The Iowa caucus has never been as early as January 3 before, so hasn't run into this sort of complication (h/t TPM.)

The University of Iowa will not open up housing during winter break to accommodate students who want to return for the Jan. 3, 2008 caucuses.

According to the Iowa Press Citizen, the state's other public universities, University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University will have housing available for students who wish to return. As for U of I:

"We know what the other schools are doing. We are not staying closed just for the sake of staying closed," Stange said. "A lot of it has to do with the availability of staffing. The other part has to do with ... we haven't assessed a need in order to do it yet." [...]

Stange said Mayflower and Hillcrest will be the only residence halls that will stay open throughout the break. He said the university already is using temporary housing to compensate for the overflow of students who don't fit in the dorms, so there is not extra space for students who want to return.

For those U of I students who will be returning to caucus, all is not lost. Iowa House Hotel will be offering a special caucus rate for students of $49 per night for Jan. 2 and 3.

This is yet another challenge for the campaign organizations, especially those of Obama and Clinton who need to expand the caucus universe if they want to win. While this development would appear to hurt Obama more as he does especially well among younger voters, TPM argues that's not necessarily so. At the very least, it's yet another factor of the student vote the Obama campaign is going to have to address and is further evidence of the importance of the on the ground organization to winning the caucus.

There's another obstacle to some potential caucus-goers on January 3rd: the Orange Bowl is airing that night. On some level this could help Clinton by keeping men at home but it doesn't look like it will be much of a factor.

The latest Iowa Poll shows that just...4 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers are very tempted to instead stay home on the night of Jan. 3 to watch the prime-time football game.

An additional...13 percent on the Democratic side are tempted to a lesser degree to opt for football instead of presidential politics.

One factor that has no clear beneficiary is the fact that people will be traveling for the holidays. As for whether potential caucus-goers have changed their plans to be back for the caucus...

The date change brought the caucuses close to the New Year's holiday. But the poll shows less than 10 percent of likely caucus participants for each party changed travel or vacation plans in order to be able too take part in the political competition.