I don't doubt that the race is tightening, but Zogby? Please.

The most interesting thing about the Zogby poll is he also applied the 15% viability rule and reallocated people who backed "unviable" candidates in their first round to their second choice. The result was 30% Clinton, 29% Obama, 27% Edwards.

It's probably closer than this in reality, just because of the way the Iowa caucuses work. Several of the candidates in the race are unlikely to get to 15% in most precincts, meaning anyone who shows up to caucus for them will end up migrating to one of the candidates who do. Edwards seems to have a bit of an advantage in this poll as the second choice of people whose first choices are likely to be eliminated, so it may actually be more like a 3-way tie going in. If it does end up being that tight then a lot will be riding on who has the best precinct captains, which was one of the things Kerry really did right last time.

Liberal Larry: Is it that low?

It sure would be nice if there was a poll taken with just Hillary, Obama and Edwards in it - where would voters go to? It would also be nice to see a poll of just Hillary and Obama. Where would Edwards voters go if he was out of the race?

That's the BIG question.

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Coonsey,

As I mentioned earlier this very poll actually goes a step further and allocated people who's first choice polled under 15% to whoever their second-choice candidate was.

When you do that, it comes out to:

Clinton 30%
Obama 29%
Edwards 27%

That's a perfectly valid thing to do in this particular case because the Iowa caucuses aren't like a regular primary election. At an Iowa caucus, any candidate that doesn't draw the support of at least 15% of the attendees gets eliminated from consideration and the people who were there for that person have to find themselves another candidate who does have at least 15% support (or else just leave, I guess).