New poll from Iowa has Clinton up big, and Romney holding his own

Rasmussen just released a new poll from the Iowa caucuses, and the numbers look good for the favorites:

• On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads with 33%. John Edwards at 22% and Barack Obama at 21% are tied for second. Richardson, once securely in the double-digits, is stuck at 7%.
• On the Republican side, Mitt Romney is ahead, though not as securely as he used to be. He comes in first at 25%, followed by Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee who are tied for second at 19% and 18%. Then, Rudy Giuliani is at 13% while McCain only gets 6%.

A quick look at Pollster.com's compilation of Iowa polls shows that this is the first time Clinton is ahead by double-digits in Iowa. This is huge news. Iowa is her one weak state. If she wins here, there really is no plausible scenario under which she stumbles in other states. If she stumbles here, then Obama could certainly hope to capitalize in New Hampshire and throw the whole thing wide open, but it really comes down to Iowa. For Hillary to open an 11% lead for the first time is thus telling of how much she has solidified her status as the frontrunner in the past few months.

Even if this poll is a slight outlier, the trendlines are evident: Clinton has been progressing very significantly. At the beginning of the year, Edwards was systematically in the lead. Then, it became a three-way tie. Then, Clinton started rising -- and now typically leads Iowa polls by mid-to-high single digits. If I were Obama or Edwards, I would quite literally camp in Iowa for the next 4 months (assuming, of course, that the caucuses are in January!).

On the Republican side, Romney is always ahead by not by much. This is the type of lead that can evaporate in one night, especially with caveats like this one: "For each of the top four candidates, between 57% and 61% of their supporters say they might change their mind before the caucus is held." Nevertheless, it appears that Rudy and McCain are not seriously competing in Iowa, and that Romney's main opponent might be Huckabee who has nothing near the resources he would need to effectively compete against the Romney machine. With the caucuses set now on January 3rd for Republicans, that makes organization even more important and reduces the risk that another candidate has a last-minute surge, so Romney's preparation in Iowa should pay off. And don't forget -- Romney needs Iowa just as much as Obama needs Iowa, but at least he is leading.

One more question: What would happen if Giuliani did finish fourth here? His entire strategy is to survive January. Place well enough in IA, NH and even SC to not lose too much support in the bigger states like Florida and California. Coming in fourth in the first voting state might mean he could not "survive January" without pulling upsets in New Hampshire and South Carolina.