Obama and Huckabee widen their leads in Iowa, but anything could happen

MICHIGAN - It will be a fairly nice day, and the temperature will peak at -2 Centigrade and drop to -6 at its lowest. Not a bad day for Iowa in January. In itself, a good reason to leave the house for a little pleasurable political entertainment for a few hours. According to a survey published yesterday by the Des Moines Register - the final important poll before Thursday's caucuses - many are expected to emerge from their homes tomorrow to cast their votes. By that same count, for nearly 60 percent of the Democrats who will vote, it will be a first. An amazing figure. Among the Republicans, 40 percent are new voters. That, too, is a lot.

Of course it is hard to be sure that they will really come. But if the Register is right, it marks good news for two candidates: Barack Obama, with 32 percent, broadened his lead over his Democratic rivals, Hillary Clinton (25 percent) and John Edwards (24 percent); and Mike Huckabee, also with 32 percent, also increased his lead over his Republican rival Mitt Romney (26 percent).

However the numbers suggest that the story is much more complicated than it may appear. For example: Forty-five percent of the voters in Democratic caucuses will not even be Democrats - they will be Independents (40 percent) or Republicans (5 percent), which means that Obama may win because of them. If in the end those who come to vote are those who are apparently more committed - Clinton will manage to win, by a percentage point or two.

Before his election to the presidency, in 1960, John F. Kennedy made a few speeches that began with the following amusing story: "I barely made it over here today, but fortunately had a very skillful taxi driver. I was about to give him a large tip and tell him to vote Democratic, when I remembered the still more effective vote-getting technique Senator Green had told me about - so I gave him no tip at all, and told him to vote Republican."

It's a story worth remembering today, when the Democrats are once again ahead and the Republicans are finding it difficult to convince the cab driver. "The GOP is in real trouble," wrote the Register's veteran columnist David Yepsen, commenting on the results of the survey. The Independents who will stream to vote for a Democrat in the caucuses are expected to prove this.

The Israel Factor panel was asked this week which Republican candidate would be preferable, from Israel's point of view, to win in Iowa - but members were also asked to take into account candidates' realistic chances. The panel could not reach a clear consensus: Similar numbers of votes were registered for both Huckabee and McCain. Nonetheless, there is some form of agreement, in that Romney is not a preferred candidate. This, in spite of the fact that the panel knew the least about Huckabee. In fact, knew too little.

In his campaign speeches, John McCain often quotes a joke by the late U.S. representative Morris Udall, a presidential candidate in 1976. "One New Hampshire man asks another what he thinks of Udall. The second man replies, 'I don't know. I've only met him twice.'" These are the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire: spoiled. They want to meet their candidates, and not only through television. They want to know as much as possible about them. They take their role as the first to cast their ballots seriously, a role that many believe it is high time to take from them.

This is one of the reasons that the percentage of voters in Iowa who have yet to decide whom they will vote for is still high enough to decide the contest. In 2004, 21 percent of the Democratic voters decided whom they would cast their vote for during the three days leading up to the caucuses. The latest Register poll was conducted four days before the vote. It is no surprise then that during these final days the candidates are rushing from one event to the other, trying to meet more and more voters. Perhaps they will manage to change voters' minds.

Udall, of McCain's joke, was a Mormon candidate, like Mitt Romney. But like Romney's biggest rival, Mike Huckabee, he was also a funny man. Perhaps too funny. Huckabee's rivals are trying to use his sense of humor against him. We are looking for "a commander in chief, not a court jester," another Republican candidate, Fred Thompson said.

The longer the attacks on Huckabee carry on, the more they may convince voters. Forty-six percent of Republicans in Iowa said in surveys that they have already decided whom they will vote for, but they also said that they could still change their minds. This is the sort of support that poll takers call "soft." Softness of this kind could result in a change of preferred candidate, but it could also end with a last-minute decision not to leave the house.

Some 120,000-150,000 voters are expected to vote in the Democratic caucuses, compared to fewer than 100,000 among the Republicans. As such, attention is being given to the organization behind the candidates: Among the Republicans, Romney's is undoubtedly stronger than Huckabee's; in the case of the Democrats, it is hard to say who has the upper hand. Clinton is trying to bring more women and elderly to the caucuses, and Obama is focused on young voters. The assumption is that whoever manages to bring more will do more damage to Edwards. The former U.S. senator from North Carolina appeals to traditional voters, and they are the ones who will come to vote in any case, come rain or shine.