Democrats Vie to Break Three-Way Tie in Iowa

JUDY WOODRUFF: They are not. And, in fact, Jim, that's one of the great big question marks about tonight is, how many independents are going to turn out to vote?

The Obama campaign very openly says that it is looking for a high turnout of independents, higher than what we've seen in the past. They are even looking at Republicans. And, in fact, we've been hearing -- I've been talking this weekend, some of the crowds that I've been to, people will tell you, "Well, I have some Republican friends who are going to turn out and vote Democratic for Obama and other candidates."

So, yes, you can show up tonight. You register tonight to change parties if you want to. You can have been a Republican in the past; you can show up tonight, register as a Democrat, go in, and vote for a Democratic candidate. Same with the Republicans.

JIM LEHRER: Judy, just mechanically, what's the expectation as to when the results from all 1,800 of these caucuses on the Democratic side will be known?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we will start to get some results, Jim, around 8:30 or so. They will start to trickle in. But I don't think we're going to know anything -- and I'm talking Eastern time now -- more definitively until 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, and maybe later.

It really depends on how close it is. If it's as close as David and Mark were just saying -- and that's what we're hearing here. Everybody you talk to is afraid to make a prediction, for all their confidence. This could go on into the night.

But we'll see. We know to be ready for a surprise either way.

Let me bring Mark and David back into this.

David, here again, talking about the Democrats only, from your point of view, just looking -- no matter -- obviously, we don't know. It's too close to call. Nobody knows how it's going to turn out. But from your perspective, who has the most to lose tonight on the Democratic side?

DAVID BROOKS: Hillary Clinton, I think. She can survive it, but if she comes in third, I think it really damages her prospects.

John Edwards has invested everything in Iowa. If he comes in third, I think he's in real trouble.

If Obama wins this thing, I really think it's going to be a huge cultural moment, an African-American winning in an all-white state against two very good candidates. I think he becomes an extremely strong candidate.

So I think Obama has the most to gain if he ends up winning. Hillary, if she comes in third, I think she can survive it, because she's got those resources, but it really puts a dent in the whole idea of the Clinton machine and the Clinton inevitability.

JIM LEHRER: What would you add to that, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I don't know what I could add to it, Jim, other than the fact that the inevitability argument seems to have been shelved recently by the Clinton campaign, that it did not have great traction among Iowa voters.

And I do agree with David. It would be a global moment if Obama does win the Iowa caucuses. And I think it would be headlines around the world tomorrow, in every paper, in every major capital. It would be an historic development in this country, not simply her defeat, but his victory.

John Edwards has just about everything riding on Iowa. It's hard to see a road to the presidency and the nomination for him finishing anything other than first in Iowa. And I think he has recognized that. He's put an enormous amount of energy and time into it.

And I do want to underline David's point: These are three really good candidates. I mean, this is a field that is a tough, tough field. I can't recall when there have been three candidates who have gone through a campaign as long and arduous as this one without any missteps. I mean, that's rather remarkable.

JIM LEHRER: David, do you stick by what you said on the NewsHour last Friday that, if Hillary Clinton wins tonight, that she's pretty much got it?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I don't know if she's quite got it, but she's very close. As Mark said, Edwards has thrown everything at Iowa.

JIM LEHRER: Yes, I'm just paraphrasing what you said last Friday.

DAVID BROOKS: I had polysyllabic words, I'm sure, to say the same thing.

Barack Obama has also thrown everything in. He's thrown his money in. What strikes me is how different the three campaigns are. They have the same basic policies. The atmosphere of the crowds, totally different.

Hillary Clinton, very programmatic, "Here's what I'm going to offer you." John Edwards, very angry, "Corporate greed is stealing your children's future," he says. Barack Obama, very uplifting, much younger crowds, getting beyond the politics of division.

So they have the same policies. They look at the same polls. But they themselves come out. And they have three distinct emotional flavors that's on offer for people here.

And I should mention, I saw Joe Biden yesterday. He's fantastic, and he can't even crack the top three, because the rest of the field is so strong.

JIM LEHRER: Finally, before we move on, Judy, do you agree with David's point that these campaigns have very distinct tones?

JUDY WOODRUFF: There's no question, Jim. There was a point where people were saying, "Gee, there's just not that much difference. They all agree." But as we've come into the final stretch here before the caucuses, you can see a distinct approach, and it really is just very much along the lines of what David outlined.

With Hillary Clinton, it's, "I've got experience. I'm ready to start on day one, and here's the list of things that I can do for you, whatever the problem is."

With Obama, it's, "I represent the kind of change you want, because I'm going to bring people together. It's what we really need."

And with Edwards, it's, frankly, it's an angrier "I'm going to fight for you" approach. So people do have something to choose from.

But just to underline, Jim, you hear people say that -- they will tell you, "I had such a hard time making up my mind, because I could live with any one of these Democratic candidates. And so, if my person loses, I can live with somebody else." And that's why so many have been reluctant to commit until the last minute.

Staying with the Democratic race, Margaret Warner now examines the Democratic field, where it came from, and how it got where it is tonight.

MARGARET WARNER: And for that, we're joined by Stu Rothenberg, editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report and a columnist for Roll Call, and Amy Walter, editor-in-chief of National Journal's political newsletter, The Hotline.

So, Amy, how did we get to where we are? Take us back to what the state of play was last spring, when, in fact, quite a different person looked to be on top in the Democratic field.

AMY WALTER, The National Journal: Well, if we go even all the way back to 2006 when this race actually began -- remember, we'd just gotten into 2008, and we've been heavily involved in Iowa for almost a year-and-a-half -- but it was John Edwards who has campaigned there pretty much non-stop since 2004 who was on top of the polls.

Barack Obama, not as well-known. Hillary Clinton not doing all that well, either, even though she was doing so well in national polls and was very well-known.

I think what we saw over the course of the summer was the fact that Hillary Clinton in many ways drove the debate. She drove this election and about the issues she wanted to talk about. She blunted concerns that liberals had had earlier about whether she could be a change candidate versus somebody like Barack Obama.

The issue of Iraq, which was supposed to really be a problem for her in a place like Iowa that has such a very strong anti-war sentiment, not as big of an issue for her. Again, she was able, I think, to sort of parry and block all of the incoming problems and to not make those the centerpiece of the election, as Obama had liked, and to really focus on the issue where she dominated, experience.

And Obama helped her with a couple of slips earlier in the summer. He'd gotten criticism for his remarks on Pakistan, sitting down with leaders of -- you know, dictators, et cetera. So she was able to make this campaign what she wanted it to be. Then it started to change.

MARGARET WARNER: And why did it start to change?

STUART ROTHENBERG, Rothenberg Political Report: I think it changed, primarily, Margaret, because the Obama message turned from merely novelty, fresh, bringing people together, the questions about inexperience to issues of judgment.

And he said, well, you don't have to have served as president or slept with a president to take this job, to know how to do the job, to make judgments. And so his argument about change suddenly evolved to change and maturity, and he looked like he could be president.

So where at one point he was just the fresh face, the new guy, suddenly he was someone who had stature. And you heard comparisons to the new John Kennedy, right, and so it was a very different kind of change messenger.

MARGARET WARNER: And then Edwards went from being, as you said, Amy, first in the lead, then for a long time the press basically covered it as a two-person race, but then, at the end, Edwards seemed to have another "boomlet." What was happening there?

AMY WALTER: Well, I mean, I think on this idea of change, all three of them are trying to find their own unique way to describe it.

Right, so for Hillary Clinton, as Judy and others have pointed out, it is about change with experience. But what Edwards was able to say is, "You can get the kind of change you want, a populist message that goes right to the heart of the core Democratic voter in Iowa." That's where he's been able to succeed.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Stu, let me just ask you about the second-tier candidates, which we haven't covered enough. But here you have men with impressive resumes.

STUART ROTHENBERG: Yes.

MARGARET WARNER: I mean, Senators Joseph Biden, Chris Dodd, Governor Bill Richardson, why could they apparently not get any traction, in terms of getting into the first tier?

STUART ROTHENBERG: Well, first of all, they didn't compare in terms of fundraising with the top-tier candidates. They just didn't raise the money and have the state organizations. They didn't have some of the national pizzazz.

But, as well, Margaret, it's a question of the celebrity factor. You had these celebrity candidates, these big names -- in the case of Edwards, not as big a name, but he had been in the state for so long -- terrific qualities in terms of communicating with voters, knowing how to work the media. I think it was just hard for the second-tier candidates to break through.

AMY WALTER: Yes, and I think they also had the wrong message at the wrong time. I mean, their message is experience, when the voters in Iowa are saying overwhelmingly they wanted somebody who's change, not somebody who's been spending all their time in Washington.

STUART ROTHENBERG: And if they wanted an experienced person, they had Hillary Clinton there.

AMY WALTER: Absolutely.

STUART ROTHENBERG: So there was not an opening.

AMY WALTER: There was not a lot of room.

MARGARET WARNER: So it was hard to find an opening.

STUART ROTHENBERG: Yes, yes.

MARGARET WARNER: And then, finally, very briefly, how important did money turn out to be in this final month, as all this jockeying is going on, the fact that Hillary Clinton and Obama had so much more money?

AMY WALTER: Listen, I think that the bigger issue is the fact that this campaign stayed positive all along. I think that helped John Edwards. Yes, he's been outspent dramatically, but the fact that nobody turned negative on him, it meant he didn't have to spend a lot of his meager resources on defense. He could play all offense.

STUART ROTHENBERG: I think it's about message, and candidate charisma, and personality, much less about money. Money is important early.

MARGARET WARNER: Stu and Amy, thanks. We'll be back.

Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Yes, thank you, Margaret.