Who needs Iowa?

Thirteen of the last fourteen nominees from the two major US parties have won the first primary  state of Iowa. The odd one out? A certain Bill Clinton in 1992, who only won 3% of the Iowa vote, to Iowa local Tom Harkin's 76%. The Hillary campaign have now officially rejected  the strategy of "skipping" Iowa, and she is headed there this weekend to do damage repairs. But let's not say the strategy shows panic - a Clinton did it without Iowa before, and they could do it again. (As it happens Barack Obama appears to be considering skipping the state, having missed some crucial Iowa events and spending a lot of time in California and New Hampshire.)

The whole nomination process is different this year. It will essentially be sealed and delivered overnight on February 5th 2008, after 20 states vote at once, and the three states that go before (Iowa, then New Hampshire, then Florida) are all within three weeks of this. Suddenly, there are a whole lot of "early states" - it is going to take a huge amount of money and a totally new strategy to be competetive. The sooner campaigns choose in which states to play down expectations (by, I don't know, an accidentally leaked campaign memo...) the better.