because his people had already voted.

That happened at the presidential level in 2004. John Kerry led the Iowa absentee vote by 70,000 votes, but Geirge W. Bush carried election day by 80,000 to win the state by 10,000.

Republicans may look at the election day results, compare them to the absentee vote, and cry foul. They may already be laying the groundwork for that with the national attention to problem voter registratiuons collected by the ACORN community organization. But in Iowa, we'll be able to look at the details. For the first time, absentee results will be released by precinct, rather than lumped into one county-wide "special precinct." Political numbers geeks will be able to look at absentee results and election day results side by side to check the effectiveness of their absentee ballot programs in minute detail.

Casual election watchers Tuesday night may also see Iowa's totals narrowing as the votes come in. Absentee totals, which will favor Democrats, tend to be released earlier. The election day precincts, which will lean Republican because Democrats disproportionately voted earlier, will trickle in later.

Richardson backs med marijuana

Richardson backs med marijuana

Bill Richardson is keeping busy with his day job, and one of the home state papers reports:

With fewer than two weeks left in the session, Richardson implored lawmakers to get moving on a number of bills.

"We've only got a few days to go, and I'm urging very quick action on the ethics package," he said. "I'm urging very quick, strong action on predatory lending. I want that cockfighting bill, I want medical marijuana, I want my tax cuts."

I assume "I want medical marijuana" means he's seeking legislation, not that he has glaucoma. In any case this helps put the issue on the presidential playing field.

Organizing Obama

Organizing Obama

Hi from the Holiday Inn in North Coralville. It's odd to blog an organizational meeting for a campaign but there's old media here so I think the idea is to rally the forces rather than reveal the Secret Plan.

They're showing part of the Obamannouncement (the name is so fun to play with ) and folks are still trickling in. Was 50 or so when the lights went down. A lot of folks signing the commitment cards, and some folks just having a look-see. (I'm officially uncimmitted, folks). Paul Tewes, state director, is here. A couple electeds in addition to Iowa City Mayor Ross Wilburn (who is committed).

Tewes starts as TV arrives. My cell phone just landed on my keyboard. I hope I don't ever need my F9 key because it's toast.

8888888 test

Tewes contrasts this campaign to his work on Gore campaign. Says Harkin steak fry was a big part of Obama's decision. "Obama brings out the best in people." More like 75 folks now. "Through his message and background, Obama can transcend the negativity."

The three words:

Respect

Empowerment

Inclusion

We won't tell the locals what to do, there aren't bad ideas (I like hearing that; hope things stay that way next January...) "we have to change how we capaign: less authoritarian, more inclusion."

"The way we campaign is a reflection on the man we're campaigning for." People want to be on this side of history with Obama. Tewes is a low key speaker and ends with a casual "how'd I do?"

F9 key fixed. Simeon Talley the local staff dude is intro-ing Wilburn and the other electeds. So I'll name the names: Larry Meyers, Sullivan, Slockett. That's Larry Myers, not Dick Myers, but Dick Myers is reportedly on board.

Wilburn takes the opportunity to announce his own re-elect bid for this fall.

Ross leads with education and teach to the test rather than learning. Brings up the Walter Reed scandal. The faces here are partly familiar, partly new.

"We are at risk for losing the US as a source of inspiration, and we too as Americans need that source of inspiration." Nice transition there, Ross (the old speech geek in me comes out.)

Wilburn notes that his Illinois relatives speak highly of Obama's work in state legislature. I didn't note it before but it was said in the introduction and the out of towners may not know that Wilburn is African American; Iowa City's first black mayor. Ross does not mention this subtext in his talk. He's also a bike-riding kind of guy and was early early for Dean in `03 and he doesn't mention those either.

"We can disagree about who we are supporting, but don't be disagreeable." He's talking and thinking waaay ahead to that realignment moment.

Hallie Schneider, regional field director, is making the pitch to sign folks up and talking constituency groups and (as Tewes joins in and gradually takes the lead) caucus logistics. The old media is packing up; the mayor must be the lead. Tewes asks "who's never been to a caucus" and a third of the hands go up. Some Caucus 101 talk. The "how to persuade people" discussion is best summed up as Put It In Your Own Words.

TV extracts the mayor for a standup. Fellow blogger Nick Johnson is here but no laptop so I'm scoopin' him. But he mentions blogs so here's the love. He's sounding like a supporter (he was Kucinich last time).

Blogger is being goofy. One person really really hates the "rock star" label; thinks it detracts from Obama's substance. Tewes finesses this well; I think rock stars can have a lot of substance.

Question on whether Wayne Ford and Ako have endorsed; "they have not publicly endorsed."

March 27, 6 PM, they're meeting again. Folks are headed out. The diehards are still talking as of 8:13. I'll sign off for now, update if the schmoozing proves interesting.

El presidente de que?

El presidente de que?

That's suposedly what Bill Richardson's mom said. I think she stole it from Miss Lillian Carter.

The promised link love: Chris at Political Forecast at the Richardson blogger fst. Also old media coverage at Gazette and Register.

Press-Citizen edditorials touch on a couple of my favorites: Same day registration=yes and Israel out of Palestine (the latter is just a guest piece).

Bill Richardson to Iowa tomorrow

Bill Richardson to Iowa tomorrow

Weather willing, I'll be joining some fellow bloggers tomorrow afternoon in Des Moines with Gov. Richardson. Senator Clinton is supposed to be in state too, but the tentative schedule is calling for Dubuque and Des Moines and I'm kind of holding out for Iowa City (not up for a heavy duty peace crowd, Hillary?), or at least Cedar Rapids.

The Overrated One actually has a decent Richardson writeup.

---

The highly regarded Larry Sabato drops the ball with his vulnerable House freshmen article today, placing Dave Loebsack in the second most vulnerable category ("late-breaking surprise upsets, largely without the help of national Democrats"). Larry, the fluke wasn't that Dave Loebsack won - the fluke was that a district as Democratic as ours had a Republican representative in the first place.

Not to mention Sabato cites the really lame song "The Freshmen" by the Verve Pipe which was always confused with the Verve, who were out at the same time with the far superior "Bittersweet Symphony."



Man, did these guys get screwed:

Although the song was written by Verve vocalist Richard Ashcroft, it has been credited to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger because the song uses the Andrew Oldham Orchestra recording of The Rolling Stones' 1965 song "The Last Time" as its foundation.

Originally, The Verve had negotiated a license to use a sample from the Oldham recording, but it was successfully argued that the Verve had used 'too much' of the sample. Despite having original lyrics, the music of "Bittersweet Symphony" was arguably largely based on the Oldham track, which led to a lawsuit. The matter was eventually settled out of court, with copyright of the song reverting to ABKCO and songwriting credits to Jagger and Richards:

After losing the composer credits to the song, Richard Ashcroft commented, "This is the best song Jagger and Richards have written in 20 years."

Ashcroft and the band's reaction to the loss of control and financial rewards from what was their most popular song was not positive; the band split not long afterwards.

Kos Disses Dennis

Kos Disses Dennis



It's like shooting a fly with an elephant gun but Kos's dismissal of Kookcinich is worth the read:

"Higher evolution of human awareness"? "Transform consciousness"? "Paradign shift"? What the hell is this crap? I expect this kind of crap out of Deepak Chopra (or Tom Cruise), not a serious presidential candidate.

Kucinich is using his "faith" as the basis of his "Department of Peace". In other words, he's trying to inject his faith into the public sphere.

And by the way, the "Department of Peace" already exists. It's called the "U.S. Department of State".

And Kos doesn't even mention the bad hair. But he does cover the anti-choice record and the campaigning as dating strategy.

Anyone know any good Mike GraVEL jokes?

Vilsack Dropping Out

Vilsack Dropping Out

The Underrated One has the story.

Taking bets: Vilsack's Hillary endorsement will no doubt follow soon. But that'll be less imortant than who, if anyone, Tom Harkin endorses.

This frees up an amount of Iowa talent and experience that's disproportionate to Vilsack's poll standing. I expect Vilsack's home state support to splinter among the rest of the field. The commanality among the Vilsack list - excluding the Mt. Pleasantries - seemed to be Inside The Des Moines Beltway and/or personal loyalty.

UPDATE: "It is money and only money," says TV in the speech.

Caucusing With Santa?

Caucusing With Santa?



A fair number of Iowa Dems were unhappy in 2004 and 2006 when we held caucuses on Dr. King's holiday. Several precincts passed resolutions against holding the caucuses on a holiday. But I don't think anyone was worrying about Christmas Eve at that time.

Courtesy of NPR's Ken Rudin, whose Political Junkie column at NPR is a must for trivia geeks and button buffs, we have historic Iowa and New Hampshire dates:

1972: Iowa: Jan. 25; NH: March 7

1976: Iowa: Jan. 19; NH: Feb. 24

1980: Iowa: Jan. 21; NH: Feb. 26

1984: Iowa: Feb. 20; NH: Feb. 28

1988: Iowa: Feb. 8; NH: Feb. 16

1992: Iowa: Feb. 10; NH: Feb. 18

1996: Iowa: Feb. 12; NH: Feb. 20

2000: Iowa: Jan. 24; NH: Feb. 1

2004: Iowa: Jan. 19; NH: Jan. 27

2008: Iowa: Jan. 14; NH: Jan. 22 (subject to revision...)

The parties started worrying about the schedule getting too early in `84. Iowa moved a month later while New Hampshire stayed the same week, thus beginning the tradition of the Eight Day Gap. The caucuses drifted between Groundhog and President's Days for four cycles, until frontloading started to get really crazy at the turn of the century.

The Saga of 2000

Three different 2000 caucus dates were scheduled during 1999, and it wasn't nailed down till October 14, 1999. This was spurred by activity on the GOP side, as South Carolina leapfrogged back and New Hampshire responded.

September 18, 1999: Iowa Republicans moved the caucus date from February 7, 2000 to January 31.

September 28, 1999: New Hampshire moved back from February 8 to February 1, foiling the now sacred Eight Day Gap.

October 14, 1999: Both Iowa parties moved to January 24, 2000. We kept that one. And the Democrats stuck with the IA-NH only "early window" which led to an odd month where only the Republicans had contests while Bill Bradley withered on his deathbed awaiting the final flatline in California.

So Iowa returned to the January dates of the `70s, but with the now set in granite Eight Day Gap New Hampshire went zooming into January for the first time in 2004.

2008 can't leapfrog back much more. You thought I was kidding about Santa? We're already into the University's Christmas break. Assuming the caucuses stay on a Monday, Iowa can only move back about a week, to January 7, 2008. Going back any more causes two problems. It lands us in a whole other calendar year which would probably prove unpalatable to the DNC and the punditocracy.

Making matters worse, the next two Mondays going back are December 31, 2007 and December 24, 2007.

Dodd: Afterthoughts

Dodd: Afterthoughts

This is what a caucus event is supposed to be like. The Edwards and Obama events I covered recently felt like general election rallies. But this is the kind of gathering on which the caucuses built their reputation, and which remains Iowa's raison d'etre. A small group of dedicated activists sitting down with someone who, by any reasonable standard, deserves serious consideration as a potential president.

The people waiting to talk to Dodd were not waiting to touch the hem of his garment, as I said of Obama. They were all armed with detailed questions.

But in the Cycle of the Rock Stars, does that matter? Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama simply could not do this type of event, and John Edwards probably can't either. The fire code alone makes it impossible. Obama and Clinton simply do not have enough hours in the day or enough energy in their bodies to spend three minutes with everyone who wants to see them, because so many many people want that moment with them. U2 doesn't play clubs anymore, and you don't get to have a Guinness with Bono between sets. And so every show is a stadium show, every early caucus event becomes a general election rally...

If we can't do these one on one events, that undercuts our case that the caucuses are special and should continue as the first event. Are we soon to be victims of our own success?

(Aside: my pics still aren't downloading. Maybe later...)