Joe Biden ⇔ The window has closed on Biden’s candidacy. At interest perks up among voters, media interest narrows even more to its nominees for the horserace.
Hillary Clinton ⇓ Although still rising in national polls, Clinton is taking real hits on the ground in New Hampshire polls (Iowa still appears to be lean-Hillary). Edwards and Obama are ramping up their attacks, and finally have stopped attacking each other. On the other hand, Clinton collects Ohio Governor Ted Strickland in her endorsement column.
Stephen Colbert ⇓ The dream is over as soon as it began in South Carolina as the Democratic Party turns down Colbert’s candidacy, with supporters of Obama playing a not-insignificant role.
Chris Dodd ⇔ I’m increasingly suspicious that his raise in chatter online isn’t matched in the broader world — he’s raised some cash, but isn’t breaking into the polls in a serious way. At home, 70% of his constituents want him to drop out, which is worth remembering considering the popularity of Republican governor Jodi Rell in that state.
John Edwards ⇑ Union endorsements and pressure groups thumbs-up are good news for Edwards. If he continues to stay about the Obama-Hillary fray, Edwards still might emerge as someone to keep tracking.
Mike Gravel ⇓ Gravel’s run appears over, as he doesn’t even get into the most recent debate. But we’ll always have the memories…
Dennis Kucinich ⇔ Doggedly continues to…do whatever it is that Kucinich does.
Barack Obama ⇑ It’s make or break time for Obama. He’s sent Deval into New Hampshire for him, and is on the attack in Iowa. However, doing this by buying the Republican “Social Security crisis” frame, and spending the Iowa J-J dinner blasting Democrats instead of Republicans is the route of Gephardt, 2004.
Bill Richardson ⇔ Though the Boston Globe has Richardson up in double digits in New Hampshire, he’s also pulling experienced people out of Nevada. He could still “catch fire” but chances are slim. On the other hand, an endorsement of Hillary sometime before MegaTuesday could serve his long term interests.
Suggested additions:
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1. Just cannot connect with her.
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2. Too much money from lobbyists.
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3. What, me worry?
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4. Where’s the outrage?
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[I would have chosen #4]
This concern absolutely keeps me from being enthusiastic about Hillary, and may convince me to give my primary vote, for whatever little it is worth, to someone else.
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I’m unconvinced that Barack Obama is a poetntial solution to this problem, even if Andrew Sullivan (!) thinks he is.
I seem to remember things being pretty good during Bill Clinton’s administration. I did not agree with every policy he implemented (e.g., don’t ask, don’t tell) or every decision he made (e.g., not to go into Rawanda), but compared to now, times were pretty good. Unfortunately, the nutty Republicans did a disservice to this country by spending time on stupid investigations and an impeachment that were a complete waste of time and money and did not have the support of the majority of Americans. (And unfortunately, Bill made it easy for them.) Just think what could have been accomplished if they had spent that time and money on something like protecting us against terroism (which we knew about back then, but just neglected to act on).
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Don’t vote for Hillary Clinton because you disagree with her positions. But if people don’t vote for her because of what the Republicans might do, then we might as well concede the government to them. No matter who the Democratic nominee is, the Republicans are going to viciously attack them. It is all they got to offer, sadly. So much for the party of Lincoln.
Though this is skewed since I am an Obama supporter and I campaigned in Iowa two weekends ago. At that point it seemed that Edwards had maxed out his supporters, he had a few committed people but none of the undecides were leaning his way. Biden, Richardson, and Obama were common second choices for Edwards and Clinton supporters. Clinton was a common second choice for Obama supporters surprisingly enough. There was only one committed first choice Clinton supporter I met out of the 70 doors I knocked on. There were three Obama supporters, five Edwards supporters, three Richardsons and two Bidens. The rest weren’t home or weren’t caucusing. So whomever gets their supporters out in droves is the one who will win, the inevitably factor with Clinton could drive down support if her supporters think shes got it in the bag.
2004 polling didn’t notice Kerry’s shift until the final week, and didn’t see Edwards’ rise at all. With the anti-democratic system of caucuses, it is almost impossible to forecast the results of Iowa accurately with polling data until a week beforehand.
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However, I learned 4 years ago that personal experience is a very poor predictor of the caucus results.
on Obama’s J-J speech. It was actually very good — some of the effusive reviews posted by cmdrfoley (who works for Obama) are justified — except when he launched into his “please don’t vote for Hillary” routine, at which point he just starts sounding like every other pol. When he gets away from that, though, he can be pretty impressive.
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By the way, Hillary’s J-J speech wasn’t great (she’s trying to keep from losing her voice to a cold), but it wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the reviews. Garance herself now admits that she may have been overly harsh on Hillary.
My vote is to lose the poll in a hurry … it sucks. Unless I have an option for Obama showing too much crotch in his GQ shots, I don’t want to hear about Hillary’s cleavage.
We’ve been waiting for someone to emerge from the second tier to challenge the Big 3 for quite awhile. At first I thought it would be Richardson. But his support seems to have hit a plateau. He’s great with people one-on-one and in small settings, but he is less than compelling in debates and big speeches.
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I decided to support Dodd a month ago, but he is at 0% or 1% in most polls (state-by-state and nationally). He’s moved to Iowa, so there is still a slim chance for him to improve. I think he and Biden might be cancelling each other out for being old white guys who’ve been in D.C. a long time.
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If Richardson, Dodd, or Biden finish 3rd in Iowa, it will give one of them a political lifeline. If Dodd doesn’t do this, I sense he will drop out because he is pursuing a make-or-break strategy there.
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Richardson was supposed to be competitive in Nevada, but that’s not really happening.