Steffen Schmidt of Iowa State University and avid caucus watcher for many years reminds us non-Iowans of these points:
“1. People are lying in polls – often deliberately because they hate all this.
2. The undecided vote is huge.
3. “None of these” is still often first or second in both parties.
4. People do whatever they want on caucus night.
5. We don’t know who will and won’t turn up on caucus night (that can help some candidates and hurt others).
McCain is always a surprise so if he comes in 3rd he “wins” Iowa. Thompson is not getting much traction.”
So if you hang on a few points here or there in this or that poll the best advice is “don’t.”
I would add to this that local press reports differ significantly from national media. This report on the Huckabee presser from the Des Moines Register lacks the hysterical harping found in much of the national media. Actually even the AP report, if you care to read it all the way through, is quite balanced. UPDATE: This too is very matter of fact. This is even more favorable to Huckabee. Maybe he knew what he was doing?
