On New Year's Day, Roger Simon asked:

Should Hillary Clinton have skipped Iowa?

If she loses the caucus here Thursday, will her campaign wish it had listened to the advice it got last May to take a hike on the Hawkeye state?

Back then, Clinton's deputy campaign manager, Mike Henry, wrote a 1,500-word internal memo saying Iowa was not worth the effort.

"My recommendation is to pull completely out of Iowa and spend the money and Senator Clinton's time on other states," Henry wrote.

"If she walks away from Iowa she will devalue Iowa -- our consistently weakest state."

Henry's advice was never accepted.

After the memo was leaked to the press, the Clinton campaign publicly repudiated the memo and said it would compete fiercely in Iowa, which it has.

Others have been asking this question in the wake of Simon's column.

I would argue that the answer is an unequivocal "no." Clinton's campaign was wise to have stuck Iowa out. I believe that it would be better off losing Iowa today having run a full campaign than it would have been if it had avoided the Hawkeye State altogether.

It's a matter of costs and benefits. Skipping Iowa would have provided a benefit, for sure. She would not have been as "diminished" if she had left than if she had stayed, fought, and lost. But I think this benefit is far outweighed by the costs.

First, frontrunners like Hillary Clinton do not just skip states. They compete - unless one of their opponents is from the state. They have the money - and they want to be the party's nominee, so they presumably have the message. Skipping a state that you could compete in gives a horrible impression. It rightly inclines all of the partisans and media types who have made you the frontrunner to reconsider their decisions. Any reconsideration would have hurt Clinton.

Second, the media circus that descended upon the supposedly worthless Ames straw poll should put the lie to the idea that Clinton's avoidance of Iowa would have devalued it. Journalists are desperate for news. They would have turned Iowa into a story as long as Obama and Edwards were competitive with one another - and they can take a broad definition of "competitive" when they really want a story. Taking Clinton out of Iowa might have reduced the number of credentialed people in Iowa right now - but not by all that much. The caucus results would still get basically all of the attention that they will receive - only in this scenario, all of the stories would remind voters (five days before the New Hampshire primary, mind you) that Clinton skipped Iowa because she thought she would lose.

Third, Iowa has been known to give candidates momentum heading into New Hampshire - as happened in 1976 and 2004. Ceding Iowa would dramatically increase the chances that Obama comes to the Granite State with a head of steam. With Clinton out of Iowa, all he would have to do is beat Edwards - and he could bask in the glow of stories praising him as the "alternative to Hillary" for the next five days. This would have been very bad - because New Hampshire is the critical early state in most cycles. Now, of course, by skipping Iowa - Clinton could have husbanded her resources and forced Obama to spend his cash just to beat Edwards. There would be some benefit there, but not as much as one might think - after all, Obama has lots of money. He would still have plenty to compete.

Fourth, and most important of all, she could very well win Iowa! It seems clear to me that the differences in the polling data we have seen is dependent upon the turnout models that the pollsters are using. Under certain assumptions, Clinton leads in the polling. Under other assumptions, she does not. This implies that if those favorable assumptions hold today, Clinton will win the caucus. This would be a huge boost to her candidacy. The shot at winning the first contest is worth the risk of competing.

As I said, I would agree that skipping Iowa might have mitigated some of the diminution that she would suffer upon losing Iowa to one of her challengers. But, it would have raised questions about her frontrunner status, it would not have diminished the importance of the caucus, it would have given Obama a leg up heading into New Hampshire, and it would have taken away her shot at ending this contest early. Combined, these costs are greater than this benefit.

And, here's the most important point: virtually every frontrunner who goes on to win the nomination suffers at least one setback in the campaign. Many of them suffer more than one. What makes them strong candidates is that they move forward and overcome the initial defeat. This is what separates Howard Dean from most nominees. If history is any guide, Clinton should expect to lose an important one at some point in this cycle. If she has what it takes to be the nominee, she'll bounce back - just like Ronald Reagan, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, and George W. Bush.

Clinton was wise to stay and fight. It was her best option.