hen we last tried to guess what effect Iowa's go-stand-in-the-corner-and-vote-for-your-guy caucuses might have on New Hampshire's primary elections, only a handful of geeks knew anything about the Internet, ''impeachment'' referred to Nixon and not Clinton, and NASDAQ sounded like a bombing target from Desert Storm. Four years can be two lifetimes in politics.
About 10 o'clock tomorrow night, everything changes anew. All the polls, punditry, and persiflage get pitched into the recycling bins of journalism. Because for the first time since '96, real people begin casting real votes for president. And we know there will be some surprises.
Iowa frequently picks winners that New Hampshire rejects.
Heads should roll in Journalismland if George W. Bush and Al Gore don't easily top their party charts in Iowa when head counts are phoned to Des Moines. And the noggins of pollsters will be separated from shoulders of pollsters if those matching 20-point-plus leads of the two front-runners are eviscerated.
The labor unions have 100,000 card carriers in Iowa, and the unions are backing Gore to the hilt. The antiabortion forces are also strong in Iowa's Republican grass roots, but they are split among the four GOP also-rans, Steve Forbes, Gary Bauer, Orrin Hatch, and Alan Keyes, the fiery talk-show alum who seemed over the weekend to be riding a mini-surge. None of those four pose much of a threat to Bush, however, who is worried most about Arizona Senator John McCain, the target of a Bush onslaught on New Hampshire TV.
McCain basically bailed out of Iowa early, figuring his loudly proclaimed opposition to the ethanol subsidy (corn turns into motor fuel via the alchemy of taxpayer-subsidized dollars) doomed his chance to woo Iowa corn growers. As a result, he spent what the Political Hotline newsletter says adds up to only three days in Iowa. Forbes (60 days) and Bill Bradley (59 days) were wooing Iowa so long they could have registered to vote. Gore was out there 41 days - and Al has a day job. Even Bush (30 days) could have registered out of a Des Moines hotel room, like his old man used to do in Houston.
What the Bradley forces are discovering is that even a media-favored candidacy upon which money is showered is no match for an organization of ground troops. Iowa and New Hampshire are both tractor-pull events. As a sitting vice president, with a boss whose last-minute string-pulling (Hey, Al, want me to announce my health care scheme the week before Iowa? Any other goodies you want stirred into my last State of the Union speech?) is legendary, Al's got the edge.
All those balding baby boomers who wrote checks for Bradley to outpace Gore's fund-raising last quarter are not showing up in Waterloo and Laconia to flog phones and crank up snowmobiles to get out the vote. People still count more than polls, punditry, or PAC tallies. One of the Gore New Hampshire brain trusters questions the accuracy of this season's polling. Phone banks and survey-takers have trouble getting at real voters. Answering machines and services and caller ID make it harder. And thousands of TV and radio spots only add to the clutter.
The economy - gangbusters in southern New Hampshire, less robust in rural Iowa - has had the effect of dampening interest and, presumably, turnout. People are less interested this time around. The electorate seems fat and happy, on the one hand, with consumer confidence up and unemployment down. But voters are apathetic and cynical, on the other hand, wrung out by the travails of Clinton and the wrangling in Gridlock Center, D.C.
No matter how we try, the journalists always miss something that becomes apparent after New Hampshire. What's our mistake this time? Do we underrate McCain or Bradley? Is there actually some reason to believe that Steve Forbes could win the Republican nomination? Are the lights really going out on everyone but Bush and Gore? Can this thing actually be decided over the next two weeks? Do we have to put up with Bush and Gore for 10 months straight? Is it too late to bring back Clinton?
Gore last week claimed the endorsement of liberal icon John Kenneth Galbraith, who worked with Gore's daddy six decades back, before young Albert was even thought of. ''His father was one of my great supporters [in Congress] when I ran the National Price Stabilization in 1941 and '42,'' Galbraith said. ''I've known the family through three generations, the children at Harvard.''
So why Gore? ''He has the experience, he has the good sense, and has a commitment on world issues, including arms control, which is very good in my view,'' said the Sage of Cambridge. ''I think we can count on Al Gore not to be reckless in all this conversation about the [United States as the] world's Great Power.''
So, Ken, whither goeth this super-sizzlin' economy?
''Anybody who makes a firm prediction on that is deeply suspect,'' boomed the author of 40-odd books (I don't mean odd, I mean plus). ''We do know that for the last 300 years we've had a succession of booms and busts. We should not assume that history has come to an end. We can count on Al Gore.'' And then, ever mindful that an endorsement from Harvard's Olympian throne can be a double-edged sword, Galbraith winked: ''I wouldn't accuse him of in any way being subject to my instruction.''
Approaching his 92d birthday, Galbraith signed off thus: ''Nobody should take age seriously. I'm the world's leading opponent of the `still' syndrome. You know: `Are you still working? Still thinking? Still alive?'''
Unless Bradley and McCain can somehow turn their anticipated Iowa defeats into unanticipated New Hampshire victories, the press and the pols of their own parties will be all over them: Are you still alive?
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
