What The Polls Say

National polls tell us that Hillary Clinton, senator from New York, and Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, are the leading contenders for their parties' nominations.

But presidential politics is really about momentum as much as it is about anything else, and momentum will be established by what happens in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. And the voters in both of those states have shown decidedly independent streaks in the past. They don't seem to care what people elsewhere are thinking. They are intent upon making up their own minds.

We're less than four months away from Iowa and New Hampshire. And, according to the latest Newsweek polls from Iowa, neither Clinton nor Giuliani have "the big Mo," as the first President Bush called it.

Newsweek reports that, on the Democratic side, Barack Obama is getting 28% from likely caucus participants, Clinton is getting 24% and John Edwards is getting 22%. Clinton had been leading in previous polls of Iowa Democrats, but every poll suggests that support for all three of the top contenders is soft and that anything could still happen there.

On the Republican side, Newsweek says Mitt Romney, whose father was governor of nearby Michigan, has 24%, while his nearest competitor, Fred Thompson, has 16%. Giuliani is polling at 13%, Mike Huckabee is getting 12% and John McCain is in single digits at 9%. Again, polls suggest that support remains soft, but Romney has been in front, by varying margins, in every poll I've seen from Iowa for a month or more.

The Iowa polls were conducted a few days ago, September 26-27. You can read more about the Newsweek polls in Iowa here.

If these polls continue to hold until the caucus in January, Obama and Romney, not Clinton and Giuliani, will have the momentum heading into primary season.

Or will they? Jonathan Martin, of The Politico, asserts that Giuliani is Mr. September after enjoying perhaps his best month as a candidate for the Republican nomination.

The question now is, will he be Mr. November of 2008? Or will Hillary be Ms. November?

Or will they both be merely memories of the political season after the parties' conventions next summer?