Mickey Kaus lists the most common theories, but there are at least three reasons they are not completely convincing.  First, the NH polling average for Sen. Barack Obama was 38.3% and the ultimate result was 36% – within the margin of error and thus not supportive of the Bradley/Wilder effect theory.  Whether Obama benefitted from a reverse-Bradley effect in Iowa is an interesting question, but one I think is unanswerable.  Obama’s

After all of the tears and recriminations — and a likely loss in New Hampshire — I suspect Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign will soldier on… but what do they do with the wave generated by Sen. Barack Obama? They should work on turning Obama back from a Movement to a man.  Clinton is already making a start on arguing that Obama has not been a leader, but is picking the wrong issues, when

In Part 3 of this series, I argued that the Iowa caucuses will likely have no impact on the campaign for the Democratic nomination  (which is likely to be won by Sen. Hillary Clinton).  But I did not analyze the GOP race. At The American Prospect, Thomas F. Schaller argues that Iowa will also be meaningless for the Republicans.  However, in setting forth the case for Iowa being generally meaningless, Jay Cost

An article like Adam Nagourney’s “What if Iowa Settles Nothing for Democrats?” is patently silly on its face, though perhaps a marker of the shallowness of The New York Times.  At RealClearPolitics, Jay Cost lays out the data showing that Iowa not only settles nothing, but is rarely influential on New Hampshire, let alone the rest of a presidential campaign. Yet an article like Roger Simon’s “Should Hillary Clinton have skipped Iowa?”

From the WSJ (subscription only): If Republicans lose control of Congress in November, they might want to look back at last Thursday as the day it was lost. That’s when the big spenders among House Republicans blew up a deal between the leadership and rank-in-file to impose some modest spending discipline. Unlike the collapse of the immigration bill, this fiasco can’t be blamed on Senate Democrats. This one is all