Yepsen's take on the new Des Moines Register Poll
The final Des Moines Register Poll is out. It has the race with Obama 32%, Clinton 25% and Edwards 24%, and on the GOP side Huckabee 32%, Romney 26%, McCain 13% and Paul 9%. Respected Register columnist David Yepsen takes a closer look here.
Among the poll's more interesting findings is that the likely pool of caucus goers this year include a very high number of first time caucus goers and independents. If these projections hold it will be one more piece of evidence that there is a big partisan shift happening in the American electorate today, with the Democratic brand growing in strength, attracting many new voters while the GOP brand continues to weaken and lose support across the country.
There is no way read to this poll as anything but a big boost for Obama. While there have been many other polls out in the last few weeks, this poll will be widely read and seen in the state, and as Kos points out, was the most accurate poll in 2004. Unless something unexpected happens - always possible in this business - it sure looks like we will have at least 7 candidates going on to New Hampshire claiming momentum. Interestingly this 7 includes John McCain and Ron Paul, who are both fighting hard to make the next cut on the GOP side.
One of the new things to watch in the month ahead will be how the successful campaigns reach out and engage the millions who will be checking in for the first time as the race matures, goes to new states and essentially goes national. How the campaigns measure site traffic, donations, signups, etc will all become a new metric to be fought over in addition to the traditional metrics of endorsements, number of field offices and polls. Perhaps this is why the Obama campaign unvieled a new web site just a few days ago....
Update: In an important new column today, Road to Nowhere, David Brooks explores "the end of the conservative ascendency" theme we've been writing about for the last several years. He writes this about Mitt Romney:
But his biggest problem is a failure of imagination. Market research is a snapshot of the past. With his data-set mentality, Romney has chosen to model himself on a version of Republicanism that is receding into memory. As Walter Mondale was the last gasp of the fading New Deal coalition, Romney has turned himself into the last gasp of the Reagan coalition.
That coalition had its day, but it is shrinking now. The Republican Party is more unpopular than at any point in the past 40 years. Democrats have a 50 to 36 party identification advantage, the widest in a generation. The general public prefers Democratic approaches on health care, corruption, the economy and Iraq by double-digit margins. Republicans’ losses have come across the board, but the G.O.P. has been hemorrhaging support among independent voters. Surveys from the Pew Research Center and The Washington Post, Kaiser Foundation and Harvard University show that independents are moving away from the G.O.P. on social issues, globalization and the roles of religion and government.
If any Republican candidate is going to win this year, he will have to offer a new brand of Republicanism. But Romney has tied himself to the old brand. He is unresponsive to the middle-class anxiety that Huckabee is tapping into. He has forsaken the trans-partisan candor that McCain represents. Romney, the cautious consultant, is pivoting to stress his corporate competence, and is rebranding himself as an Obama-esque change agent, but he will never make the sort of daring break that independent voters will demand if they are going to give the G.O.P. another look.
The leaders of the Republican coalition know Romney will lose. But some would rather remain in control of a party that loses than lose control of a party that wins. Others haven’t yet suffered the agony of defeat, and so are not yet emotionally ready for the trauma of transformation. Others still simply don’t know which way to turn.
And so the burden of change will be thrust on primary voters over the next few weeks. Romney is a decent man with some good fiscal and economic policies. But in this race, he has run like a manager, not an entrepreneur. His triumph this month would mean a Democratic victory in November.
- Simon Rosenberg's blog
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