Decision ‘08

All Politics Is Local

I focus a lot on national polls and not that much on the ground in the early states. Here’s a couple of stories to rectify that - first, in Iowa, Huckabee is surging and Edwards is struggling:

The University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll, released at 8 a.m. Monday morning, shows Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in a heated battle on the Democratic side. Clinton leads the poll with 28.9% while Obama garnered 26.6%. John Edwards trails with 20%, a 6-point drop from the last Hawkeye poll in August.

For Edwards, who has basically been living in Iowa (and who parlayed a second place finish there in 2004 into a spot on the Democratic ticket), the results have to be disconcerting. Unlike Obama and Clinton, he has few other strongholds, and a poor showing in Iowa could place his candidacy in serious jeopardy.

…On the Republican side, the Hawkeye poll showed that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has widened his overall lead by 8 percentage points, to 36.2%. But Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, has gained ground despite spending just $1.7 million compared to Romney’s $53.6 million. Huckabee is up from less than 2 % in the same poll in August to 12.8%, putting him in a statistical tie for second place with Rudy Giuliani who garnered 13.1%. Giuliani had spent $30.2 million as of September 30, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

Also today comes a report that Rudy is not going to write off New Hampshire:

Rudy Giuliani, whose presidential campaign strategy originally downplayed New Hampshire, is now making a major bid to win the Granite State primary.

The new push includes spending four days in the state this week, the culmination of an effort which had him more in New Hampshire in October than in any other traditional early state.

The shift in strategy is motivated by both opportunity and fear.

On the upside, the fact that Giuliani can compete in New Hampshire — where he previously was believed to be too far behind GOP rivals Mitt Romney and John McCain to make a serious stand — is another indication of the surprising buoyancy of his candidacy.

There has been no sign of a collapse in his support as voters tune in to the primary contests, despite the expectations of many analysts and voters.

But the new bid to play in New Hampshire also is an acknowledgement that building a nominating strategy largely around big states later in the primary calendar is simply too risky.

It seems to me, however, that Rudy’s team may be reading the risks wrong. If he goes 0-3 without even trying hard, most seasoned observers will know why. If he goes 0-3 after putting in a lot of time and money, that may hurt him more, in this observer’s view…

One Response to “All Politics Is Local”

1 Sean P Says:
October 29th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Mark:

I think Rudy’s initial strategy was to let Romney and McCain duke it out in Iowa, New Hampshire and Michegin and then pick up from there after they had knocked each other unconscious. McCain’s anemic fundraising and early summer collapse forced an end to that strategy. Where Iowa is concerned, this pretty much means the race is ceded to Romney (Huckabee’s surge is fun & all, but without strong organization it is basically tilting at windmills). On the other states, though, Rudy should compete, lest he let Romney’s momentum steamroll into a lead in the polls before the national primaries roll around.