John, here’s the weird thing. As for the Democrats, Edwards is basically only running in Iowa. If, by late fall, he doesn’t do anything anywhere else, it would be stupid for other Democrats to allow him to define the race in this way. They would and should abandon Iowa very publicly and noisily, on the grounds that a caucus state in which maybe 50,000 people actually “vote” should not play such an important role in a year when the primary calendar is changing.
If Romney scores a victory in Iowa, however, that will be an indicator of his potential. But he’s going to have to translate that into real numbers elsewhere for it to have any meaning. And the problem for him is that he will have only two weeks to turn things around, because the winner of Florida is going to be the instant frontrunner.