It turns out I was very wrong about the structure of the Iowa Republican Caucuses.

On the Democratic side, they are some fine points that tend to lead to extensive debate and several rounds of voting at caucus locations. Because it is a more involved process, a strong organization makes a huge difference for candidates.

But on the Republican, it is more like a straw poll. Maybe there are some impassioned speeches by supporters, but basically you drop your vote in the bowl and go home. You don’t need as much organization to make this work.

The point being that the advantage I previously Romney as having in his organizational capacity (he doesn’t have a big organization in Iowa, but he has more overall organizational capacity than anyone else) is a much smaller advantage than I had believed.

Consequently, Newt, for better or worse (and a number of Democratic strategists seem to be worried about a Newt candidacy), has a much bigger advantage going into the caucuses as the front runner.

He’s improved his fundraising and it running ads in Iowa. And if you watched the last Republican debate, the closing statements were telling.

Newt delivered the closing statement of a clear front runner. He spoke in a grand ‘we,’ the sort of ‘we’ used by a front runner who is already practically the nominee elect. It was a good bit o’ stagecraft.

Poor Mitt was uncomfortable (and my niece pointed out that it looked like he’d recently been to a tanning salon) and gave the closing remarks of a man fumbling for a strategy and trying desperately to convince folks of his ideological center (his theme was ‘free’ – as in ‘free enterprise’).

Don’t quite know what to think myself, but things just got a whole lot more interesting.