Except I'm not fool enough to actually make predictions in this chaotic set of Iowa caucuses. Nevertheless, here are some thoughts on tomorrow evening's events based on my heavy intake of political news over the holidays. I welcome your own predictions in the comments.

1) The Democratic caucuses are truly a wide-open affair. The RealClearPolitics average has the race at a statistical, three-way tossup. The top three in any order of finish would not surprise me, in part because all three have plausible scenarios where they do well.

Hillary Clinton excels if her machine of campaign organization holds steady until the end and successfully gets the legion of female, non-regular caucus they've been recruiting to turn out.

Barack Obama excels if his well-funded Iowa operation combines with enthusiasm on the ground to swell the caucuses with newer, more independent attendees.

John Edwards excels - which I wouldn't discount at all at this point given that he's closing the race with vigor reminiscent of 2004 - if the caucuses remain dominated by past attendees among whom he does best. Furthermore, the convoluted Iowa caucus system gives a heavier weight of delegates to rural areas where Edwards does well. And, Edwards appears to rank high as the 2nd choice of Democratic caucus-goers. Here again, the complex Democratic system comes into play. If a candidate does not receive 15% of the "vote" at a caucus location, his/her voters must individually shift to other candidates before the final tally is set and phoned in to the state party. Whoever picks up the bulk of such "under 15%" folks could dramatically improve their standing between the 1st tally of the evening and the 2nd one, which actually counts toward delegate selection.

Added to all that is the actual delegate apportionment by the Iowa Democratic party noted above. It's not exactly one voter, one vote. Thus, it is entirely possible that the candidate who has the most people show up at the caucuses on their behalf won't actually be the one who wins the most delegates. And the percentage of delegates one won, not the number of caucus goers voting for a candidate, is how the Democratic results are actually reported

Translation: it is entirely possible the candidate who has the most people attend the caucus on their behalf is not the one who earns the most delegates and thus "wins" the caucuses.

Random prediction: don't be surprised if Joe Biden pulls a surprisingly strong 4th place showing. It won't affect the nomination battle much, but he's been campaigning strong, drawing good crowds, and winning the support of a surprising number of Democratic legislators in Iowa, especially given who he's competing against.

2) The Republican contest isn't quite as interesting but equally difficult to predict. Note, however, the GOP caucuses are more of straight straw poll, without the 15% issue or 2nd tally like Democrats do. I believe the Republican party also reports vote tallies, not just delegate counts, so the Republican results are a bit easier to digest.

Both Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney need to win to have serious hope of moving on from the Hawkeye state with a real shot at the nomination. Even at that, Huckabee's path to the convention is questionable.

The Huckabee v. Romney contest is a classic contrast of organic momentum versus assembled organization. Huckabee is feeding off of Evangelical enthusiasm for him as the "one of us" candidate, with an assist from assorted pastors and the "Trust Huck" 527 that is supposedly organizing its own GOTV operation. Romney's Iowa operation is supposedly well-oiled, well-funded, tech savvy, and innovative. All of which doesn't mean a damn thing if he doesn't win, but probably means a lot if he does. All things being equal, campaigns prefer to have their GOTV operations in-house and well-coordinated with the rest of their campaign efforts. Huckabee's is totally outsourced (ironic given that he's the economic populist in the field).

Based on available information, I can realistically see results ranging from a modest Romney victory to a surprisingly large Huckabee triumph - and anything in between. It all depends on turnout.

The race for 3rd is more interesting and perhaps more competitive. If John McCain wins the bronze he'll get a huge media boost for "beating expectations," regardless of who wins gold and silver. Such an outpouring of "McCain is surging" coverage would likely carry him into New Hampshire with a lot of momentum.

Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, and yes, even Ron Paul, could pull out a 3rd place showing too. Thompson on the strength of a modest surge of campaigning the last few weeks; Giuliani on the strength of support from moderates and some sheer luck; and Paul almost by default, since many caucus-goers aren't fond of McCain while Thompson and Giuliani seem to be having a race to determine who can disappear off the voters' radar screens quicker. Either way, I think it's entirely plausible that Paul beats Giuliani outright. That would be an utter embarrassment for the former national front-runner, regardless of whether he's "competing" in Iowa or not.

If Ron Paul gets 3rd comment threads across the blogosphere will become unreadable. But at least McCain wouldn't get it. There's a Faustian bargain to consider.

3) Final thoughts: as much as I tremble to write this, there exists a very real possibility that John McCain becomes the prohibitive front-runner in the near future [UPDATE: this sentence has been fixed]. If Mitt Romney wins Iowa he'll be in strong but not guaranteed position. But if he loses the negative media coverage will be difficult to bear, especially as John McCain's bizarre and now-rekindled love affair with moderate Republicans and independents in New Hampshire continues to unfold. Thus, a Romney loss in Iowa would make a Huckabee v. McCain nomination battle highly probably...and a brutal choice for many Republican voters in later states.

Random caucus note: I'm still perplexed that from the tone of this post that David Postman is just now coming to full grips with how small a portion of the populace participates in caucuses, even the famous ones in Iowa. Yes, they're not perfect. Yes, they're not terribly democratic. But we've been doing Presidential races this way for quite some time now. For now, that's just how it is.

With that, I leave you to your predictions, which I'd really like to see on both sides of the aisle. Remember, the Democratic race is reported in delegates earned, not votes won. I'll review predictions for accuracy and in a brutally subjective process will single out successful prognosticators at a later date.