In the book, Edwards says her husband, John, admitted just days before announcing his run for president in 2006 to his now widely publicized extramarital affair. According to the New York Daily News, she writes that she then asked her husband not to run for president in the 2008 campaign, to protect their family from public scrutiny.

Edwards eventually finished second in the Iowa Caucuses to Barack Obama before dropping out and endorsing him. Clinton finished third and was dealt what many consider a fatal blow to her presidential aspirations. Now, former Clinton pollster Mark Penn tells ABC News that it would have been a very different race if Edwards hadn’t run.

“Most likely it would have been a two-way race and would have released a lot of voters who focused on demographics . . . voters who would later vote for Hillary Clinton.”

This isn’t the first round of former Clintonites blaming their loss, at least partially, on Edwards. When news of the affair first broke last August, former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson said if Edwards had been forced from the race earlier his candidate “would have won Iowa” and been the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.

But polling data from the night of the Caucuses does tend to contradict Penn and Wolfson’s points.

In an interview with former Iowa Independent writer John Deeth, University of Iowa political science professor David Redlawsk said a Caucus night poll showed 82 percent of Edwards supporters said they would support another candidate and 18 percent would not.

“When we asked which candidate they would then support, 32 percent said Clinton and 51 percent said Obama,” he said. “Had this actually happened statewide, Obama would have been even further ahead of Clinton.”

Now these were voters who spent the campaign listening to all three before deciding on who to support, so their opinions could have been much different if Edwards were never involved in the race from the beginning. But as Deeth pointed out back in August, the Clinton campaign’s focus on experience and being “ready to go on day one” was in stark contrast to the campaigns of Edwards and Obama, where change from the status quo was the rallying cry.

The Clinton that emerged later in the 2008 campaign that garnered support from mostly older and working class voters might have done better in Iowa, but that campaign message seemed to evolve because her defeat in Iowa and several early states, so it didn’t do her much good in the Hawkeye State.

In the end, it’s impossible to know what might have been.

David Redlawsk, associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa, said in an interview that the future of the same-sex marriage debate in Iowa would most likely follow in the footsteps of Massachusetts. In 2004, that state’s Supreme Court issued a ruling stating it was unconstitutional to allow only heterosexual couples to marry. Efforts to amend the constitution and ban same-sex marriage began immediately, and while at first it seemed inevitable, support dwindled and the effort stalled.

Redlawsk predicts a similar scenario.

“It’s hard to amend the constitution in Iowa. You can’t do it overnight,” he said. “My prediction is that this will be a lot like Massachusetts, in that there will be a reaction, some people will be unhappy, but over the time it takes to enact a constitutional amendment, people will simply become more accepting, especially as younger people get older.”

A new University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll released Thursday shows 60 percent of Iowans under age 30 support same-sex marriage, and three-fourths of Iowans under 30 favor some formal recognition of same-sex relationships. That indicates that passion objection could fade over time.

“There is a huge generational difference,” said Redlawsk, who oversees the poll. “For younger Iowans, this approaches a non-issue. They are not sitting there worrying about whether people who are gay can get married. I think that is very clear in the data.”

Democratic leadership in both legislative chambers seemed to close the door on amending the state’s constitution in a joint statement after the high court’s decision was made public. And on Thursday, even members of the Republican leadership agreed the issue is unlikely to surface during the final weeks of the 2009 legislative session.

But Democratic Gov. Chet Culver has previously said he would be willing to call a special session to “protect marriage between a man and a woman,” and Republicans have promised to hammer Democrats on the issue in 2010, when the House and governor’s mansion will be up for grabs.

“I think you’re going to see more tension between the governor and Democratic legislative leadership,” said Jeff Angelo, a former Republican state senator from Creston. “The governor has said he would call a session to deal with a verdict in this case and legislative leadership issued a statement lauding the decision.”

Angelo pointed to a Des Moines Register poll of legislators last year that showed 123 of 150 lawmakers said they believed marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

“You have a number of legislators who said ‘I believe marriage is between a man and a woman but I’m going to wait for the court to rule,’” he said. “Now, you’re going to pull that statement up and say ‘So, how are you going to vote now that we have a ruling.’ This issue certainly has traction in 2010.”

If Culver calls a special session, legislators will be put on the spot, Angelo said.

The effect same-sex marriage will have on 2010  legislative elections will be decided district by district across the state, Angelo said, so it’s unclear right now which party will have an advantage.

State Rep. Mary Mascher, an Iowa City Democrat, told blogger John Deeth that in previous years, Democrats have managed to pass bills that gave gay and lesbian students protection from bullying at school and civil rights protections to LGBT citizens.

“We passed those and no one got beat because of it,” Mascher said.

A more likely first step opponents will take will be to change Iowa’s marriage law to add a residency requirement. Several conservative activists are already calling for such a change, fearing same-sex couples from around the country will come to Iowa to be married, return home and challenge their state’s marriage laws. U.S. Rep. Steve King, a Kiron Republican, said Iowa has the potential to become a “gay marriage Mecca.”

Redlawsk said there is little doubt Republicans will make the court’s ruling an issue going forward. Whether it will get much traction is unclear.

“My sense is that it is really hard to get traction on issues that aren’t economic in nature,” he said. “There will be some backlash, but since we’re a year-and-a-half from voting, in the end I think it won’t matter as much. A majority of Iowans isn’t bothered by the idea of same-sex relationships.”

If a vote could be held tomorrow, opponents could “whip up a majority,” Redlawsk said. “But there is a lot of time for Iowans to get used to the idea of same-sex marriage.”

Time will be an effective tool for supporters of same-sex marriage, Angelo said.

“I think if you’re a proponent of gay marriage you’re going to take the next couple of years to demonstrate to people that no bigger societal damage is being done,” he said. “Whether that means there won’t be the votes to pass a constitutional amendment, I just don’t know.”

Overall, only one-third of Iowans polled say they are opposed to any form of same-sex relationships. The rest either favor same-sex marriage or civil unions, although the court’s ruling clearly eliminated civil unions as an option.

The poll, which was conducted prior to Friday’s ruling, also asked Iowans what the state should do if the Supreme Court upholds a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry.

The question provided three options: Amend the Iowa constitution to ban same-sex relationships; amend it to ban same-sex marriage but allow civil unions; or accept the decision to allow gay marriage in Iowa.

Across the entire sample, 30.4 percent of Iowans favor accepting a ruling to allow same-sex marriage. One-fourth supports the creation of civil unions as an acceptable alternative. One-third believe the constitution should be amended to ban any same-sex relationship.

“This represents a very small increase in support for marriage following a court ruling, drawing mostly from respondents who generally prefer civil unions,” Redlawsk said.

Another poll, paid for by a conservative 527 organization founded in 2004 by former GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross, found that 60 percent of Iowans survey would be either “not very” or “not at all” willing to support a candidate who supports allowing same-sex couples to marry.

“If they show up in record numbers, they will decidedly tip the scale toward an Obama victory,” said David Redlawsk, the University of Iowa political scientist who directed the poll. “But if they fail to turn out, the final result is likely to be very close.”

The national poll, conducted Oct. 5-18, showed registered voters 35 or younger favoring Obama by a 26-point margin over John McCain. Voters over 70 favored McCain by five percent, and voters age 36 to 54 supported Obama by five percent.

However, less than 40 percent of younger voters are paying close attention to the election. “This suggests they’re less engaged,” said Redlawsk, “and perhaps less likely to turn out, because those who pay attention are more likely to vote.” Voter attention increases with age, with over 70 percent of the 70-plus voters paying close attention.

“By historical standards, the level of interest is extremely high across all ages,” said Redlawsk.

Another difference for younger voters is that they are the only group that uses the Internet as their primary news source. All older age groups rely more on television.

Perhaps as a result, the youngest voters were less tuned in to some of the controversies that have dominated television. Only 23 percent of young voters were aware of ’60s radical Bill Ayers, to whom the McCain camp has tried to link Obama, compared to 38 to 47 percent of older voters. But, more than 81 percent of younger voters had followed polls closely, which was right in line with the 79 to 87 percent of other age groups.

“Younger voters haven’t paid as much attention to the issues and personalities central to the campaigns as older voters have,” Redlawsk said. “Still, they’re just as curious to know which candidate is ahead as any other voter is.”

“It’s surprising: Despite all the campaigning and intense media coverage, the percentage of American voters who believe Obama is Muslim has not gone down as much as we might expect since a similar Pew study in June, which found that 12 percent believe he is,” said Hawkeye Poll Director David Redlawsk, associate professor of political science in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

In the national poll of 680 registered voters conducted Oct. 1-11, 8.4 percent of all respondents considered Obama Muslim, and 33.4 percent could not name his religion when asked in an open-ended question to identify it.

One thing has changed since the Pew poll: The percentage of Democrats who mistake Obama’s religion dropped notably, while the percentage of Republicans who do went up. In June, the percentage was equal regardless of party. Now, the Hawkeye Poll shows that 14 percent of Republicans say Obama is Muslim, compared to only 5.5 percent of Democrats and 4.8 percent of independents.

In the Hawkeye Poll, 39 percent of Republicans and 37 percent of independents did not know Obama’s religion, compared to less than one-quarter of Democrats. Likewise, almost 70 percent of Democrats correctly identified him as Christian, compared just 46.3 percent of Republicans and 57.5 percent of independents.

“That’s a difference of over 20 percentage points between Republicans and Democrats on perceptions of Obama’s Christian religion,” said Hawkeye Poll Co-Director Caroline Tolbert, associate professor of political science at the UI. “Media coverage or online information sources linking Obama to the Muslim religion may be responsible for the misinformation.”

Another possible factor responsible for voters mistaking Obama’s religion may be tied to a voter’s education level, the poll found. Seventy-two percent of those who believe Obama is Muslim have not graduated from college.

Moreover, the poll found that nearly 14 percent of those who identify themselves as born-again or evangelical Christian think Obama is a Muslim, compared to 6.6 percent of non-evangelical voters.

The University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll is directed by David Redlawsk and co-directed by Caroline Tolbert, associate professors of political science in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The poll is a teaching, research and service project of the Department of Political Science and is housed at the UI’s Social Science Research Center. The university’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Office of the Provost provided funding for the poll.

Redlawsk said he will still register as an Edwards delegate at the June 14 Iowa state convention, and urged the Edwards group to stay together and elect more Edwards supporters to the national convention in Denver. “The delegate selection process in Iowa is not over,” he said.