Opinion: Richardson plays political roulette, moves chips to Iowa

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Bill Richardson, obviously with an eye on the polls, apparently is shifting more staff from Nevada and South Carolina to Iowa, where the caucuses are less than two months away. The polls are viewable over at Real Clear Politics, and when you digest them you realize the New Mexico governor’s problem is that he hasn’t caught on with many Democratic voters despite an engaging series of ads hyping his executive-branch experience.

So two narratives emerge here. First, Richardson is putting nearly all his chips on Iowa hoping to catapult himself from second tier to a respectable first-tier showing. The most recent Iowa Zogby poll showed him with 9% support, compared with 28% for Hillary Clinton, 25% for Barack Obama and 21% for John Edwards. In poll-speak, that’s a virtual three-way tie for first. And Richardson isn’t one of them.

If Richardson doesn’t crack through and edge out one of the top three in Iowa, his chances of doing much in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina get much longer -- he’s in the single digits in all three places now, and barely registers at all in South Carolina.

So Iowa might not be do or die for Richardson, but it’s pretty close. And remember, he doesn’t have to win, just exceed expectations. By a lot. So how do you do that? You start moving the warm bodies in -- joining Edwards and Chris Dodd in moving the troops, like a game of Risk.

But is it too little, too late? Iowa is not the kind of place where you can drop in and make a splash. The caucuses respond best to solid local organization, which takes time, staff and cash. And although there are a fair number of undecided voters -- 12% in the Zogby poll -- there aren’t enough to matter for Richardson.

Which brings us to the second narrative. There’s less than two months before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, but the candidates lose most of Thanksgiving week and pretty much all of Christmas week and the days leading up to New Year’s Day, because if they aren’t dressed like elves the first week or wearing college football uniforms the second, then no one is going to care.

So it’s an eight-week calendar with more than two weeks already blacked out. Add in holiday shopping as a voter distraction and suddenly the election calendar bears a sticker sort of like the one you see in your car’s side mirror: Dates in the future may be a lot closer than you think.

-- Scott Martelle