I spoke with a friend of mine today, who lives in Iowa. He’s one of the Republican-voting blue collar workin’ joes, the kind that Obama was referring to with his “cling to guns” comment.

My friend voted for Bush in 2000 without being able to articulate why. He called me today with a work question, then asked me if I’d seen the debate. He spoke enthusiastically about Obama, and told me he’d never voted for a Democrat before but was gonna pull the lever for Obama. As importantly, he said that his friends and neighbors also were leaning to Obama. Now, Iowa looks in the bag for Obama, but if my friend is enthused for Obama, I’m sure other workin’ joes are leaning to the Dems also. It may get tight, but I think Obama will win a comfortable victory.

Yeah, that’s a pretty good guess, I think. But there is another possibility. In 1980, Jimmy Carter had a polling advantage over Ronald Reagan until their one-and-only debate. Following that debate, Reagan took over and won easily. Some of the dynamics, this year, are the same. The Carter administration was widely considered to be a failed one because of soaring gas prices, high inflation, and the Iran hostage crisis. People generally seemed to want to vote against Carter, but weren’t sure about Reagan. Reagan was able to convince them, by his demeanor, that he wasn’t all that dangerous, and people quickly swung his way.

This year, we have many voters (I suspect) who want to punish the Republicans, but aren’t quite sure about Obama. If they become sure, we could see a tidal wave in his direction.

But now that his ground game is really rolling in the swing states, he’ll continue to slowly add to his electoral edge.