Iowa A Toss Up For Dems, But Huck Looks Like GOP Winner
BY JOHN TOSCANO

Mike Huckabee, like Obama, surged past the clear favorite in the field, Mitt Romney, in the late stages of the Iowa campaign and has remained there, unthreatened by Romney or U.S. Senator John McCain, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Senator Fred Thompson.

Heading into the last 15 days of the crucial Iowa caucuses campaign, it appears to us that Barack Obama may have missed an opportunity to move clearly past Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democrats' race on his way to winning the January 3 caucuses.

A couple of weeks ago, Obama had surged past Clinton in the polls on the Iowa race, which she had led consistently. At the time, former Senator John Edwards, who won the Iowa caucuses vote in 2004, appeared to be mired in third place in the Democratic field.

Back then, in early December as Obama surged, he also got a major push from television icon Oprah Winfrey, as she campaigned with him the weekend of December 8 and 9 in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Things looked bleak for Clinton at that time. Her campaign appeared to be in a free fall, beginning with her stumbling debate performance in Philadelphia in October. There followed a succession of gaffes, misguided slaps at Obama that all backfired.

But despite Obama's momentum and Clinton's inability to pull out of her nosedive, by all accounts, the final stages of the Iowa race are described as a three-way horse race with all the candidates working feverishly throughout the state to pull out every vote possible.

Clinton's fortunes changed with last Saturday's major endorsement from the Des Moines Register, the most influential newspaper in the state. At the same time, there was a change in direction in the campaign, helped along by former President Bill Clinton, who had contributed to the October/November slide himself.

Hillary Clinton took on a new, confident look, adopting a more positive appearance, relying on the familiar campaign themes of the most experienced candidate in the field while simultaneously assaulting Obama as woefully inexperienced.

From all reports, Bill Clinton had major input in changing the campaign's direction and will stay more in the background to guide events.

Do all the changes assure Clinton of a victory in the caucuses? Not at all. They give her a fighting chance, as most political pundits make Iowa a tight three-way race with the outcome hinging upon how the candidates fare in these crucial last two weeks, less the time taken to observe the Christmas holiday.

The caucuses are important because they provide the first test of actual voting after about a year of polls. For the winner, in Clinton's case, it reaffirms her status as the favorite; for Obama, it shows that the voters like his message, and despite his being a U.S. Senator for only three years, he has struck a chord and it gives him a clear shot at winning the New Hampshire and South Carolina tests which follow close upon Iowa's balloting; for Edwards, it invites a closer look by the voters in the next two states and keeps his candidacy alive.

Meanwhile, the picture on the Republican side is diametrically opposed to the Democrats' situation.

Mike Huckabee, like Obama, surged past the clear favorite in the field, Mitt Romney, in the late stages of the Iowa campaign and has remained there, unthreatened by Romney or U.S. Senator John McCain, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Senator Fred Thompson.

McCain, despite the first flicker of life in his campaign with his first endorsements, still poses no threat, and Giuliani, who was never in the hunt in the Hawkeye State, is still nowhere in sight of the caucuses.

As for Thompson, the last candidate to come into the fray, his campaign never took off and there doesn't appear to be any chance that it ever will.

Giuliani, for the longest time the clear frontrunner in the field, is now threatened with being swept out of the race as national polls show Huckabee nipping at his heels.

The former mayor for the longest time, was regarded as the GOP's most winnable candidate, but a series of persistently bad stories seriously questioning his judgment have placed in doubt his ability to win the February 5 Super Primary Day races and regain the lead over his rivals.

Giuliani's master plan had him conceding the earliest tests to his rivals, but swooping in and taking the states with the largest numbers of delegates- New York, California, Florida, Ohio, etc.

But with all the bad press he's gotten in recent weeks, plus the possibly devastating fallout that might still result from the pending trial of Bernard Kerik, Giuliani is in a dire predicament right now.

And with no other candidate poised to trip up preacher and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, the preacher seems to have a clear field, improbable as that may seem. For certain, he looks like the Iowa winner.

It looks like a great spot for the other Mike- Bloomberg- to make a dramatic entrance.