As predicted (read here), Team Clinton has started talking down the importance of Iowa. On ABC with George Stephanopoulous, Clinton said that she never really expected to surpass Barack Obama and John Edwards, who had double-digit leads over her in the local polls for the Democratic caucuses, to be held there on January 3. On Iowa, Clinton now says “I’m not expecting anything.”

Truth be told, though: the rationale to talk down expectations seems a little different from my earlier prediction. That rationale centered on Clinton throwing all her weight into the New Hampshire fight — a state that is very much in Clinton’s strategy — but with some polls now carefully showing Edwards gaining on Obama while other polls put Clinton ahead of the pack, the rationale is more likely based on a two-pronged offensive, instead of simply talking down Iowa and winning big in New Hampshire instead, after sapping Obama’s and Edwards’ strength as the two men go head-to-head in Iowa in the last days before the Iowa caucus.

The first is that Clinton, in the last days before the caucus, is seeking the underdog-mantle. It is always handy to bring down expectations, especially when you have the idea that you may actually win; it gives great momentum in terms of press coverage if you’re considered the loser, but manage to end first in the marathon.

The second is that Team Clinton is obviously hoping that, by sort of stepping out of the dogfight arena, the two pitbull terriers Obama and Edwards will go at each other with a vengeance. Edwards has been gaining in several polls and was even placed ahead of Clinton and Obama in this one. That will reinvigorate an Edwards who knows that it’s “Iowa or bust” for his campaign. With the Clinton-Obama competition of the past weeks, Obama knows he can’t lose Iowa either (it’s gotta be either first or second place), and so he’ll be trying to tear Edwards apart. The past 48 hours or so already saw Obama retuning his stump speech to include some of the anger Edwards has been throwing at his audience.

This would leave room for Clinton to basically resume her ‘above the fray’-stance which she had up until about a month ago, when she started slipping versus Obama. Or so Clinton hopes. One thing’s for sure, though: the campaign would never take such a risk (because it is certainly that) if it didn’t think it was sensible. Perhaps the vote for the caucus-goers’ second choice is what Team Clinton is after.

Another interesting tidbit: according to an overview of these polls, Obama’s momentum seems to have faded. For almost a month Obama was riding high and with each step Team Clinton undertook to bruise him, he seemed to only gain. He had the usual Momentum, which ordinarily lasts for a maximum of three weeks, sometimes four if the direct opponent makes big mistakes. Those days are in the past now and Edwards seems more determined than ever to at least get second place. And he won’t be doing that without drawing blood, so Obama had better prepare.

Another certainty is after January 3, the endorsements game will begin, and it could very well be that Clinton will be the one to go into the New Hampshire arena with most endorsements.

Memo to pundits, political junkies and reporters: with less than three weeks to go to the Iowa caucuses, expect the Clinton campaign to start downtalking the importance of Iowa while beefing up New Hampshire. The reasoning: the Clintons were never that strong in Iowa, but New Hampshire has always been the ‘litmus state’ for any Clinton campaign since 1992. And contrary to Iowa, losing that state in the primary is not an option.

So forget Iowa, the Clintons are going after New Hampshire. Bill Clinton in the past few days has within the campaign thumped on the importance of New Hampshire for everything Clinton ever since his second-place ending in the state in the 1992 Democratic nomination campaign. That pivotal feat revived his campaign and kick-started his succesful run for the presidency.

As Alex MacGill of the Washington Post pointed out in this excellent report, the Clintons have cultivated their ties to the state ever since, so much so that New Hampshire is seen as almost synonymous to Clinton’s destiny and political standing among pundits, commentators and — yes — national media journalists. Because of the state’s importance and the significance the Clintons themselves always attributed to it, losing that state in the primary would make Hillary Clinton’s star fade faster than you can say “implosion”.

And so the game that is being played for New Hampshire is one of expectations. Since Bill Clinton’s succesful run for the presidency, New Hampshire has always been high up the political expectations ladder, whilst Iowa — where he never campaigned — was mostly off the pundits’ radar screen when it came to the political fortunes of the Clintons.

In 1992, Iowa senator Tom Harkin had such a strong local following for his nomination campaign that Clinton was smart enough to not even bother trying to get caucus votes there, and in 1996 he didn’t need Iowa. But unfortunately for Bill Clinton, whose reputation is pretty much on the line now that his wife is campaigning for the presidency, the Hillary campaign has put considerable importance on Iowa, so much so that expectations are running high.

And if there is one thing Bill Clinton dislikes, for all his political mastery, it is uncertainty, and Iowa has become a huge question mark. The campaign has realised that all the extra efforts in Iowa of late have been too little, and definitely too late. Hillary Clinton has simply been unable to stem the Obama tide in the unpredictable midwestern state. And even though Hillary’s team pounces on each individual Iowa poll that shows Hillary one or two percent ahead of Obama, the campaign knows full well that the majority of polls are showing the reverse picture.

And so the new strategy will be as follows. Bill Clinton is still probably the single, most popular politician in New Hampshire. Thus, the coming weeks shall see Bill and Hillary — but especially Bill — tour New Hampshire while ensuring as much local media coverage as possible. Hillary will be projected as a Clinton once again bringing the message of ‘change’, much like her husband succesfully did in 1992. Realising the mistake made in Iowa, where there was a big disconnect between Hillary and Iowans, the campaign will get down to the good old nitty-gritty of traditional campaigning, including having her go door-to-door, which she has already started doing.

Meanwhile, the campaign will start what the Russians would call a ‘maskirovska’-campaign, or masking; having everybody believe that they’re still going full-steam for a win in Iowa, while in reality they aren’t. The goal is no longer to win in Iowa but to force Obama to concentrate most of his resources there while the secondary goal is to try to come in second, above Edwards. Look for Bill Clinton and other surrogates to start talking down the importance of Iowa in the last week or so before the caucus there takes place, while at the same time becoming New Hampshire cheerleaders.

He’ll never admit it until the proper time comes — which could be any time of his choosing — but John Edwards in the back of his mind must know by now that he’s not going to win the nomination to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for the US presidency in 2008. In Iowa, New Hampshire and even South Carolina, Edwards has fallen back to third place in the polls. If he comes in third in Iowa, his entire strategy will have failed and he will have no other option than to drop out. And so the $1 million question then is: who will John Edwards endorse? Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?

As I write this, pundits seem to be missing that Edwards’s star appears to be fading, blinded as they are by focusing entirely on the brutal violence of the Clinton-Obama battles, which obviously makes for good headlines. By doing so, they are missing out on the one factor that is likely to decide the Democratic Party’s nomination: the approximately 10 to 15% of the Democratic primary and caucus Edwards-votes that would be up for grabs by either Clinton or Obama, should the former Senator from North Carolina decide to give in.

His campaign will deny it until the very last second of the Iowa caucus, but as January 3 comes closer the issue will slowly but surely be pushed to the forefront. There’s a big chance that Edwards will come in not second but third in Iowa, and the polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina do not look very good either. There’s an equally big chance he will lose in those two states as well, and since his campaign was obviously based on coming in on top in Iowa, where he has been campaigning virtually non-stop since 2004, the loss in Iowa is likely to destroy his entire nomination campaign.

When that happens, Edwards has two choices. Either stay in the campaign, knowing that after losing in Iowa, the press will ignore him completely as they focus even more on ‘Clinton versus Obama’. In fact, chances are that he will move to the back pages of the newspapers, amid the Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse freakshow. His ego won’t be able to stand much of that ridicule, which will also virtually guarantee that he stands no chance of getting the vice-president nod from whoever wins the nomination. (Edwards isn’t coveting that position anyway.)

So the second, only rational and face-saving choice would be to throw the hat into the ring almost immediately after the Iowa caucus results come in (providing, of course, that he finishes third) and thus before the New Hampshire primary, which is held 2 days after the Iowa caucus. And if he does, then the question is whether Edwards will endorse another candidate. As Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Christopher Dodd are seen dropping out quite quickly after their Iowa loss as well, it stands to reason that Edwards will have to choose between Obama and Clinton. Who of the two is he likely to endorse?

It is no secret that the Clintons have always held somewhat of a special place in their calculating hearts for Edwards; if anything, they were closer to him than to Obama. Bill Clinton has at times hinted that he backed John Edwards more than he did John Kerry during the presidential campaign of 2004 and there is no reason to think that Edwards has forgotten about that support. Naturally the Edwards and Clinton campaigns have traded barbs every now and then in the run-up to the nomination campaign of this cycle, but these were more superficial than anything hard-hitting.

However, despite those warm feelings for each other, one of Edwards’s nomination campaign themes has been ‘change’, not ‘continuity’ in the shape and form of extending the Clinton dynasty. So in that respect, and when purely looking at Edwards’s platform, perhaps a choice for Obama instead of Clinton would be more logical for Edwards. But then Edwards’s platform places much more emphasis on the ‘One America’ theme, invoking the image of an increasingly deeper rift between the rich and the poor, which (until recently) wasn’t one of Obama’s main platform themes.

Perhaps the answer lies in the kind of voters Edwards is popular with. Edwards has always been trying to reach out to unions and voters in the lower to lower-midde-class income brackets. His target audience therefore has a lot of overlap with Clinton’s, whose campaign has also been reaching out to unions and other representative organisations. Another target audience is women, which are quite obviously also a Clinton target. Another main overlapping theme that recently attracted voters to the Edwards camp was his plan for a national health insurance, which looks more like Clinton’s plan than Obama’s. Edwards has also criticised Obama’s plan more than he has Clinton’s.

But even though there is a lot of overlap, there is also a reason why so many people have been rooting for Edwards ever since Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy: a lot of Edwards voters simply don’t like Clinton. More often than not, Edwards voters are disgusted at the idea of having to vote for Clinton during the national election. Still, though, if they don’t want a Republican taking the White House again, they know they’ll have to as regardless of what polls and pundits are saying now, chances are that the presidential election is going to be very, very close again, just like in 2000 and 2004. If Edwards himself then implores them to vote for Clinton durong the nomination process, it might just be enough to decisively tilt the balance in her favour.

However, regardless of all these rational parameters, the decision lies entirely with Edwards personally. It is the second time that he is seeking presidential office, first as the Democratic vice-president nominee and now as a candidate for the top job. Losing out once is painful, losing twice is a disaster in political terms, not just because of the loss of face in the public arena (resulting in a lot less support should he ever try to run for president again), but perhaps even more because of the sense of personal failure.

If and when he gets to take a decision, he will know from private polls provided by his campaign that some of his voters in the last weeks of the Iowa campaign moved to the Obama-camp because of the ‘Anybody But Clinton’-vote that holds sway among the more leftist Democratic activists, and the inevitable ‘Oprah-mojo’ of the Obama campaign. Yet some of his voters will also have crossed the bridge (back) to the Clinton camp — the voters that are afraid that Obama is indeed too unexperienced to stand up to the Republican Character Assassination Machine in a national election.

And when deciding whether he should take a decision at all, there is another factor that will certainly be on his mind, which is: securing an important role in the Democratic party in the future. Edwards is someone who thrives in the spotlight; it’s a gene he seems to share with Bill Clinton. By simply accepting defeat and walking away, he will also walk out of many people’s minds, forever tainted as a loser.

The mere thought is anathema to Edwards. He understands that making a choice for one of the two candidates will at least ensure him a spot in the Democratic pantheon and who knows, perhaps he will be invited for an important position in Obama’s or Clinton’s administration. If not that, then White House support while running for governor of North Carolina would certainly help.

With all that in mind, and looking at the national polls in which Clinton still has a double-digit lead over Barack Obama in the nomination process and also leads possible Republican opponents in most polls, Edwards would be hard-pressed to give the nod to Obama instead of Clinton.