Iowa Spin Cycle Underway: AKA The Iowa Caucus

The Iowa caucus is underway, and most people don't quite understand how the caucus operates. It's not a standard election where everyone places their vote on a candidate and the votes are tallied.

There are a series of rules that winnow the field - 15% is required to move on to the second round and supporters of those candidates that fail to get 15% can move their votes to other candidates. Second and third tier candidates who have little chance of success can determine the outcome by pushing their votes to one of the other candidates.

As the Democrats headed into Iowa, they were spinning furiously. Hillary Clinton was setting a very low bar, figuring that she would probably place third. That sucks to be her, considering that she has been the Democratic frontrunner from the moment she stepped into the race. All of her mojo has gone as people realize how badly she handles criticism and adversity. Obama and Edwards stand to gain from her dropoff, and all are looking to win Iowa. Whoever wins on the Democrat's side, will have a big boost heading into New Hampshire and the Super Tuesdays.

Real Clear Politics has more.

The GOP will have similar issues, and while Iowa looks to be a race between Romney and Huckabee, it isn't likely to settle anything as Rudy Giuliani has pegged his hopes on the big tier states like Florida, California, New Jersey, and New York, all of which come after New Hampshire and South Carolina. The condensed schedule has changed the calculus used by candidates to determine where to campaign, and Rudy thinks that this will enable him to focus on those states where most of the votes necessary to win the nomination are to be found - not Iowa and New Hampshire.

As for predictions, I'm going to go with Obama winning the caucus for the Democrats. Edwards will take second and Hillary a very disappointing third with Richardson taking fourth by a very narrow margin. Romney will win for the GOP. Huckabee will take second by a narrow margin with McCain sliding into third. Fred Thompson will take fourth, but the surprise will be how strong Rudy will do in Iowa given his paucity of campaigning there. Ron Paul will be a nonfactor.

UPDATE:
There are rumblings of a major scandal about to break (or two scandals) and the focus is apparently Mitt Romney, if you can believe the scuttlebutt. I'm not sure there's anything there to break, but if there is, I'll post it.