I spoke to Steve Grubbs, who was the Iowa caucus chairman for Bob Dole and was the former chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, who is now based in Davenport, about the state of play in his state.

On Mike Huckabee’s Rise: “While you couldn’t monolithically say that Iowa Republicans are getting behind one candidate, Huckabee has pulled together social conservatives and is starting to bring in some establishment Republicans. The typical candidate who pulls together a coalition of social conservatives has some harder edges – think of Alan Keyes or Gary Bauer, even a Pat Robertson back in ‘88… The fact that Mike Huckabee is able to do it in a less threatening way suggests he has a good entrée into establishment Republicans as well.”

On Mitt Romney’s slide: “If you study the poll numbers, you’ll see that much of his support was ‘soft support,’ driven by name ID. As voters get closer to the vote, they start examining, and some of that soft support was based on television-driven high name identification. His ‘hard support’ hasn’t dipped so much.”

On the Ron Paul factor: “I believe Ron Paul could finish fourth. I’m not saying he will, but he has the potential of doing that. If he does, he’ll bump somebody else out of that spot, probably a legitimate national contender… The big question for him is whether he will hit double digits. If he does, that will be a pretty big victory for him.”

On the Democrats: “The Hillary slide is probably very comparable to the Romney slide – soft name ID-based support is starting to fade away as voters take a closer look at all the candidates. The closer they look, the more they’re shifting to Barack Obama.”

On the debates: “The problem is most people didn’t watch them because they were at work when they were going on. They saw the media coverage, if anything. It seemed like there was as much comment about the moderator as there was about the candidates.”

On the Des Moines Register endorsements: “In races where voters don’t know much, newspaper endorsements are significant. But in Iowa, where you have access to the candidates like no where else, voters feel comfortable with their decision and don’t feel the need to rely on others.”