Hot Damn! It's January 3rd and it's finally time for the "Hawkeye - Cauci"!....

..... I reckoned I'd do somethin' else this year. Seems like every year the big time polsters come out with their predictions but nobody pays any nevermind the next day or the next week to see how well they predicted. I'm gonna save the poll results as of 0600 this morning, and then tomorrow take a look and see how they fared. We'll do this again next week in New Hampshire and that way we'll get a handle on who knows what the hell they're talking about.... Here goes:

CAMPAIGN NEWS

Polls Give Conflicting View Of Iowa Contest

With all the major candidates engaged in a full court press in Iowa, three polls out since Monday show no clear leader in the state in the run-up to Thursday's caucuses.

Obama, Huckabee Up In DMR Poll The final Des Moines Register poll before tomorrow's caucuses shows Barack Obama leading with 32%, followed by Hillary Clinton with 25% and John Edwards with 24%. The previous iteration of the poll showed Obama leading Clinton 28%-25%. The poll surveyed 800 likely Democratic caucus-goers from Dec. 27-30. On the GOP side, the poll of 800 likely GOP caucus-goers shows Mike Huckabee leading Mitt Romney 32%-26% in Iowa, followed by John McCain with 13%, with Ron Paul and Fred Thompson at 9% apiece. This survey received extensive press coverage, including mention on several nightly news broadcasts last night and on many cable shows.

Clinton, Romney Lead In CNN Poll A CNN poll, which received much less national coverage than the DMR poll, shows Clinton at 33 percent; Obama at 31 percent and Edwards at 22 percent. On the GOP side, the poll has Romney at 31 percent; Huckabee at 28 percent; Fred Thompson at 13 percent; McCain at 10 percent and Rudy Giuliani, 8 percent.

Zogby Tracking Show Clinton, Huckabee Holding Narrow Leads Zogby International's daily Iowa tracking poll shows Clinton leading the Democratic field in Iowa with 30%, followed by Obama, 26%, and Edwards, 25%. Richardson and Biden both pull 5% apiece. On the GOP side, Huckabee leads with 29%, followed by Romney, 25%; McCain, 12%; Thompson, 11%; Giuliani, 8%; and Paul, 7%. The poll surveyed 925 likely Democratic caucus-goers and 903 likely GOP caucus-goers from December 28-31.

Clinton Campaign Disputes DMR Poll The Des Moines Register reports, "Unhappy with the news that" Clinton "didn't top The Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll, her aides this morning say it includes more independent voters than would be expected to participate in the caucuses. The bottom line is that the poll shows that a lot more independents in Iowa want to participate in the Democratic caucus, according the company that polls for the Register." Clinton campaign pollster Mark Penn suggested that the poll is inconsistent with other surveys and "said 40 percent of the caucusgoers included in the Register poll...were independents, even though only 19 percent of caucusgoers were independents in 2004."

So there you have it. I'll save my comments 'til we come back tomorrow! I was gonna apologise to those of you who couldn't care less about this election process for boring you with all this stuff - but then I reckoned if some folks felt that way.... they probably wouldn't be looking at this blog anyway!!
That picture up there on the right is the only pole I really trust and rely on -- the Flag Pole with our great U.S. Flag fly'n proud! (And the Texas Banner as well of course!)