Rhode Island Tip Sheet: Crunch time in Iowa

STATE OF THE RACE: Mitt Romney has the most to lose in the Iowa Caucus this week. Politico reports on the field: “No matter who wins, Iowa will reshape the Republican presidential race one week from today — and almost certainly in ways that don’t adhere to any semblance of a traditional political script.” . . . . 538 asks, “How can Romney lose?” . . . . Mark Halperin calls Romney “craft and wicked smaat.” (His spelling, not mine.)

DECODING CICILLINE: In case you missed it: US Representative David Cicilline plans to nationalize his reelection campaign next year, vilifying congressional Republicans. His GOP opponent will try to make the race very local.

MONEY WATCH: One thing to watch in Q4 camopaign finance reports: how close does Brendan Doherty come toward his campaign’s goal of 500K COH?

CRYSTAL BALL: My top-12 unanswered RI political questions for 2012.

OBAMA: Approval is up for the president.

MEDIA: Brenna McCabeis leaving the Valley Breeze for a job with legislative press.

MEDIA II: The name of Scott Pickering has been removed from staff bios for Patch in RI (cached version here). Patch isn’t talking and Pickering didn’t return a call to his cell phone.

GAMBLING: Newport Grand CEO Diane Hurley is the key to the next move in whether expanded gambling comes to the City by the Sea.

LOADED I: The Atlantic on whether it’s bad that the typical elected representative is nine times wealthier than the typical voter.

LOADED II: Reuters puts the exit package for departing NY Times exec Janet Robinson north of $15 million.

BIRTHDAY: Peter Lord; Ed Quinlan.