Almanac: At the Capitol

On the eve of the Iowa caucuses Clinton's campaign took some time to pay attention to Minnesota. Her campaign chair and political director held a conference call with local reporters to "discuss campaign's momentum and grassroots support in Minnesota." They're predicting a record turn-out in Iowa and then their attention switches to a host of other states, especially places like Minnesota, which is part of SuperDuperTuesday Feb. 5th. By then half of the delegates will be chosen. Clinton's people say they're running a national campaign, not picking one or two states (subtle shot at opponents). Clinton is launching an "aggressive phone bank operation" in Minnesota to boost turn out here, which they're viewing as one of the "larger delegate counts" on that key date. Mr. or Mrs. Clinton plan to visit the state, but the campaign doesn't have any details yet.

Clinton should finish in the key top three, but the highest-regarded poll from the Des Moines Register has Obama with a true lead. Huckabee's surge also showed up in that poll with Romney in second like Clinton. My advice when trying to read polls is to look at trends rather than just who has what number. Obama and Huckabee are trending up, but it'll be a close race. Eric Black has a great backgrounder on MinnPost. New Hampshire will be an entirely different game and a state that looks a lot more like Minnesota with its independent streak. Apparently, that's why Gov. Pawlenty is spending time and getting noticed as he stumps for McCain. The Republican Senator's resurgence there is interesting and it's interesting that Pawlenty hasn't bailed from his longtime friend's fledgling campaign.