The chink in Hillary’s armor in Iowa has been expanding rapidly these last few weeks. The trend has been clear for a bit, but as of now even on pollster.com’s really conservative trend line she has lost the lead (but barely). And her lead in other states has started to slip now that her weakness is showing in Iowa. Most of this has been due to one good speech by Obama at the JJ Dinner a few weeks back, followed by a series of missteps by the Clinton campaign. (Who thought that Kindergarten thing was a good idea, really? Come one…)

Anyway, from the pollster.com trend lines in some significant states:

• IA: Obama leads Clinton by 1.5%
• NH: Clinton leads Obama by 6.0%
• NV: Clinton leads Obama by 22.1%
• SC: Clinton leads Obama by 9.7%
• FL: Clinton leads Obama by 30.9%
• MI: Clinton leads Obama by 25.4%
• CA: Clinton leads Obama by 32.0%
• NY: Clinton leads Obama by 31.9%

Uh, OK. In most states Clinton is still blowing away Obama. However, as Ivan and I have discussed on the podcast a number of times, these early states matter a lot and can change the whole dynamic of the race. Hillary has always been weak in Iowa, her lead has always been smallest there. But now it has evaporated. Although Obama’s trend line is now higher, really Iowa is now a dead heat between Clinton and Obama with Edwards in spitting distance.

And Hillary’s lead is getting smaller and smaller in New Hampshire too.

If she loses in both of those, then other states where she has huge leads right now will also suddenly be in play.

If Obama wins both he will be in a very strong position. If Edwards gets Iowa and Obama gets New Hampshire then things will just be wide open and potentially VERY interesting in January and February even on the Democratic side.

Meanwhile, and I’ll get to this in another post soon, the Republicans are a mess. Things will almost definately be VERY interesting on that side.

But it is very nice that it is starting to look like the Dems might put on a show too.