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.

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]

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.

I do not pay enough attention to the GOP race in Iowa. I have already discussed the DMR Poll's prediction that Independents will make up 40% of Democratic caucus goers, up over 100% from 2004's 19%. But I neglected to notice what the Des Moines Register reports today:

Meanwhile, the Register's poll showed independents at 20 percent of likely GOP caucusgoers, up from 13 percent in late November.

So Independents are also flocking to the Republican caucus in record numbers? Sort of makes all of this baffling. But this is what the DMR Poll is saying. That between the DMR November Poll in November and it's New Year's Eve poll, Independents decided to caucus increase their participation in BOTH caucuses by over 100% in the Dem caucus and by over 50% in the GOP caucus as well. They flocked to both parties.

If this was not the DMR Poll, I would be beyond skeptical of this finding. So are we expecting a record breaking total at the GOP Caucus? Apparently not:

State GOP officials say publicly they hope participation exceeds the 2000 turnout of 86,000, while some campaign strategists are suspecting it will be lower.

But the DMR Poll expects recordbreaking Independent participation in the GOP Caucus. This is all very strange frankly.

Zogby completes his book cooking and now has Obama firmly in the lead. It is not that I do not believe it is so. In fact I do. but like Zogby's cooking of his books, it is based on the DMR Poll.

Unlike DMR, Zogby releases no internals about his poll. So much easier to cook them that way. But leaving that aside, the key question the DMR Poll presents is this - will Independents and Republicans will turn out in unprecedented numbers for an Iowa Caucus (DMR predicts that 40 percent of Dem caucusgoers will be Indys, in 2004, when there was NO GOP Caucus, it was 19%, and 5% will be Republicans, in 2004 it was 1%). If turnout is similar to 2004, the DMR Poll would predict a Clinton victory.

So there you have it. Obama will make history and Iowans will vote in unprecedented fashion is the Gold Standard prediction. I'll accept it. So what does it mean? First things first. NOW Obama MUST WIN Iowa tonight. Not finish second to anyone. A loss will be crushing for him. Edwards always had to win. Inadvertently, I think Clinton has won the expectations game. She is expected to lose. And a loss will hurt of course. Indeed, I think a loss to an Obama win costs her the nomination. But if Edwards wins and of course, if she wins, I think she secures the nomination.

And about what's next? Well, New Hampshire is a state where Independents can vote in any primary, Dem or GOP. The Media will be interesting here. They LOOOVE McCain. If they pump Obama hard, they will be killing McCain's chances as it will drive NH Independents to Obama and away from McCain. That will be the end of the Media Darling candidate of all time. Something to watch. New Hampshire is just 5 days away from today.

As for the GOP in Iowa, I think Romney wins tonight and in NH and sweeps to the GOP nomination. Then he becomes easy fodder for the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, who becomes the first African American President of the United States.

Before I forget, the best restaurant meal I had in Des Moines was, hands down, no contest, Luca.

It's an Italian restaurant -- "warehouse district " style. The menu is on one small sheet, price fixed for appetizer and entree. They welcome idiosyncratic requests like "no sauce" and "can I have an appetizer portion of the entree as my appetizer along with my entree.) The food was fabulous, the service terrific and the ambience and the helpful, young waiter made me want to hang there for hours, except we had to get to the Edwards-Mellencamp event. As I said to Jane, Linda and the two Des Moines bloggers who had invited us there for dinner(it's at 420 Locust), "We're not in Kansas any more."

[More...]

John Edwards was the rock star tonight in Des Moines. Mellencamp did a great warm-up, Elizabeth did a worthy introduction, but Edwards owned the night. He had that fire in the belly, the kind of passion you just can't make up. The crowd knew it too.

I'll have video much later or in the morning. Right now the bar downstairs is packed and that's where I'm headed.

Update, 2:00 am Iowa Time: The bar was hopping. Bill Clinton was holding court in the lobby outside the bar with Susan Estrich holding his arm, trying to get him upstairs-- only at the same time he was engaged in a discussion with Fox News' Greta Van Susteran (who looked terrific) that ended with Clinton describing his cowboy boot collection. (More....)

In a very eloquent and well written defense of Senator Barack Obama and his political style (the central POLITICAL issue of this campaign imo), MYDD diarist Shaun Appleby makes the sincere case for Obama's political style, as opposed to Mark Schmitt's defense of Obama's political style as schtick. But Appleby miunderstands the key question in my opinion. He writes:

It could be argued readily that Obama is a potent progressive, and that his strategy for his own candidacy is his prerogative, as long as the end result advances progressive ideology significantly. But he is critiqued for his strategy as well as his positions . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) The reason he is critiqued for his strategy is precisely because those of us who do so believe "the end result does [NOT] advance progressive ideology significantly." This is perhaps the most frustrating thing about discussing these issues with Obama supporters. They seem incapable of understanding that we do not criticize Obama's political style on aesthetic grounds; we criticize his style because we think it will not work to actually EFFECT CHANGE. We believe that despite his being touted as the change candidate, his political style is the one LEAST likely to achieve progressive policy change.

We could of course, be wrong. Let's discuss whether we are or not. But please, respectfully, address the critique, not the strawman.