Update [2008-1-3 20:38:37 by Big Tent Democrat]: CNN - 56% women, 26% Independents. Axelrod says anecdotal of evidence of over 200,000 turnout. No idea if Axelrod knows or is blowing smoke.

Half are first time caucusgoers and a ton of older women. Singer says Entrance polls says Clinton 36, Obama 31.

Via Todd Beeton:

130,000 Iowans expected to vote in Democratic caucus; 80,000 expected to vote in Republican caucus.

Keith Olbermann just said Obama and Clinton leading in Entrance Polls. Apparently too close to call.

Edwards 3rd.

Update [2008-1-3 20:7:59 by Big Tent Democrat]:Huckabee and Romney apparently close according to exit polls.

In case you did not know. Just compared her to Freddy Krueger. Compare, as others have, to how all McCain needs is well NOTHING, in Iowa to be the Comeback Kid. It would be funny if it was not so pathetic.

One thing I have noticed watching the coverage, NOT ONE NETWORK has focused on the most important issue tonight - will Independents and Republicans turn out for Obama. Tweety even said that if Hillary gets 30% that means 7 of 10 Democrats will have rejected her. forget the fact that a vote for Obama is NOT likely to be seen be all as a vote against Hillary, the DMR poll says that 45% of caucusgoers will NOT be Democrats!

And poor Edwards. Peter Fenn said that EVEN IF EDWARDS WINS he is in deep trouble. Oy!

Obama and McCain the clear Media Darlings tonight no matter what. Ah the Media.

As Tom Petty says, the waiting is the hardest part. Doors open in two hours to the caucuses. Will independent voters turn out in droves to vote for a Democrat? Will the youth vote materialize? Will there really be an unprecedented number of first-time caucus goers? Will Hillary use all of her 5,000 drivers to get her supporters to their caucus venues? Who will the second tier candidates throw their support to?

Jane of Firedoglake and I have three caucuses on our list and will live-blog from whichever we end up at. After the caucuses, we'll be at the Convention Center to watch the results come in real-time with the other 2,500 journalists. Both of us will have desk space with electrical outlets and internet connections.

More...

The networks will employ entrance polls from Edison Research (you can't exit poll a caucus) tonight in Iowa. As Todd Beeton notes, this provides a strange dynamic in that we will have entrance polling data analyzed on television BEFORE the caucuses are completed. Stoller opines, correctly in my view, that:

I'm starting to think that the entrance poll will determine the media narrative after Iowa, not the final caucus results. If someone wins the entrance poll, but loses after second-choices are allocated, both the campaign and the media will point that out in pretty much every write-up of the caucuses.

But what of the things the Media will talk about before the caucus is over? Turnout will be the main thing. I believe they will talk about what percentage of the caucus goers are Democrats, Independents and Republicans. If you have been reading me, you know that I believe that Obama's win will depend on historic Independent and Republican participation in these caucuses. We will know if that happened based on these entrance polls. In essence, I believe we will know what will happen based on that result, which we will know BEFORE the caucuses are even finished.

While we're waiting for the caucuses to start in a few hours, here's some short video clips I took yesterday of Hillary Clinton in Cedar Rapids. The first is about her successful bill to get medical insurance for the National Guard.

This next one is about caregivers and medical insurance.

[Clips since removed]

Bill Richardson was easily the worst candidate of this cycle and he ends his campaign tonight with an appropriately hilarious Keystone Kops routine. First, John Harwood of the NYTimes, a serious guy, reports:

After earlier winning the support of Dennis Kucinich, Obama’s campaign has reached an agreement with Bill Richardson for the second-choice votes of Richardson supporters in caucuses where the New Mexico governor can’t clear the threshold for competition, according to a senior Obama campaign adviser [It is David Pflouffe, me talking not Harwood. How do I know? Becuase in the update he went on the record to say there was an "informal arrangement"]. . . . But the specter of backroom deal-making could also raise questions about Mr. Obama’s stance as an opponent of traditional politics. The national spokesman for Mr. Obama’s campaign, Bill Burton, said word of a deal “isn’t true.”

I believe it is true now, and a useless deal it is. If it were not true, Richardson would be denouncing Obama's campaign for this. They are not. Marc Ambinder reports:

John Mellencamp singing "Our Country" at the John Edwards event in Des Moines last night. And here's Elizabeth Edwards introducing her beaming husband.

Update: Here's Mellencamp singing "Pink Houses."

Update: Also check out Jane's post on the Edwards event last night and Huckabee event the night before.

[Videos since removed]

The choice of John Durham to lead the investigation of destroyed CIA interrogation videotapes appears to be sound:

Several defense lawyers compared Durham to respected U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of the Northern District of Illinois. "He's Fitzgerald with a sense of humor," said lawyer Hugh O'Keefe of Connecticut.

The question is whether Durham can be as effective as Fitzgerald, in the absence of the independence and resources that Fitzgerald had as special counsel:

Mr. Mukasey pointedly did not designate Mr. Durham as a special counsel, in effect refusing to bow to pressure from Congressional Democrats to appoint an independent prosecutor with the same broad legal powers that were given to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel who was appointed in 2003 to lead the investigation into the disclosure of a C.I.A. officer’s identity. ... As special counsel, Mr. Fitzgerald had the authority of the attorney general for the matters under investigation.

Mr. Durham will report to the deputy attorney general, an office being held temporarily by Craig S. Morford. Mr. Durham will have the powers of the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, a jurisdiction that includes C.I.A. headquarters.

The powers of a U.S. Attorney are formidable, but it would be a reassuring sign if Durham didn't have to report to a deputy AG.

Stoiller riffs on Atrios piece and adds this interesting tidbit from a conversation with an Iowan.:

[H]e said that he hopes that Obama and Clinton can run on the same ticket, and if they can't get along and do that in a bipartisan way, he'll be disillusioned with politics.

It is kind illuminating isn't it? This guy seems to think Clinton and Obama are in different parties and if they can get together we can achieve "bipartisanship." My question is who does he think the Republican is?

I post this for your interest but the poll itself is hard to understand:

Obama 34 (22)
Edwards 33 (29)
Clinton 32 (30)

I guess it assigns second choices but apparently Obama gains the most from this and it is a one day poll. Looks like some number cooking to make its numbers more Obama friendly in light of the DMR poll results to me. In addition, it shows no advantage for Obama over Edwards among Indies and actually virtually no effect from Independent voters. Looks like a sloppy bit of butt covering to me. Who knows?

This is an interesting development, not because I think it means Clinton is going to win, I don't, but because it is an interesting aboutface in spin tactics:

** Hillary Clinton's team has revised its turnout model. The same senior campaign source who projected a turnout of 140,000 voters is now predicting that 150,000 voters will show, and says that, according to the turnout model the campaign is employing, Clinton will finish a strong first on the strength of turnout from Democrats. Two days ago, Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, told me that the Obama turnout model assumed about 150-155,000 people too. Clearly, the more independents who turn out, the better for Obama. The more Democrats -- the more new Democrats -- the better for Hillary Clinton. An Edwards aide said the campaign predicts that 135-140,000 Dems will caucus.

Why spin up? My guess? They felt they were being hurt by trying to lower expectations. For the record, each campaign is projecting a record turnout, 122,000 caucused in 2004.

Apparently Dick Bennett of ARG does not buy into the record Independent turnout the DMR Gold Standard Poll does. Clinton With a 9 Point Lead:

Clinton 34
Obama 25
Edwards 21

(12/31-1/02)

ARG predicts that only 17% of caucusgoers will be non-Democrats. 83% Democrats - with Clinton beating Obama and Edwards by 38-21 among Dems (DMR has Clinton winning among Dems by 33-27). ARG has Obama winning among the 17% of non-Democrats by 45-21. In 2004, Independents made up 19% and Republicans 1% of caucusgoers.

Someone will be a genius tonight - Ann Seltzer of DMR or Dick Bennett of ARG. John Zogby remains a charlatan no matter what the result is.