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As many political junkies know, unlike in most other elections, in the Iowa caucuses voters' second choices sometimes matter a great deal, because if your first choice doesn't have 15% of the folks who show up at that precinct, they have to pick some other caucus to go to in the second round. What this means in practical terms this year, unless there is a surprising surge or slide by some campaign, is that the top three candidates- Clinton, Obama and Edwards- will be viable in most precincts, and everybody else will be non-viable in a great many caucuses throughout the state. That means that if you are with a front-runner, who your second choice is probably doesn't matter. But if you are for Richardson, Dodd, Biden, Kucinich or Gravel, who your second choice is will likely matter a lot.
Who are those folks most likely to go with in the second round on caucus night? One of the danger spots for Hillary may be in the politics of second choices. I am getting the word from multiple sources in the Edwards campaign that they are very pleased with how they are polling in terms of the second choice issue, and Obama people seem satisfied on this score as well, but I've also been told by multiple rival campaign that Hillary is not doing so well in this regard, that the people who are for her are solid but that she doesn't have much in the way of being folks' second choice. I e-mailed multiple folks on the Hillary campaign staff how they were doing in terms of the second choice, and got radio silence back, which I'm pretty sure is a bad sign.
That this would be the case makes logical sense to me. If you are for the wildmen, Kucinich and Gravel, Hillary isn't going to be your second choice. If you get behind Dodd because of his strong stand on FISA, or Richardson because of his strong stand on residual troops, Hillary's probably not your backup choice. And with most frontrunners, the people not with them are looking for somebody else in general, and tend to coalesce behind whatever alternative is still in the game.
The one thing that might overcome this problem for Hillary is highly skilled and experienced precinct captains. They are the ones whose job it is on caucus night to go to the non-viable caucuses and negotiate, beg, plead, and cajole with folks to join their camp. My sense is that Hillary seems to have the best network of experienced precinct captains of any campaign, and that network could help her overcome the lack of 2nd choice support. But it's a dangerous problem for her, and makes that five-point lead she's shown in recent polls a lot more shaky.
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