Obama's standing in Iowa poll shifts contest -- but caucuses dificult to predict

Boston Globe: Obama's standing in Iowa poll shifts contest
By Sasha Issenberg
Globe Staff / November 26, 2007

....Last week began with the release of an Iowa poll - of negligible statistical relevance but much symbolic weight - showing Clinton for the first time behind Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. The final month before the Jan. 3 caucuses will be syncopated by the regular release of new public polls expected to influence voter behavior even as specialists disagree about their accuracy.

The ABC News/Washington Post survey, perhaps the most discussed of the campaign, had Obama at 30 percent, Clinton at 26, and John Edwards, former North Carolina senator, at 22. The gaps between leaders were within the poll's 4.5-percentage-point margin of error, suggesting - as polls have shown for a while - that there is a tight three-way race in the state. But as the two candidates moved among Iowa's small towns this weekend, the race's psychological dynamics appear to have been disrupted by the new snapshot of Obama atop the field, especially as Clinton reaffirms that strength and electability are central to her appeal...."I pay attention to national polls and in states that have primaries," said Christie Vilsack, a cochairwoman of Clinton's Iowa campaign, "but you can't poll the Iowa caucuses unless you poll only the 120,000 people you know are going to come out."...

***

"Predicting turnout with polls is a really hard thing," said Tom Lindenfeld, a Democratic strategist who has worked for Obama. In making projections, campaigns rely above all on their "hard count," a tally of voters who have pledged to support them, and a list of previous caucusgoers made available for sale by the state party. But no media organization is believed to have purchased such a list, so instead of knowing who has participated in past caucuses - considered the best indicator of turnout - pollsters are random-dialing households and asking voters whether they have voted before and how interested they are in the current race....

***

The biggest challenge is in vetting those who say that January's caucus would be their first. The ABC survey showed Obama and Clinton relying on first-time caucusgoers for nearly half their support, while new voters represent one-quarter of Edwards's....Polls show Edwards's support coming more from middle-aged voters who are seen as the most reliable participants on caucus night. "The thing that's going to help Edwards is that in the past the typical Iowa caucusgoer has been in that baby-boomer range," Bystrom said....

***

Even those who make up their mind do not always get to cast that vote on caucus night. Democratic caucus rules require a candidate to pass a threshold of 15 percent backing in a given precinct; supporters who come up short typically pick another candidate. In the ABC poll, Obama expanded his lead when voters were asked for their second choices, heartening his supporters who see an anti-Clinton bloc forming among backers of her opponents. Yet at a caucus, where voters must stand publicly on behalf of their candidate, the sorting-out often takes place under great social pressure and tactical alliances that override the second-choice scenarios posed by pollsters....

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/11/26/obamas_standing_in_iowa_poll_shifts_contest?mode=PF

Good god do people really think a majority will vote for a guy with such little experience?

Why vote for someone with Obama's experience against a guy with, say - Giuliani's experience?

I dunno. Gotta think about that one.