While waiting for a Mitt Romney event last night outside Des Moines, I ran into a number of my colleagues in the political press corps. We agreed on one thing - we can't predict what's next in this Republican race for the White House.
The polls in recent days have generally agreed that Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are at the top, with a surge for Rick Santorum.
The bottom tier of the six person GOP field seems to be Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and then Michele Bachmann.
Not even three weeks ago when I was in the Hawkeye State for the final Iowa debate, Gingrich was the leader, while Santorum was struggling to get out of single digits.
But after that debate, Santorum started to take off. Why? There wasn't one moment that seemed to cause his jump in the polls, except that it was finally time for Iowa voters to make up their minds and pick a candidate.
"Process of elimination," said Barbara Welch, a recently retired resident of Polk City, Iowa, who came with her husband to see Santorum on Monday.
"I've liked him from the beginning, but I was looking at other candidates really," Welch explained.
One table down at the Reising Sun Cafe, Don Acheson was also sizing up Santorum, describing this year as "bizarre" for his circle of friends in that they were still making a decision on whom to support.
"We zeroed in early on Huckabee and said, "That's our guy." That hasn't happened this time around," Acheson said.
The mention of Huckabee by both Acheson and Welch raised an interesting scenario - what if Santorum can bring over those voters who provided the margin of victory four years ago for the former Arkansas Governor?
"I just went out with six of my friends the other day, and four of them are leaning towards Santorum," Welch said, noting they had been looking mainly at other candidates over the last few months.
In other words, more conservative GOP voters have been eyeing Perry, Bachmann and Gingrich, but aren't sold - and they could see Santorum as their home base candidate.
With Bachmann seemingly getting little traction in recent weeks, Perry has been working hard to win over those Huckabee voters, stressing his faith and conservative beliefs at every stop.
"Why would you settle for anything but an authentic conservative who shares your views and values?" Perry asked backers at a final rally in the appropriately named town of Perry, Iowa.
Perry has also stepped up his criticism of Santorum, releasing a TV ad on Monday titled, "Unelectable."
In it, Perry skewers Santorum over his support of certain earmarks, accusing him of being a big-spending-Washington-insider.
Will it work for Perry? Or will he end up in the bottom half of the GOP field?
Thanks to my father's interest in horse racing, this field would be a great one to bet on in a real horse race.
Romney might be the 5-2 favorite, with Ron Paul around 4-1.
The smart money would be on Santorum, as his morning line odds of 20-1 would be down to 9-2, and the handicappers would be talking about the need to include him in your exactas and trifectas.
But long shot players like me would be looking at Perry and Gingrich - and wondering if they could somehow work their way into the money.
Gingrich might be 11-1 or so; Perry maybe around 15-1 and Bachmann around 25-1.
But when the gate opens in a real horse race, the finish usually doesn't end up just like the odds.
Do you wheel Romney on top? Or maybe bet against the favorite?
Could we see something like a Ron Paul-Rick Santorum one-two finish?
The answers weren't obvious to me during my 520 miles on the road in Iowa over the last two days.
And that's what makes this Republican race in Iowa such a jumble.
We'll see what the caucus results tell us about the future of this race.
