Obama Showing Signs of Life?

After a long while as merely one of the also-rans in Iowa, a new poll (only the second?) shows Obama in first in the Iowa caucuses. The poll has Clinton in first (31%) over Obama (25%) and Edwards (25%) among all Iowa Democrats. But when only "likely caucus-goers" (aka those crazy enough to go sit in a church basement and fight about this in January) are surveyed, Obama ekes out a narrow win over HRC and Edwards (28%-24%-22%). Politico's Ben Smith has a nice brief analysis on this here, including discussing the intricacies of that "likely caucus-goers" filter.

Newsweek also had this interesting caveat to temper any renewed sense of Obamamentum: "the poll suggests that Clinton’s supporters may be the strongest of the pack. A majority of her boosters (55 percent) say their support is “strong,” edging Obama (41 percent) and Edwards (37 percent)."

That being said, it'll be intriguing to see how the Clinton team plays the expectations game down the home stretch. Unless she's opened a commanding lead, the caucuses can still produce funny outcomes - and despite what this poll's strength of support numbers suggest, I've always believed that Edwards has a pretty strong core of supporters there. I love election season!