Manu, a Campaign Spot reader in Canada, points out that not campaigning through the holiday season can have big consequences:

In November of 2005, Canada’s government (a tired, corrupt Liberal one) fell because it did not have enough votes in our House of Commons and Canada found itself in another election (we had only voted 18 months previously.) The Liberals assumed that no one would pay attention to the campaign until January, given the revelry surrounding generic Winter holiday season and Kwanza, so they went dark. The only campaigns who were active (plenty of paid media, lots of campaign events) were the Conservatives and Canada’s Socialist Party (think Daily Kos, but with more patchouli.) The Liberals paid the price, as the narrative was already set by the time they started campaigning in January of ‘06. They lost (and Canada won.)

If Canadians paid attention to politics during a Christmas-Hannukah-Kwanza-New Year’s break, it seems likely Iowans will, too. On the other hand, until the vote of no confidence in November, no one in Canada expected to have an election in January; there was no preceding campaigning. By December, early primary states will have been subjected to a solid year of campaign events…