In the last major poll to be released prior to Thursday's Iowa caucuses, the highly regarded Des Moines Register finds Mike Huckabee leading Mitt Romney (despite Romney's desperate last minute negative attacks) by 32 to 26 percent. John McCain has moved into third place ahead of Fred Thompson. Barak Obama leads Hillary Clinton 32 to 25 percent.

If this bears out with the actual caucasing, this is about where John McCain would want to be - a weakened Romney, a winning Huckabee, and a third place finish for himself, setting him up for a potentially favorable outcome in New Hampshire the following Tuesday. There appears to be a move toward Obama, after a couple of weeks in which it seemed that the negative attacks coming from the Clinton camp had pushed her to about statistically even with him.