Gay Marriage Legal in New Jersey? Nope. Iowa.

The Iowa Supreme Court overturned the ban on gay marriage in Iowa in a unanimous ruling. Wow. Read the ruling. Gay marriage will be legal in three weeks. Those of us in New York, New Jersey and especially in California can hang our heads in shame. Human rights are coming whether we are ready for them or not.

A Progressive Iowan Gives Her Opinion Two Weeks Before the Caucuses

From the Great State of Iowa:

It's really hard to predict! I'm campaigning for Obama ----- volunteering, serving as precinct captain....in fact, I will give his local (county) office 4 hours a day beginning 12/27 through caucus night (1/3). There are two polls out now for Iowa: one shows the rankings as follows: Obama, Clinton and Edwards; the second one reverses Clinton and Obama....Edwards is consistently coming in third. (though from conversations around here, he seems very popular!)

Darrell is supporting Edwards, will caucus for him and has done some volunteering in his campaign. We have 2 signs in front of our house...one for Obama; one for Edwards. Edwards is my second pick; and Obama is his second pick, so we're not really fighting....

The only Republican that the Democrats need to worry about (in my opinion) is McCain....the rest of the batch are just a bunch of creepy losers....and the more we hear about them, the creepier they get....Huckabee is leading here, followed by Romney....McCain is down toward the bottom, the the Des Moines newspaper endorsed him for the Republicans...(the paper endorsed Hillary for the D's...

Have you heard that Huckabee is running an ad with a bookcase over his shoulder, talking about Jesus and Christmas? The bookcase angle looks like a cross......a little "christian" symbolism there.... He also signed something 9 years ago that said "women should graciously submit to their servant-leader husbands." Be sure to let La Francaise know that one! He is creepy, creepy, creepy!

Romney has been "crying" lately.....He says that his sons have "chosen" not to participate in the "all-volunteer army" --- and instead are expressing their patriotism by campaigning for him....He wants people to not be worried about his Mormonism, but has stated that he would not have a Muslim in his cabinet....how's that for hypocrisy?!?

You know more about Guliani than we do.....he doesn't come here much.....and will not do well here.

I think the Republicans want Hillary to be the D's nominee because she would be the easiest to beat. Both Obama and Edwards show much better numbers running against all the R's than Hillary......so, why or why do the dems keep nominating such losers?!?

Where Things Are in Iowa

After our discussion yesterday about Obama and Clinton I thought this was interesting. From Open Left:

Here's my assessment of where the campaign is at based on my visit this weekend to Iowa:

1. The Obama surge feels real to me. Obama's team on the ground is feeling quite optimistic about things, and they weren't even downplaying things the way most campaigns do who are trying to keep expectations down. Most of the people I talked to while I was there predicted Obama would win, and they give him some clear momentum.

2. I think Hillary is hanging in there solidly. She still has a great organization, which is not losing any steam, and AFSCME and EMILY's List both have impressive independent expenditure campaigns working hard and at a big volume. She's keeping things very close, and if Obama stumbles at all, or she catches a lucky break, she still has a solid shot at winning.

3. My theories about Edwards fading don't seem as likely to me after my visit. His organization still seems just as strong as my last visit, and in some conversations with folks from rural Iowa that came in for Saturday's Heartland Presidential Forum, I get the impression that he is still the strongest of the three in rural IA, which is important.

4. Biden has more momentum than Richardson or Dodd going into the final month, and is picking up traction in some places around the state. I expect him to finish fourth , but he has a very long way to go to pull off a shocker and get into the top three- he's not surging by anywhere near that much, not yet at least.

With exactly a month to go, this race continues to look like a tight race down to the end, and at least right now, feels much more like a 3-way race than a 2-way.