SHOCK POLL: Iowa out of play...........

Bush won Iowa in 2004 and 2000. Obama has put Iowa pretty much out of reach. The gold standard of pollsters, SurveyUSA, puts the Iowa race at 54O 43M. That is 7 electoral votes McCain needs.

For what it is worth, 538.com has Obama winning the election 71% of the time.....

UPDATE: By the by, it drives me up a wall that no one in the drive by media talks about the importance of Iowa. 3 key facts:

• It is a 14 electoral vote swing in Obama's favor.
  
• It shores up Minnesota, Wisconsin, makes Nebraska's split electoral votes possible, and it gives Obama a fighting chance in Missouri.
• Finally, and most importantly, it makes an Obama presidency possible. Obama has to have multiple ways to the White House. Why? Because if it was only Ohio and Florida, McCain would camp out in the those states, spend most of his money there, and the smear campaign of Barack Obama would be, and probably still will be, overwhelming. But here is the thing.....if McCain has to defend multiple places, he can't conduct the vicious attacks without turning off voters somewhere where he is vulnerable. Obama needs to steal the equivalent of Ohio from McCain and protect all other Kerry states. That is 20 electoral votes. He is 33% there. New Mexico gets him 60% of the way there. That gives him 3 options remaining: Colorado(10), Virginia(13), or Indiana(11). If he didn't have Iowa, he would have to win two of those three, which is probably impossible, or at least not very likely. But with Iowa, he only needs one. This spreads McCain devastatingly thin in message and in resources. McCain has to appeal to a broad swath of people, but he can't do it because he isn't that versatile. Iowa made and now makes Barack Obama possible. Barack Obama's strategy is to bankrupt McCain in Florida and Ohio, then win it with Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia for good measure.