Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry meets fellow Vietnam veteran James Rassmann in Des Moines, Iowa today during a campaign stop. Kerry won the Bronze Star for pulling Rassmann from a river in Vietnam in 1969. Kerry and Rassmann met today for the first time since Kerry rescued Rassmann, who said of Kerry, "He could have been shot and killed at any time. I figure I owe him my life." The Associated Press reports that Rassmann called Kerry's campaign staff yesterday and said he wanted to help Kerry's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. While Kerry put his ass on the line in Vietnam, his biggest rival for the nomination, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, went skiing for more than two months in Aspen, Colo. after he got a draft deferment for an unfused vertebra. "President" Bush at least went AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard. (Reuters photos)
Kerry still going strong in Iowa
There is no more than a 1 percent difference between John Kerry and Howard Dean in the latest Zogby poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers taken Jan. 14 through Jan. 16, but Kerry's other, much less-publicized numbers in Zogby's latest poll (reported by MSNBC) have gone up.
While the latest Zogby poll shows Kerry at 23 percent and Dean at 22 percent (and Richard Gephardt at 19 percent and John Edwards at 18 percent), the poll also shows that Kerry is the second choice of 25 percent of those polled, while Dean is the second choice of 17 percent. (Edwards is the second choice of 18 percent and Gephardt is the second choice of 14 percent.)
In the caucus process, caucus-goers' second choice matters, because if a caucus-goer's first-choice candidate doesn't win in his or her caucus, that caucus-goer has the option of leaving the caucus or supporting his or her second choice. As The Associated Press notes, "Those who back minor candidates may find themselves forced to make a second pick, and those decisions could sway the outcome of a race within the polling margins."
Not only does Kerry have the advantage of being the favorite second-choice candidate, but most undecideds who are leaning toward a candidate lean toward Kerry. Of the 11 percent of likely caucus-goers who said they were still undecided, 17 percent said they were leaning toward Kerry, 15 percent toward Edwards, 10 percent toward Gephardt and only 3 percent toward Dean. (4 percent said they were leaning toward retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who isn't even competing in Iowa.).
Asked their overall opinion of the candidates, those likely caucus-goers polled liked Kerry the best: 40 percent said they have a "very favorable" opinion of Kerry, the highest "very favorable" rating of all of the candidates. A total of 79 percent gave Kerry a favorable (a "very favorable" or "somewhat favorable") rating; 75 percent gave Gephardt a favorable rating; 74 percent, Edwards; and 67 percent, Dean.
Of the four front-runners, Dean got the highest unfavorable ratings: 13 percent of likely caucus-goers polled have a "very unfavorable" opinion of Dean and a total of 29 percent have an unfavorable (a "very unfavorable" or a "somewhat unfavorable") opinion of him. Only 9 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Edwards; 13 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Kerry; and 21 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Gephardt.
"It's going to come down to the ground war," The Associated Press quoted Kerry as telling supporters in Clinton, Iowa today. That's true; how many Iowans each campaign successfully gets to the caucuses is a huge factor, but all we have to go on right now are the polls of Iowans who say they are likely to participate in the caucuses.
And in those polls, John Kerry looks like the winner.
5:21:26 PM 
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