Punting in Iowa

(Punting as in the Australian word meaning betting on the outcome, not boating with a long pole, which I'm sure would be pretty difficult in Iowa in winter. Speaking of seasons, it's been 108 degrees F here the last two days. Yes, really. Which makes snowy footage from Iowa look even further away than usual.)

Its Jan 2nd here and the Des Moines Register poll and the CNN poll are in . The Register poll has caused quite a stir by putting Obama well in front on the basis of a large (40%) chunk of Democratic caucus goers not being registered Democrats. Naturally enough, the Clinton campaign and their many shills in the media have pooh-poohed this poll on both sample and methodology.

I'm inclined to think the Register sample is right and correctly weighted. That is, there really are a larger number of independents this year talking about showing up to caucuses and Obama is well supported in that group. I suspect however, that this group will be overly soft. That is, they say they'll show up to caucus but many of them won't. So the prediction won't stand up.

I'm betting (punting) that the end result will be somewhere in between the Register poll and the average of the others. That said, this is an environment destined to make pollsters look dumb (not that it's that hard anyway) and the range of reasonably probable results include anything from a big Obama victory to a clear win for either Hillary or Edwards, and any arrangement of second and third.

If the Register is right, and many new independents show up and caucus for Obama, then we have ourselves a whole new ball game. Which would be a feast of entertainment for us politics tragics. Not least because of panic it would set off in other campaigns.

The more brutal of the Clintonista's will want to get really nasty in that event. Which, as we saw with the flap about Obama's drug use a couple of weeks ago, would be a huge mistake. The candidate and her husband know this. The question is how short a leash they have on their attack dogs. Edwards and Co will probably go negative as well but they can get away with and it probably won't hurt them. But it won't help either.

As for GOP side of Iowa. I don't know what to say and I don't think any predictions are worth spit. If it wasn't for the writer's strike I'd accuse the Daily Show of inventing the whole thing in order generate material. Unbelievable.

Back via Bali

I've been away. Or rather, my attention has been elsewhere. Namely the Australian election. For those tuning in late, we had a change of government with a swing of 5.something% removing John Howard from government and a Bush friend from the world stage. Howard also lost his own seat in parliment, which in our system is, like, ouchy.

Any lessons for the US election? Probably not a lot. The key issues were workplace relations and climate change. New PM Kevin Rudd has moved swiftly on the latter and ratified Kyoto before rushing off to the Bali conference, with a bunch of cabinet members in tow, to join the rest of the world in locking horns with the American delegation. All of which tells you that the centre/left in the western world generally is opposed to the Bush administration on climate change. But you knew that already.

Illustrative perhaps of the new government's contrasts with Howard is the rapid promiotion of Senator Penny Wong to cabinet as Minister for Climate Change. As well as being, in one pundit's memorable phrase, tough as nails and smart as paint, the senator also happens to be female, asian, mulitlingual and gay. I'm sure the culture warriors Bush sent to Bali to obstruct for their country didn't know where to start with Senator Wong. Their loss.

Speaking of the Bali conference. The lack of coverage in the US media was pretty depressing (although not as depressing as the US delegation's appalling positions on the issues). It was about the future of the planet for heavens sake. It was front page news here every day for a week but hardly rated a mention in your media. I normally avoid gratuitous America bashing, but I'm afraid in this case I'm falling back on the old, what planet are you people on?