Shapiro is usually pretty good with regard to Edwards, and this piece overall is no exception, though the now-or-never silliness is apparent. Edwards intends to campaign further, regardless of whether he "wins" Iowa. After all, it's a caucus, not a primary.
I like this:
In technical terms, the Edwards campaign in Iowa is the most traditional of the three leading Democrats. The guiding theory is that while turnout will be higher than the 122,000 who caucused in 2004, it will not jump much beyond 140,000. Obama (with his appeal to younger and less partisan voters) and, to a lesser extent, Clinton (whose Iowa base is older women) are depending on a sharp jump in turnout on caucus night. The Des Moines Register's final pre-caucus poll on Dec. 31 gave Obama a startling 7-percentage-point lead over Clinton, with Edwards just behind Clinton. But the Register survey -- which aroused skepticism among many polling professionals -- predicted a tidal wave of independent voters, a pattern that defies precedent.
Joe Trippi, who was Howard Dean's 2004 campaign manager and now is the top strategist for Edwards, has seen it all in Iowa. "On New Year's Eve, I realized that I spent half the evening saying to everyone that the Register's poll had to be wrong -- there's no way that turnout could be 220,000," Trippi recalled. "Then I realized that before the caucuses in 2004, I was predicting that turnout would hit 220,000. I'm pretty sure that I am skeptical this time around because I am wiser and not because of who my candidate is."
I thought that poll was utter bullshit.
