Salon’s Glen Greenwald has a hilarious round-up from the barons of Beltway conventional wisdom who inaccurately predicted/reported an impending Huckabee Iowa demise largely because his campaign tactics apparently do not comport with their savvy views on how an election should be run:

I love when this happens. It's a reminder that the political prattle that spews forth from group-think media stars without end and which consumes our political dialogue for a full year is based on absolutely nothing. Also, most predictive "analysis" from the media stars' cousins, the cogs in the right-wing noise machine, is merely self-absorbed wishful thinking masquerading as objective knowledge:

Greenwald's target list includes: Time's Joe Klein, The Politico's Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin, The Weekly Standard's Dean Barnett, Hugh Hewitt, Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin and NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez.

I recently had the chance to interview Georgetown University Professor and author Christopher C. Hull about his new book, “Grassroots Rules: How the Iowa Caucus Helps Elect American Presidents.”

Mr. Hull has been studying the Iowa caucuses for years and offered some insights on tonight’s voting, along with how the political blogs have helped reshape the process.

Although there have been a number of developments in the days since we spoke, Hull’s breakdown of the three leading Democratic candidates sounds about right.

Hull says Obama “has the right idea,” in his approach to campaigning in Iowa and is “well-positioned to win,” the caucuses which are about to begin in just over an hour.

Even with the recent Obama surge, Hull still thinks Hillary Clinton is“likely to do very well” in Iowa. “I still see her ultimately winning the nomination,” Hull said, despite the favorable trends for Obama in Iowa and New Hampshire, where most polls have him now leading Clinton.

However, Hull was less enthusiastic about John Edwards, saying his trends have been “almost a mirror image of Clinton’s,” with poll numbers “slowly trending downward,” despite his large turnout at recent campaign rallies.

Hull’s observations have added weight because he correctly predicted the final results in Iowa back in 2004. He said his statistical model allowed him to make the ’04 prediction in advance of caucus night, but that this year’s field is too competitive for him to make a similar public prediction.

Nonetheless, he did predict that if current trends continue, Obama is “positioned to win New Hampshire if he wins Iowa.”

On the Republican side, he said the “thing to watch,” is how Mitt Romney’s traditional organizational support fares against Mike Huckabee’s largely grassroots effort. Hull says his research shows that part of Huckabee’s support has come from voter fatigue with Romney’s massive spending and advertising blitz in the state.

“What you really need in Iowa is narrow-casting,” Hull said, adding that retail politicking almost always trumps media saturation in Iowa. “Spending is inversely proportional relative to what you see elsewhere.”

In the previous post, I mentioned at least one Red State blogger prediction an Iowa victory for Fred Thompson tonight.

Fellow conservative blogger John Hinderaker over at Powerline predicts a Romney victory in Iowa, followed by a McCain win in New Hampshire.

Weekly Standard’s Richelieu, who may or may not be long-time GOP strategist Mike Murphy, says Huckabee will edge out Romney by less than a point, while McCain will get the strong third place showing his campaign is hoping for. He also predicts an Obama victory tonight by seven points, with Clinton finishing third.

Red State has also weighed in on the Democrats, predicting a narrow victory for Edwards over Obama, and Clinton pacing a few points behind in third place.

Most liberal bloggers have been more reserved about their predictions, but a few have weighed in, often with detailed disclaimers explaining their educated guesses.

Daily Kos separates his predictions into "Entrance poll" numbers and "Final results," with Obama coming out first in both. In fact, he sees an upward tick for Obama once supporters of candidates who receive less than 15 percent of the vote are asked to give their second choice candidates.

Open Left’s Chris Bowers also predicts an Obama victory

MyDD’s Jerome Aromstrong goes with Obama as well, but notes he is personally pulling for Edwards, a sentiment that seems to be shared by a plurality of progressive bloggers.

Finally, over at the Huffington Post, pollster John Zogby has revised his own caucus fallout theory. Originally, Zogby said Edwards could not survive a third place finish in Iowa. However, Zogby now says that might not be the case if the top three finishers are within a few points of each other:

This race could stay very close and we may emerge with all three as viable candidates going into New Hampshire