POLITICO Playbook: MONDAY NIGHT NAIL-BITER: Cruz, Sanders within reach

BITE DU JOUR - NYT's Peter Baker, to John King on CNN's "Inside Politics," re Hillary emails: "Her problem at this point is NOT the Republicans. Her problem is the FBI and the Obama Justice Department. And what Democrats are quietly, absolutely petrified about is that come summer, ... you find an indictment of people around her, of her, or a request for a special prosecutor -- SOMETHING that just basically turns this into a complete DISASTER for the Democrats in which it's too late to change horses."YouTube  https://bit.ly/1Q3Hv4L

MITT ROMNEY, at Alfalfa Club's 103rd annual dinner last night: "Some have speculated that my religion might have played a part in my defeat. I wondered about that myself, but most of my wives said they didn't think so. ... There are six words Hillary hopes to hear a year from now: 'Place your hand on the Bible.' The five words she FEARS she'll hear a year from now: 'Will the defendant please rise?' ... Bernie Sanders ... looks like one of those 1960s folksingers who does specials on PBS during pledge week. I will say this about a Sanders presidency: I will sleep better at night knowing Peter, Paul and Mary are running the government."

 By Mike Allen (@mikeallen; [email protected]) and Daniel Lippman (@dlippman; [email protected])

Good Sunday morning. One wake-up till the Iowa caucuses, at 7 p.m. CST tomorrow. New Hampshire primary is nine days away.

TOP TALKER - "How Cruz blew the Iowa expectations game: Rubio can lose to Cruz on Monday and walk away looking like the winner," by Politico's Shane Goldmacher and Katie Glueck in Ames: "Rubio has successfully spun that he's only gunning for third place here. In sharp contrast, Cruz's campaign, touting its superior ground game, has openly pined for and predicted victory. The result: in the closing hours, Iowa is suddenly fraught with risk for Cruz while Rubio ... is almost guaranteed to meet or beat diminished expectations." https://politi.co/1JRzNOv

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THE NARRATIVE: "Trump, Clinton carry slim leads into the Iowa caucuses: Final poll suggests Monday night nail-biter as Cruz and Sanders stay within reach of the win," by Politico chief polling analyst Steve Shepard: "Trump ... has a 5-point lead ... over ... Cruz [28% to 23%], according to the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is in third place at 15 percent ... Carson is at 10 percent ... Paul is at 5 percent. [The rest are at 2%.]

"Clinton is running neck-and-neck with ... Sanders, 45 percent to 42 percent - though Clinton's support appears more secure. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is at 3 percent and appears unlikely to be viable at most caucus sites on Monday night. The poll, conducted by legendary Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer, has long been influential and accurate: Selzer's surveys predicted victories by Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee in 2008, and foresaw Rick Santorum's late surge in 2012."  https://politi.co/1P5uQhF

WHAT IOWA IS READING - Des Moines Register lead, "IOWA POLL: Trump, Clinton lead close races":

--"REPUBLICANS: Trump up by 5 on Cruz, but has 'little room for error,'" by Jennifer Jacobs: Trump 28% ... Cruz 23% ... Rubio 15% ... Carson 10% ... Paul 5% ... Christie 3% ... Bush, Fiorina, Huckabee, Kasich, Santorum 2%  https://dmreg.co/1Q3ueJk ... Breakdown by candidates https://dmreg.co/1NJbqNB

--"DEMOCRATS: Sanders down by just 3 points; 'turnout is everything,'" by Donnelle Heller and Jennifer Jacobs: Clinton 45% ... Sanders 42% ... O'Malley 3%  https://dmreg.co/23BDGxw ... Breakdown by candidateshttps://dmreg.co/2010fal

--"6 problems with the Iowa polls," by Steve Shepard: "It's a caucus - not a primary. ... 2. Who's in the poll? ... 3. Trump and Sanders might change voter profile. ... 4. Turnout's king but it's hard to predict. ... 5. Democrats count delegates, not votes. ... 6. Polling is harder now."  https://politi.co/1QQ6Nb2

THE LARGER LESSONS of Iowa - N.Y. Times 1-col. lead, "IOWA WILL GAUGE ARDOR TO UPEND POLITICS AS USUAL: A TEST FOR OUTSIDERS -- Caucuses Could Bring Order to Races - or Reorder Them," by Patrick Healy in Des Moines: "The importance of aggressive fund-raising and campaign commercials, which have cost a combined total of more than $100 million so far, will become suspect if the social-media-driven organizing by grass-roots groups helps yield upset victories for candidates like Mr. Sanders. And the national mood about entrenched power - Wall Street, political dynasties and Washington - will almost certainly be reflected in the outcomes of the nominating contest."  https://nyti.ms/1nwydHl

HOW SANDERS COULD GET BERNED -- WashPost A-1 banner, "Trump, Sanders put tradition to test in Iowa: A CHALLENGE TO CONVENTIONAL CAMPAIGNS," by Dan Balz and Phil Rucker, in Des Moines: "Clinton's team is the very model of ... a modern field operation ... in identifying traditional caucus-goers. ... Brad Anderson, [an] Iowa Democratic strategist, said: 'From the outset [the Clinton campaign] knew they needed a 99-county, 1,681-precinct organization. They had 30 people on the ground in April. ... Meanwhile, the Sanders campaign was drinking out of a firehose. They had massive events with thousands of people, but only a handful of staff able to capture the data and make the phone calls to capture the organization.'

"Sanders has the challenge not only of finding and turning out new voters, but also distributing his support broadly across the state in order to maximize the delegate haul ... His support is heavily concentrated in college towns and other Democratic areas, but whether he has support in rural Iowa is a question." https://wapo.st/1WUQBWB

HOW WE GOT HERE - "Iowa's Grass-Roots Voters Could Set Tone of Primary Season," by NYT's Trip Gabriel in Des Moines, posted at 6:02 a.m.: "The embrace of Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump, visible nationally in huge rallies, has stirred Iowa's latent Midwest populism, with voters angry about the hollowing out of the middle class, Wall Street greed and the corrupting influence of money in politics. It has created two insurgents who in some ways are opposite sides of the same coin. The policies of President Obama have added accelerant to the fire, with the far left unhappy he did not go far enough, and the right convinced he radically changed the United States." https://nyti.ms/1OYSKh2

** A message from Walmart: 1.2 million Associates to Receive a Raise: At Walmart, we're committed to investing in our associates. That's why this February we're increasing our starting wages and giving all 1.2 million of our associates a raise. It's part of our two-year $2.7 billion investment in workers. Learn more. https://bit.ly/1lCn2eR **

ENGAGED! Liz Breckenridge, Politico's executive director of administration, to Ken White of OPM. Liz, who spent months engineering our move between buildings in Rosslyn, has her birthday on Monday, and Ken asked her: "Do you want your birthday present?" It was a winter hat Liz had mentioned to him. Then he asked: "Do you want your OTHER birthday present?" It was a ring. They celebrated last night at their Cheers -- Kapnos, on 14thStreet. They had a whole section, packed with friends including Politicos Kim Kingsley, Kara Kearns, Katherine Lehr and Kayla Cook (avec fiancé, Marine Captain Justin Brown) - and shut down the bar.Pic of Liz and Kenhttps://bit.ly/1PIO8c1

SUNDAY BEST ... DONALD TRUMP to John Dickerson on "Face the Nation" (taped in N.H.), about a poll showing voters have a high level of anxiety about him: "Well`, look, I'm a strong guy. ... I can think of people that maybe they would have a little bit less anxiety about. But they won't get anything done. ... I think we have to be unpredictable. Our enemies know what we're going to do, whether it's battle, whether it's war, whether it's finance. ...

"You'll ask me a question, a very strategic question, maybe a military type question. And I have a very strong answer in mind. But there's something about giving you that answer that bothers me very much because basically the enemy's getting that answer. ... I think that once they know me -- in fact, I was listening to one of your cohorts recently last week. And they said they have never seen favorables go up so much so fast as my favorables."

DICKERSON: "But there's a lot of drama around your campaign. You're occasionally in Twitter wars. Is that presidential? Do you think, these Twitter back and forth fights - "

TRUMP: "Well, I'm in Twitter wars before, really, I was a politician. And now I'm carrying it out. Don't forget, I started out with 17 people, including myself. Now at a lot of them are dropping out. And many more will be dropping out. And we'll get it down to a normal number. But I was being barraged from all different sides.

"Having Twitter is great. And between Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, I have 12 million people, more than 12 million people. So it is a great way of getting the word out. But certainly, I mean, look, I went to great schools. I was a good student, all of that stuff. I'm very capable of slowing down Twitter or doing whatever I want to do. But Twitter is actually I've found it to be, and Facebook, is a wonderful, modern way of communicating. ...

"I think that Ted Cruz has been severely affected by the Goldman Sachs loans, which he didn't disclose, and it was on his personal financial form, and the Citibank loans he didn't disclose."

DICKERSON: "Couldn't that just have been a mistake?"

TRUMP: "It could have been. But you know, two loans, give me a break, okay? And he's supposed to be Robin Hood for everybody. ...

"I have the ultimate bus, right? I just call it a 727. I mean, you know, and now it's a 757, actually, when you think of it. But somehow, I've always had great relationships with the workers. I work with them. I used to work, during summer, building houses in Brooklyn and Queens. I mean, I just work with them. These are incredible people. ... The middle-income people in our country have been hurt very badly. That's why I'm doing a big tax cut for them."

DICKERSON: "When you were in Iowa, you went to a church service. The sermon was, in part, on humility. What did you take away from that?"

TRUMP: "Well, you know, they didn't really know I was coming because of security reasons, OK? And so we just sort of showed up. Maybe they changed quickly, but, or maybe it was coincidence. But it was actually on humility. I don't know. It was very good. It was a very nice service -- beautiful church. I liked it."

DICKERSON: "But humility. ... You have often talked about sometimes braggadocious is part of your pitch."

TRUMP: "No, I know. But there's more humility than you would think, believe me."

DICKERSON: "Hidden humility."

TRUMP: "We're all the same. I mean, we're all going to the same place -- probably one of two places, you know. But we're all the same. And I do have, actually, much more humility than a lot of people would think."

DICKERSON: "But you don't want to show it."

TRUMP: "I'd rather not play my cards. I want to be unpredictable."

DICKERSON: "Who do you like in the Super Bowl?"

TRUMP: "Well, your Carolina team is sort of a hot team. And the quarterback's doing great. I very much have always liked Peyton Manning. Hes a very good guy. I know him. And he's a very, very good guy. So I have to go with the person I know and I like [Denver Broncos]. I like the other team. I think the other team looks fantastic. Probably, they would be favored by something. But I'll stick with Peyton because he's a very good guy." Transcript https://bit.ly/1QAiS2d

FIRST LOOKS -- Keep the Promise I's closing argument ad, "Bold Leadership," for Cruz in Iowa, calls him a "bold, reliable true conservative"; runs through Monday night as part of the $2.5M TV buy announced earlier this month.  https://bit.ly/1SRJA9R

- "America Rising is releasing a new video ['Sent and Received'] that highlights the numerous and various times Clinton has claimed that there was no classified material on her private, unsecured server." https://bit.ly/1NJl1UG

OUT AND ABOUT IN DES MOINES -- Last night at the Des Moines Marriott, Bloomberg Politics and the Des Moines Register hosted a poll release event for the final Iowa Poll before the caucuses. Pollster J. Ann Selzer, Bloomberg Politics' Mark Halperin, John Heilemann, Al Hunt, and the Des Moines Register's Kathie Obradovich, Carol Hunter and Amalie Nash all took the stage for the big reveal.

SPOTTED : Jake Tapper, Jeff Weaver, Ben Smith, Megan Murphy, Rick Klein, Tom "TJ" Johnson, Rick Tyler, Kristen Holmes, Greta Van Sustern, Tammy Haddad, Betsy Fischer Martin, Phil Rucker, Carolyn Ryan, Dan Balz, Matt Viser, Tanya Singer, Jonathan Martin, Matt Strawn, Karen Tumulty, Hilary Rosen, Ben Ginsberg, Sasha Issenberg, Howard Fineman, Steve Yaccino, Judy Woodruff, Peter Alexander, Sarah Baker, Polson Kanneth, Teddy Davis, Annie Linksey, Jesse Rodriguez, Michael LaRosa, Katie Hinman, Tad Devine, Tina Urbanski, Will Leitch, Greg Martin, Jennifer Jacobs, Bakari Sellers, Eliana Johnson, Susan Page, Jeff Roe.

OUT AND ABOUT -- Journalists and other DCers who like book parties gathered at Juleanna Glover's house Friday night to celebrate Matt Lewis' new book, "Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Betrayed the Reagan Revolution to Win Elections (and How It Can Reclaim Its Conservative Roots)." He told friends that conservatism started with sterling intellectuals like Edmund Burke but more recently "you get George Bush. Sarah Palin. And Donald Trump. By the time you get to Donald Trump, it's like the caveman sort of going the opposite direction." $19.01 on Amazon  https://amzn.to/20zmoP0

--SPOTTED: Scott Simon, Rob Saliterman, Michael Hirsh, Kate Bennett, Tim Burger, Betsy Woodruff, Ilya Shapiro, Tommy Joyce, Melissa Sowerwine, Kevin Chaffee, Jim Newell, Julianna Goldman, Indira Lakshmanan, Asawin Suebsaeng, Michael Cromartie.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD - John Leland Thomas was born to Amy and Brian Thomas last night at 6 pm in Washington DC. Weighing in at 3 lbs 4 oz, he joins his sister Allie Ross, and brother Jack and is named after Brian's dad. Brian, long time chief of staff to Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Tex.), is a local builder/developer in Alexandria. Amy worked most recently as the Director of Protocol for the embassy of the United Arab Emirates. She also worked in senior level protocol positions in the Bush Administration for the Depts. of State and Commerce. (hat tips: Autumn, Dina, Marit) Pic  https://bit.ly/20fWIdG

BIRTHDAYS: CNN's Dylan Byers ... Dick Gephardt is 75! ... former Interior Secretary James Watt is 78 ... David Plotz, CEO of Atlas Obscura, Slate alum and a St. Albans grad, is 46 ... ABC News' Heather Riley ... Chris Marklund, L.D. for the National Association of Counties (hat tip: Kurt Bardella) ... Barbara Slavin, acting director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council and Washington correspondent for Al-Monitor ... Global Strategy Group's Kate Hansen, the pride of Marietta, Ga. ... CNN's Christine Romans ... Ali Zaidi, OMB Associate Director for Natural Resources, Energy, and Science at the White House ... Tom O'Donnell, Inaugural Director of the LBJ School Washington Center and former Clinton WH operative ... Brooke Buchanan, a McCain and Wal-Mart alum, now VP of comms at Theranos ... food writer David Hagedorn ... Sam Dorn ... McClatchy's Michael Doyle ... Gerri Carr ... Lisa Duvall, Strickland alum ...

... Peter Sagal, host of the NPR news quiz "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!" And gals - he's single! (h/t his former roommate, WSJ's Jess Bravin) ... Tim Naftali, former head of Nixon library and author ... Lindsey Paola, Bush 43 WH alum now manager in the legal department of Frontier Communications ... Alexandra Morrison ... Matthew Gottlieb ... Michael Waltz, Bush 43 WH alum now president of Metis Solutions, is 42 ... Greg Roberts ... Christopher Alan Chambers ... Bobbie Brinegar of OWL -- The Voice of Women 40+ ... Ray Sullivan, partner at Checkmate Consulting ... Marlene Hall ... Rahul Prabhakar, senior advisor at Treasury ... Michael Kempner, founder, president and CEO of MWW, is 58 ... Fred Karger ... Bob DeWeese ... Tim Sulentic ... Anna McMahon (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) ... Christopher Semenas ...

... Matthew Gottlieb, senior consultant at Verizon and a Benenson alum ... Jack Barbash ... Mike Rabinowitz, managing director at BerlinRosen ... Jarrett Murphy, executive editor and publisher of City Limits ... ... actress Carol Channing is 95 ... composer Philip Glass is 79 ... Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, the former queen regent, is 78 ... Baseball Hall-of-Famer Nolan Ryan is 69 (h/t 43) ... Jonathan Banks ("Breaking Bad") is 69 ... singer-musician Harry Wayne Casey (KC and the Sunshine Band) is 65 ... Johnny Rotten is 60 ... Minnie Driver is 46 ... actress Kerry Washington is 39 ... Justin Timberlake is 35 ... Tyler Hubbard (Florida Georgia Line) is 29 ... Marcus Mumford (Mumford and Sons) is 29 ... actor Joel Courtney is 20 (h/ts AP)

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