The candidates in Iowa have two separate challenges:
- Winning the Iowa caucus
- Having the media report that they won the Iowa caucus.
They are not the same.
We could see the media pulling all sorts of quick and dirty plays to undermine the process, such as:
- Entrance polling.
- Projecting winners based on a sample of caucus locations that are assumed representative but in fact are not
- Reporting a candidate's "spin" as fact.
- In an effort to scoop the story, reporting the results while the process is still underway, e.g., the re-allocation of caucus goers for candidates that are not 15% viable within their caucus.
- Mishandling a caucus's declaration of unanimity for the front runner in their caucus.
- Exit polling.
In every election campaign that I have been involved with the campaign had much more information much earlier than the press. Will campaigns share this information, perhaps, over the web? Will the reporting from different candidates agree?