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Polls? Screw the polls. If you want any good information you have to find it yourself. So that’s what I set out to do last week. It took about two weeks to produce/run the simulation but I think my product (while nowhere perfect) should be just as good an indicator of what is going to happen in Iowa as a sample poll. Here is what I did. I went painstakingly through all 99 counties analyzing the numbers on voter turnout and results from both the 2004 General Election and the 2008 Iowa Caucus and General Election to find the most...

The Politico reported on Tuesday that some Iowa Republicans are worried that a Ron Paul victory in the state’s upcoming caucuses could damage its first-to-vote influence in future elections by anointing a candidate with little chance to win the GOP nomination and who is unrepresentative of the party. Whoever is angsting about that, can angst some more over a new poll showing Paul in first place. Paul runs ahead of the GOP presidential pack with 27.5 percent support, followed by Newt Gingrich at 25.3 percent, Mitt Romney at 17.5 percent, Rick Perry at 11.2 percent and everyone else in single...

FReepers, Need your Help: Very shortly I'm going to be releasing my county by county analysis of the Iowa Caucus, projecting based on polling data and previous history the most likely outcome, along with an analysis of what % of each county vote the eventual GOP nominee will need to capture to have a shot at winning Iowa. I don't know a whole lot of IA history, so I've been surprised to see so many voter totals going down in response to people leaving. Most of the counties I've analyzed so far have had a 1-8% decrease in voter turnout...

Three new polls came out today on the Republican race for the nomination. At first glance one seems way out of line with the others, until you tally up the numbers and notice that it only comes to 64%. (36% no response/undecideds, CBS? What's up with that?) So if you add 50% to the total for each candidate in the CBS poll below, you can see the results match the other polls to a very high degree. Here are the results, with my 'adjustments' for CBS in brackets: Candidate - CNN - ABC - CBS Gingrich - 28 - 30...

With two weeks remaining before Iowa kicks off the 2012 campaign with its first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, the state Republican Party is taking steps to secure its electronic vote collection system after receiving a mysterious threat to its computers. A video claiming to be from a collective of computer hackers has jolted party officials with a worst-case scenario: an Iowa caucus marred by hackers who successfully corrupt the database used to gather vote totals and crash the website used to inform the public about results that can shape the campaign for the White House. Watch the video here

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad warned against Democratic caucus crashers who could try to influence the Iowa selection system as a way to nominate the weakest Republican candidate to face off against President Obama. “That’s been tried from time to time and you know what happened four years ago? A lot of independents and even some Republicans actually got involved and that actually helped Obama beat Hillary Clinton and guess what? They actually got Obama for president,” said Branstad, a Republican. “Now some of those people are having second thoughts about it.” Branstad made the comments today when asked about the...

Iowa Caucus Polling System Threatened By HackersPublished December 19, 2011 | Associated Press IOWA CITY, Iowa – Republican Party officials in Iowa are taking new steps to secure their vote counting systems after an anonymous threat suggested computer hackers could attempt to disrupt next month's presidential nominating caucuses. A video uploaded to YouTube features a computer-generated voice denouncing a corrupt political system and calls on supporters to "peacefully shut down" the Jan. 3 caucuses. The video claims to be from Anonymous, a loosely organized group of hackers who have successfully conducted past computer attacks. Investigators aren't sure whether the video...

During the last cycle, Schultz backed Mitt Romney, who shares his Mormon faith. Their shared religion as well as the previous endorsement in 2007 will definitely be interpreted as a swipe to the former Massachusetts governor. “Matt Schultz is a rising star within the Iowa Republican party,” Tim Albrecht, caucus veteran and communications director for Iowa governor Terry Branstad said. “His endorsement is another in a long line of impressive gets for the Santorum campaign. Rick Santorum’s organization here is real and that will be reflected on caucus night.”

Selzer, who lives in Des Moines, polls for news outlets across the country, from the Boston Globe to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, as well as private clients. But it's in the highly politicized terrain of the presidential caucuses in her home state that she's best known. Her surveys have proved unfailingly accurate in predicting caucus winners, and she's not afraid to go out on a limb and defy conventional wisdom based on her faith in her data. That's what she did in 2008, when she was the only pollster to predict a big caucus victory for Barack Obama. She took a...

Anita Perry, the 59-year-old wife of Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, has been very actively campaigning for him on her own all fall. Now, she's taken on a new assignment. Mrs. Perry has launched an online drive to recruit hundreds of volunteers for what she calls the Perry Strike Force. This would consist of Perry fans who would travel to Iowa and work across the state Jan. 2-4, getting out Perry caucus-goers to the hundreds of meeting sites on the evening of Jan. 3. (Don't worry, the BCS Championship Game is not until Jan. 9 this time.) "With over 1,700...

Several recent polls have shown a near four-way tie among top GOP contenders in the Iowa caucus, which kicks off the nominating process on Jan. 3. A Nov. 10-12 Bloomberg News poll, for instance, showed Herman Cain at 20%, Ron Paul at 19%, Mitt Romney at 18% and Newt Gingrich at 17% among likely GOP caucus goers. But the real story isn't that horse-race snapshot: It's how few Iowa caucus-goers have committed to a candidate with less than two months to go before the main event. A survey conducted by the Polling Company for Independent Women's Voice on Nov. 11-13...

Cain (24.5 percent) is more than four percentage points ahead of Paul (20.4), with Mitt Romney (16.3 percent) being the only other candidate receiving more support than "Can't Decide" (8.1 percent). Cain's lead over Paul is within the poll's margin of error at plus or minus 5 percent.

***UPDATED*** The Iowa radio host Steve Deace revealed on October 3rd and awkward comment that Herman Cain made while at his radio station. Via Des Moines Register: On Monday, Deace posted a message on his Facebook page that Cain had “said things to both of my female staffers that at best are professionally awkward if not inappropriate over the last several months.” …

Nevada Republicans decided Saturday to shift the date of the state's presidential caucuses to Feb. 4 and avoid penalties from the national party for meddling with the election calendar. It was only about two weeks ago when state party leaders set Jan. 14 for the nominating contest. They said moving the date from Feb. 18 would still give the state a big early role in determining the nominee. But the change jumbled the election calendar and led New Hampshire to threaten to move its contest to the December holiday season. Some candidates raised the possibility they would stay away from...

Gannett paper: http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2011/10/21/heres-the-agenda-for-iowa-faith-and-freedom-coalition-banquet/

What’s the most obvious difference between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama? Unhappy members of the Congressional Black Caucus “probably would be marching on the White House” if Obama were not president, according to CBC Chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).“If [former President] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House,” Cleaver told “The Miami Herald” in comments published Sunday. “There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president.” Rather than march...

Excluding Florida Republican Rep. Col. Allen West, who is an honorable American war hero and conservative patriot, today I have a few words for California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters and the various other deceitful people in the Congressional Black Caucus and their fellow-traveling leftists who are falsely accusing and attacking the taxpaying American citizens who foot the bill for this monster federal government and bloated welfare state that you all so dearly covet, because of the votes and power it brings you. Are you listening? Good. Your evil, stupid shtick is not working. America sees through your lying, degenerate words....

A Republican member of the House Tea Party Caucus on Wednesday countered recent inflammatory remarks by members of the Congressional Black Caucus against the Tea Party. "I'm a TEA Party caucus member and have spoken at two tea party rallies. I am also NOT a racist. Maxine & Andre - get a grip," Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) tweeted. Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) both directed harsh remarks at the Tea Party movement last week. Carson accused the Tea Party members in Congress of wanting to see blacks "hanging from a tree." Waters said at an event...

'This is WAR' Congressional Black Causes' Travels American Cities Using Dangerous Violent Rhetoric: Declares 'War' on Racist Tea Party, Says Tea Party Wants To Lynch Blacks, Calls for Bank Runs, Civil Unrest in Their Neighborhoods and Homes

The lone Republican member of the Congressional Black Caucus said Wednesday he’s thinking of quitting the group over fellow members’ comments trashing the tea party. “I think that we heard the president talk about some of this over-the-top rhetoric and we should move away from that,” Florida Rep. Allen West said on “Fox & Friends.” “When you start using words such as lynching, I was born and raised in Georgia and my folks were from southern Georgia, born in the ’20s and ’30s, that’s a very reprehensible word and we should move away from using that type of language. And...