Friday Fearless Forecasts

Hello Kari:

I'm rooting for Indy to pull off the upset in Foxboro. It is going to be cold up there and I'm guessing a low scoring game. How about 17-14 with Manning engineering a late in the game drive for the TD to take the victory?

Meanwhile, down the road, I pick Phily to hold off the Pathers. How about another nail biter that has the Monday morning QBs frantic, 20-17?

Then there is that political rugby match in Iowa? Being the Mid-Westerner in this blog, what is up with your neighbors to the north?

It is now a four-man race! I suppose it was a matter of time before the media that propped up Dean was going to string him up like a pinata to be bashed. Of course, then there was the Clark boomlet as the anti-Dean and now the backlash against Clark is running full speed ahead. Then what do you know? The polls are now showing traditional pols like Gephardt and Kerry who were written off making a comeback.

How are they going to spin this thing?

I suspect in terms of actual votes there won't be a whole lot of difference between all four. But the media and the campaigns will do the dance to spin out a favorable story for whichever candidate they like. My feeling is Gephardt has the most to lose since he is from Missouri next door.

Forecast: (1) Gephardt (2) Dean (3) Clark (4) Kerry. How long before the others drop out?

Rene

UPDATE: In Kari's comments (click below), she reminds me that Clark has opted out of Iowa. I obviously dropped that football big time. Perhaps, my mild dyslexia kicked in when I was reading this poll summary and mixed Edwards up with Clark? No, maybe, I'm just clueless? 8-)

So my amended Iowa forecast (1) Gephardt (2) Dean (3) Edwards (4) Kerry.

However, if the Zogby people are right, Kerry has shown a big movement while everyone else is flat-lining with a small dip in Dean support. Zogby was the toast of the polling community when his group forcasted the somewhat modest victory in the popular vote for Clinton in 1996 while everyone else was predicting a blowout of epic proportions. I haven't been following the Iowa polling that closely. Is any other poll showing a Kerry shift? All will be more muddy by Monday I suppose?

UPDATE: I managed to get it completely backward! The results from Iowa are rather amazing: Kerry, 38%, Edwards 32%, Dean 18% and Gephardt 11%. Suffice to say, Gephardt is done.

Now, onto New Hampshire and here is a summary of polls for that contest.

UPDATE: Instapundit has a nice round up of what the pundits are saying about the Iowa results.