’Twas the Month Before Iowa ...

It was an "October Surprise"—an unexpected, transforming political event—in December, and a happy one. What a relief to know the U.S. government believes definitively that Iran poses no immediate nuclear threat. President Bush's scare talk about "World War III" (at a time when he was being briefed on early indications that Iran's nuclear program was dismantled in 2003) has proved to be just more jive. That means we no longer have to lose sleep wondering if Dick Cheney and Norman Podhoretz will convince Bush to take care of business by bombing Iran before he leaves office. We can fret about something else.

So can the Democratic candidates in Iowa. The news offered Barack Obama some vindication on foreign policy. His plummet in the polls grew out of his unorthodox performance in an early debate, where Hillary Clinton scored by calling him "naive and irresponsible" for wanting to talk to Iran's whack-job president. At the time, this made her seem presidential. But instead of backing off, Obama began quoting JFK ("We must never negotiate out of fear, nor fear to negotiate") and made an issue, in his too-wordy way, of Clinton's saber-rattling support for Bush on Iran. Now he's on the move in Iowa and New Hampshire.

For GOP candidates, the demise of Iran-war fever is highly inconvenient; it undercuts their debate machofests. For Democrats, the inconvenient news comes out of Iraq, not Iran. They can accurately claim that the surge is not a success because it hasn't achieved its objective—a political settlement in Iraq. But General Petraeus has saved lives, which makes that "General Betray Us" nonsense peddled by MoveOn.org look awfully stupid. So the Democratic candidates are talking a lot less about Iraq and a lot more about other issues on the minds of voters, like the precarious state of the economy, which two former Treasury secretaries said last week is likely headed for a recession.

Clinton is increasingly pointing to the economic success of her husband's presidency. But when she says "we created" millions of new jobs, it raises the question of what role she played (as well as the role of, say, the tech revolution). In truth, jobs were not in the First Lady's job description. Her health-care initiative gives her more to work with in the battle over "experience," but bashing Obama's plan doesn't seem to be playing for her any better than her dozen other fusillades against him. And charging that Obama has wanted to be president since he was in kindergarten was the most boneheaded gibe in memory. Her hard-boiled New York handlers have no feel for cornfield caucus-goers, who prefer their politics "Iowa Nice." The geniuses who designed the attack-dog strategy are hurting Clinton's reputation for competence and conjuring images of Howard Dean's arrogant, out-of-state, orange-hatted foot soldiers in 2004. Clinton's best—maybe only—hope is the formidable network built by former governor Tom Vilsack and his popular wife, Christie.

Obama's challenge is managing expectations—of his chances and of himself. If he sustains his momentum and wins Iowa, it won't be because of Oprah, though she'll probably get the credit (in the same way that Dean's scream was blamed for his defeat, even though it happened after he lost). The caucuses are devilishly hard to poll. Obama's young voters are notorious caucus no-shows who can always claim they had to skip the caucuses to watch the Orange Bowl, featuring nearby Kansas. And thousands of Iowa college students will be home for Christmas vacation out-of-state. On the substance front, Obama helped himself last week by finally unveiling an ambitious national-service plan, which doubles the Peace Corps, greatly expands AmeriCorps and offers more college scholarships in exchange for service. With his foresight in opposing the Iraq war sounding repetitive, this puts some programmatic meat on the inspirational bones of his message.

Iraq and Iran were never much part of Edwards's message, so their diminishing resonance could help him. With anxiety over the economy growing, voters are looking for scapegoats. Cue his attacks on corporate America and Clinton's relationship with it. Stopping Obama is trickier, though in the end, Edwards's harsh rhetoric might fit the mood of Democrats better than Obama's talk of bipartisanship. And the 32 percent Edwards won in Iowa in 2004 makes for a terrific base. If he can keep their loyalty (and he's been working madly to do so for four years), he wins. Caucus night is Jan. 3, which means he and Clinton have got only a week or two to stop Obama before the holiday cheer makes their attacks look Grinchy. Funny how this campaign went from too long to too short almost overnight.