Ground Game

While Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to earn most of the news headlines in their increasingly personal battle for Iowa, there’s an emerging theme this morning about the renewed possibility for John Edwards to wind up as the literal or symbolic victor of that battle.

First, many liberal bloggers are echoing the sentiment of the Ohio for John Edwards blog, which says of yesterday’s NPR debate:

“[A]t today's NPR debate, Hillary and Barack spend so much time sniping at one another, Edwards seemed to emerge as the voice of reason and dignity.”

And as MyDD’s Todd Beeton notes, when John Edwards finished a strong second in Iowa back in 2004, many attributed his showing to fallout from Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt’s contentious debates leading up to the caucuses:

“In 2004, the model for how the final Iowa result came about was that the two front-runners went at it, thus creating a space for a third (and fourth) guy to come up through the middle. So, I wonder, now that Clinton and Obama are going at it, why don't people expect this will play out once again to Edwards's benefit?”

That scenario certainly is plausible. After all, Edwards has hovered within the polling margin of error for most of the campaign. And while he certainly dropped under the national media radar these past few months, that may have actually played to his benefit. He’s been able to spend that "wilderness" time almost entirely focused on winning over actual Iowa voters, rather than balancing his effort there with a more nationally focused campaign.