I think Edwards is just too inexperienced to be a strong Presidential candidate. He’s just a first term senator, he was a personal injury lawyer, which might hurt him, and he doesn’t have that big a base of support outside the South. If Kerry wins the nomination, he might pick Edwards for veep, to try to get the southern vote, but I don’t see Edwards getting the Presidential nomination.
Edwards has a reputation for winning people over, so he has a finite chance. But he needed to get the “buzz” that Dean has so far picked up instead, perhaps mainly because Edwards voted to give Bush that blank check. We also tend strongly to pick governors and VP’s, not Senators, for the top of the ticket.
While I concur with the oft-lobbied critique that Kerry needs to do a more forceful job of articulating his hopes for America, in his defense, most of the media coverage has focused up until now on Dean and Clark’s antiwar stances. But today, we learned that Clark’s position on the Iraq vote is identical to that of Kerry’s:
What this will do, I predict, is enable the Kerry campaign to ride the media momentum of Clark’s “white knight” entrance to point out, “See, what we’ve been saying for the last year MAKES SENSE!” and begin to redirect attention from the Iraq resolution question to Kerry’s policies for winning the peace, his support among key Democratic constituencies, and his ability to repair the domestic damage that Bush has caused.
And I’m also very curious to see how Clark’s war position will affect the Dean campaign.
Dean was heavily courting Clark to stay out of the race, if not side with him altogether. Thus, that this decorated general, who long opposed the war, still wouldn’t have sided against it at the time as stridently Dean did may further marginalize Dean’s national security credentials among the general electorate.
However, that isn’t incompatible with further emboldening the primary voters for whom Dean’s position resonates fiercely…
I’m amazed that people still think Kerry has a shot. He is dead in the water. If he can’t finish ahead of Dean in New Hampshire or Iowa (and he won’t) then his campaign will quickly collapse. (Kerry is spending big chunks of his own money. He’ll quit doing that when it’s obvious that it’s a lost cause.) Kerry just doesn’t play in middle America.
After New Hampshire and Iowa, the only candidates left standing will be Dean, Clark and Edwards (who is holding back a bit on the early primaries). Kerry might limp along for a while, but only until Dean or Clark whips him in the next round of primaries.
Edwards is trying to follow the Clinton path, laying back a bit on Iowa and New Hampshire, and then aiming for a sweep of early Southern primaries. (Remember that Clinton didn’t win Iowa or New Hampshire in '92.) Edwards currently holds a narrow lead in South Carolina polling, and he has a nice war chest, so it’s to early to write him off.
However…
Clark has undercut Edwards’ base in the South, and barring an unexpected scandal, could take Edwards’ place as the candidate most likely to sweep Southern primaries. Clark has great credentials, but he seems a bit stiff as a campaigner. We’ll see.
Right now, I’d call Dean the favorite. His ability to inspire grass roots supporters is impressive. Furthermore, he is an excellent campaigner. He knows how to deliver a stemwinder of a speech, and I think Democrats are looking for someone who will stand up and fight.
Clark is a strong second. He has the party brass behind him as the anti-Dean. (By the way Dogface, if you think Clark is the outsider, it shows how little you know about Democratic politics.) Clark supporters are organizing very quickly on the ground.
Could be a hoss race between Clark and Dean.
Edwards still has an outside shot, but I think it might require an unexpected scandal knocking Dean or Clark out.
- Dean 3-2
- Clark 3-1
- Edwards 4-1
I’m pretty confident those will be the last three candidates standing. (Well, Sharpton may stick around. But not as a viable contender.)
Hillary, should she enter the race, has no prayer of winning. Clark and Dean would both clean her clock. I don’t hear anyone talking seriously about Hillary entering the race except for conservative commentators. (My pet theory is that they are trying to bait her into running because they rightly fear Dean and Clark. Plus, if Hillary were to get the nomination it would save conservative pundits a lot of work. She has been pre-demonized.)
I am just hoping that no acrimony develops on the campaign trail between Dean and Clark, as I would like to see them on a ticket together. If that doesn’t happen, I think Edwards would be a strong VP choice. Some seasoning as VP would make him a more credible Presidential candidate 8 years down the road.
Edwards has a 1 point lead over Howard Dean in South Carolina and Dean hasn’t been campaigning there. Edwards doesn’t have a chance especially with Clark entering the race.
And I highly doubt that Clark and Dean will attack each other. For example when he talked about voting for the Iraq war
Dean has the nomination if he gets enough to win a majority on the first ballot. Otherwise it will go to Gephart or Clark, unless some of the old Dems pull their heads out and take a look around.
Kerry keeps blowing media ops. In Philly, he ordered a cheese steak with swiss, asked reporters to not photograph him while eating and then prissyly nibbled on the sandwich. Hint: Pols eating local foods is a classic photo op. Pols with any sense want to have pictures taken eating local foods and being one of the people. He wore wingtips to a steak fry held in a muddy field and generally looked put out to have to be there. I half expect him to come to Chicago and order a hot dog with ketchup.
Dean is electrfying in person. From what I hear, Clark isn’t. That will make the difference in getting the nomination.
Clark gave a lousy speech, but I don’t think Clinton was always a master politician either (remember that clunker of his in the 1988 Convention). Clark is still used to briefings and Sunday morning punditry, he needs a crash course in stump speaking. I guarantee he is getting one now.
So give Clark a month or two. If he gets momentum, its quite likely to be his. But by November, if he is still giving dud speeches and makes no waves in the debates or forums, then Dean will keep an edge.
Kerry still has a shot, but he needs to really bust his ass.
Edwards is just too green. He reminds me a lot of Al Gore, and he’s VP material if Clark and Dean get too nasty with each other.
Lieberman would have a shot if it weren’t for those pesky primaries.
The rest are long shots, though Gephardt is the only one I see speaking with something resembling passion, and may get some union states in the Midwest (I think his views stink but at least he seems motivated).
Kucinich is of course, the Republican’s dream nominee, with Sharpton as VP.
It is good to see Dean energizing young voters. I just hope they will still turn out in the general election (and NOT vote for the Green Party) if Clark manages to wrest the Democratic nomination away from Dean.
So would those new voters turn out for Clark, or would they be too disillusioned by Dean’s loss? Hard to know.
From Gallup:
(Extracted from the press release)
Congressman Dick Gephardt 16%
Former Vt. Gov. Howard Dean: 14%
U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman: 13%
U.S. Senator John Kerry: 12%
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark: 10%
Brutus: 35% (+/- 35%)
Dick-frigging-Gephardt? Must be the union support. Maybe just plain ol’ name recognition? Ensign Crusher has some catching up to do, it appears.
I don’t really know who will win, but I can make some observations about individual’s chances:
Bob Graham will see the biggest increase in support, and may even win the nomination. I may be crazy, I know, but I think he will start building up support between now and the primaries.
Edwards is my top pick to win the nomination. He has the most detailed plan of any candidate, full of new ideas while many other Democrats want to take us back to 1970, or in Gephardt’s case, back to 1950. He also has lots of cash and the best campaign talent available.
Dean and Clark will fade a bit. They are the McCains of the race.
Gephardt and Kerry are the cookie-cutter Democrats. Boring, and sure to lose big if nominated. Plus, they don’t really get the base energized. When the Democrats tire of Dean and Clark, they are going to turn to the ones that got them to the dance, the DLC. That means Graham, Lieberman, or Edwards. Edwards is the most likely to be embraced by Democrats looking for someone who can win.
Sharpton may actually see his support increase to dangerous levels if he keeps up his great debate performances. If any of the other eight candidates could speak like him they’d run away with the nomination and the general election.
I guess if you had to pin me down to one candidate it would be Edwards.
Hurm. Can we convince Dean & Kucinich to throw support behind Edwards, say, without a VP spot? I’m afraid the GOP will manage to conflate those two into “the loonies” & kill any ticket either one is on. Then again, I’m from very conservative country. The swing voters may see it differently.
The Newsweek poll is interesting - Clark is already the frontrunner, and Bush is in a deep hole, if you believe it (don’t, btw- all numbers are soft at this point). Could be just the “man on the white horse” effect, of course.
So who will be the first Dem to pull ahead in the polls, outside of the margin for error, before the others? For all of the hype that Dean generated, he was within the margin of the top several candidates. Ditto for Wesley with this latest poll.
When will one break away? When will Rev.Sharpton finally pull out the stops, and pull into a commanding lead?
The California primary in March should clear that up, Brutus. Not much before then, I’d guess, although about we’ll be down to about 4 candidates still in it then.
Still daydreaming about another good Hillary-bash on talk radio, are you?
I don’t listen to talk radio. Too many too-long commericals. CBC-2 for me, thank you.
Hillary does a fine job of disparaging herself, by the way. I am almost finished with Living History; A more humorous and degrading look at the Clintons could not have been penned by Limbaugh himself.
I’ve gotta go with Edwards.
I figure Dean is going to take Iowa and New Hampshire, barring a surge by any of the other candidates.
That’s going to reduce the race to Dean vs. a more conventional Democrat, someone the party establishment can get behind. I think in South Carolina Edwards will emerge as the anti-Dean and the race will settle down to Edwards vs. Dean.
Answer:
Whoever big business backs with the most money
Whoever gets the most media play.
Hillary. None of the current democrats will get a majority, and Hillary will step in, and with all the money that she can raise, and all the political debts that she and her husband have from other democrats, she will end up with the nomination. She will then win the presidency, not even needing to campaign in Ny or California, or in most of New England, she will concentrate on the swing states. The only big state that bush will probably win is Texas, and he will have to fight for all of the rest of the states except for a few sparsely populated western states.