What “We Have To Win Iowa” Means These Days

Recent hay has been made of Michelle Obama’s poetic (almost Obama-esque…) statement in Davenport this week that “If Barack doesn’t win Iowa, it’s just a dream, but if we win Iowa, then we can move the world as it should be.” Commentators read it as the campaign’s official “We have to win Iowa” declaration. The campaign was quick to correct them, noting that Sen. Barack Obama did not plan to drop out if he loses the caucuses.

Today, when I interviewed former Rep. David Bonior, Sen. John Edwards’s campaign manager, I asked him whether his campaign had to win Iowa to continue. Not wanting to commit to that, he said “I expect we will win in Iowa,” and he laid out the roadmap of what the campaign admits is “our four-state strategy”:

“Once we win Iowa, we move on to Nevada,” he said. “Nevada is a caucus state,” where, Bonior noted, a lot of caucus goers will come from labor households where Sen. Edwards has strong support. “That momentum will help us increase where we are in New Hampshire,” he continued, and on to South Carolina. Parse the words, and one notices that Bonior’s expectations seem to decrease from one state to the next. Iowa is his focal point, even if he won’t pledge to drop out after losing.

In an article in The New Republic that went up today, Michael Crowley notices a similar general phenomenon in the Obama campaign. He quotes Obama campaign manager David Plouffe saying, “Iowa–that’s the whole shebang!” But his article does not argue that Obama will drop out if he loses here, only that his best chance to beat Sen. Hillary Clinton is here. And it may be true.

“We have to win Iowa” doesn’t mean “we will drop out if we lose Iowa” anymore. This campaign cycle, it will be almost impossible for the top three candidates to drop out after the Iowa Caucuses, no matter how poorly they do. Because of FEC state-by-state spending caps for campaigns that accept matching funds, the Edwards campaign may be legally prohibited from spending all of its money in Iowa even if it wanted to. And if Obama and Clinton wanted to spend all of their money here, they would probably have to build new TV stations.

Still, though, no amount of money will overcome a truly disappointing finish in the caucuses. The Iowa Caucuses results could have a big impact on all of the candidates in the Democratic field, and both the Edwards and Obama campaigns will freely admit that. But the only candidates the caucuses could actually “weed out” are the ones in the so-called second tier, who will be more frank about needing to win here in the months to come.