Today is the day

For all us political junkies, the real action has finally arrived. Today is the Iowa Caucuses. And for the first time I can remember, neither party has any idea who is going to win Iowa yet alone the nomination. This uncertainty makes for great entertainment. I heard this morning that they are expecting record high turnouts for the Democrats and record low turnouts for the Republican. This tracks with the same level of enthusiasm that has appeared at campaign events and fundraisers. Needless to say this is not a good sign for Republicans.

Let's start with the Republican side. The race is very very close. I suspect Romney has a slight lead going into tonight. Probably about 1 percent. When you consider they expect about 90,000 voters that amounts to only about 900 voters. The interesting thing about Romney is that he should be running away with the race. He has business and government experience, is a good speaker, has tons of money and has run a very smart, traditional campaign. Contrast this with Huckabee who is flying by the seat of his pants, has virtually no money and no staff on the ground and you wonder how he is keeping up with Romney. So why are they so close? Mostly, because Romney has a hard time relating and connecting to the average voter. He does and says all the right things but people either don't believe him or don't like him. That's a bad combination. He brought most of this on himself by trying to remake himself into a down the line conservative when he is most likely a northeast moderate. Most people can see through that phoniness.

Huckabee on the other hand is nowhere near as polished or disciplined as Romney but his pastoral skills help him connect with the average voter. And while much is being made of his evangelical base, I believe his blue collar, working class message is what separates him from the rest of the field. Plus his humor and guitar playing supplement his politics making him the "fun" candidate. I mean would you rather listen to Romney's powerpoint or Huckabee's guitar rift? But some people are beginning to question if the fun candidate will make a competent president and that is a troubling question for Huckabee. It appears more and more that the safe choice is Romney and then maybe McCain.

Here is what I expect tonight. Due to Romney's stronger campaign structure, he should out perform the polls and win by a couple percentage points over Huckabee. Huckabee will come in a close second but not close enough to give him the national momentum he needs. Thompson is going to cut into his evangelical base and that will push him into third place just ahead of McCain. Paul will be a respectable 5th place and Giuliani will be lucky to break 5 percent. The stories of the night will be Romney surviving and Thompson coming in third and both getting a bounce out of the evening.

On the Democrat side all three top candidates are in a statistical dead heat. Having said that, I think a large turnout helps Obama. I also think the way the Democrats do things by eliminating all candidate below 15 percent helps him as well because it consolidates the anti-Hillary vote. If turnout ends up being lower than expected then Edwards has a chance to pull the upset. This is secretly what Hillary wants because she now knows she has no chance of winning and she'd rather see Edwards with momentum than Obama because Edwards doesn't have the money and structure to take on Hillary in all fifty states. Hillary is already downplaying the results and trying to lower expectations. My prediction is Obama narrowly over Edwards and Hillary a distant third.

Republicans
Romney 30
Huckabee 27
Thompson 15
McCain 13
Paul 10
Giuliani 4
Hunter 1

Democrats
Obama 34
Edwards 32
Clinton 24
Richardson 5
Biden 4
Dodd 1