"Edwards and Obama Lead Dems in Iowa"

It's just a poll, a long way out, on MyDD:

Via Political Wire, Research 2000 has conducted a new round of polling on likely Iowa caucus-goers for KCCI-TV in Des Moines and the numbers look like this:

December 18-20, MoE +/- 4.0%*

John Edwards: 22 percent

Barack Obama: 22 percent

Tom Vilsack: 12 percent

Hillary Clinton: 10 percent

The write up of the poll is rather sparse, even in comparison with how these articles are usually written. As such, it's not possible to tell what the actual margin of error is among those who will participate in the Democratic caucuses (as opposed to both the Democratic and Republican caucuses). Nonetheless, one can assume that the margin of error for the Democratic race would be higher than 4 percent -- perhaps even 5.5 percent or even wider.

That said, when compared to polling in the field back in October conducted by Harstad Strategic Research Inc., these new numbers show that there may have been movement towards Obama and away from Edwards. In that earlier poll, Edwards led with 36 percent, trailed by Clinton at 16 percent, Obama at 13 percent and Vilsack at 9 percent, with others filling up the bottom of the pack. (The KCCI report on this month's poll neglects to detail numbers of candidates with support less than 10 percent, though one would assume that other names were included in the poll.)

Just to add... It's not yet clear whether these shifts are permanent or even real. Comparing two different surveys from two different pollsters with two different methodologies is always a tricky business. But if these numbers are correct, Obama does appear to be coming on strong.