Dean or Kerry? Dean or Kerry?

[Marley23]

1. Is Dean or Kerry more likely to be the nominee?

Kerry. If he’s lucky, Dean is in third behind Edwards. Dean just fired his campaign manager, which is a sign things are going REAL smooth. :rolleyes:

2. Would Dean or Kerry have a better chance of defeating Bush in November?

Kerry.

3. Would Dean or Kerry make a better president?

Unlike the other two, that requires some thought. But I trust Kerry’s temperament and experience.

I hate to ask for them, but are there any up-to-date polls about South Carolina? We’ll need to see data from AFTER Kerry’s win in NH to get a better idea of how things shape up…

[Brutus]

@ElvisL1ves

… Brutus, the extra delegates Dean has are “superdelegates” - unpledged except by their own choice, not selected by voters or caucusgoers, which are the bulk of the total. Your speculation has no factual basis. Read and learn.

So, what exactly are you blabbering about?

Fact: Dean has more delegates than Kerry.

Fact: Three-quarters of the roughly eight hundred super-delegates have yet to weigh in with their vote, which can be whatever they choose.

Fact: As I previously stated, Dean could not actually win a single primary and still win the delegate count.

Fact: Your cite in no way, shape, or form refutes my speculation.

You didn’t actually read your own cite, did you?

[Spoke]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

My understanding, Brainglutton, is that nobody who’s ever lost in both IA and NH has gone on to win the WH.

No, that can’t be right. Bill Clinton didn’t win Iowa or New Hampshire in 1992.

(Tom Harkin won Iowa, and Paul Tsongas won New Hampshire.)

[Spoke]

@hajario

Anyway, Kerry seems to me to be the most electable of the three (IMO) viable candidates at this point… He appeals most to the moderate center and will be palatable to the hard core left.

I don’t understand what makes people think that Kerry will appeal to moderates in the general election. He has one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate.

[ElvisL1ves]

Brutus, it is impossible outside the realm of hard-right fantasy for what you suggest to occur. You might as well imagine your former favorite scenarios where the deadlocked Dems draft Hillary so the talk-radio bashathon can resume.

marley23, polls from SC or anywhere else aren’t going to mean a thing unless they’re *exit * polls. All we know is that Edwards has to win, big, or it’s over.

[Brutus]

@ElvisL1ves

Brutus, it is impossible outside the realm of hard-right fantasy for what you suggest to occur. You might as well imagine your former favorite scenarios where the deadlocked Dems draft Hillary so the talk-radio bashathon can resume.

Heh, well it seems the hard-right camp of Howie Dean agrees with me. Some HP sauce to go with your crow?

[BobLibDem]

There simply aren’t enough superdelegates to nominate anybody. Nowhere in Brutus’ cite does Dean claim that he can win the nomination with no primary or caucus wins. Dean has given up on the February 3rd states and plans to make his last stand in Michigan on the 7th. He will withdraw following yet another lopsided loss to Kerry in Michigan and his superdelegates will take their fickle votes elsewhere.

[ElvisL1ves]

I said “outside the realm of hard-right fantasy”. I have no intention of joining you there. But here’s some help: Do you really think the superdelegates would go against the wishes of the voters? Don’t you think they want a winner too?

But please continue attempting to represent the conservative wing here. You make a great argument simply by example.

[vanilla]

“yeaaahhhhhh!”

[vanilla]

That was my Dean impression.
Carry on.

[ElvisL1ves]

Looked just a mite different from the POV of the audience, dinnit? But the Dean-is-out-of-control meme took hold among the people it was intended to take hold among.

[minty_green]

All that proves is that Dean’s supporters are also nuts, a proposition I’ve accepted for some time now.

[pantom]

Hey, waitaminnit. I could easily have been in that crowd, you know. (Of course, I also think reality is for those who can’t deal with drugs. On the evidence, I’d say Dean agrees with me. OTOH, Bush doesn’t even need drugs to leave the plane of the real. Hmmm…)

[JasonFin]

@spoke-

I don’t understand what makes people think that Kerry will appeal to moderates in the general election. He has one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate.

I agree. Kerry’s long record in the Senate is a weakness rather than a strength. By selectively quoting from his voting record, Rove should have an easy time painting him into a corner.

In addition, I find this to be extremely troubling. The mainstream media hasn’t yet decided that Kerry’s record on the first Gulf War is a big deal, but it could blow up in his face if Bush’s team decides to make it happen.

I suspect the Democrats are in trouble this year. Bush is far weaker than conventional wisdom suggests, but none of the opposing candidates are strong enough to capitalize on that weakness.

[Sam_Stone]

I think the Democrats should elect Dean. Because whether Dean or Kerry is elected, Bush is going to win. So I’m thinking that the prime characteristic you want in a nominee now is entertainment factor. This election’s going to take a long nine months, so it might as well be fun to watch. And you just know that Dean is going to be a hoot. He’ll blow his top somewhere, or say some incredibly stupid things along the way.

In fact, I think a Dean/Clark ticket would be a gas. Think about it - Clark taking orders from Dean? They’d be at each other’s throats in a week, and we could watch the carnage.

[elucidator]

Well said, Sam! I admire your pluck in the face of impending doom.

Hmmmmmm…maybe not “impending doom”. Which would be better “grave and gathering doom” or “imminent doom”?

[pantom]

A truly hilarious piece from the NY Times (you’ll have to pay in a short while, so laugh while you can):

Electing the Electable

Quotable quote:

Suddenly Kerry, who had not changed his views particularly, nor his campaign style, began to see his poll numbers rise in Iowa because Dean seemed a little less electable. Then other Iowa voters began to notice the momentum behind Kerry, which made him look still more electable, so more voters decided that maybe Kerry was the man to support after all.
And, what do you know, Kerry won the Iowa caucuses, and from that moment on the election turned into a postmodernist literary critic’s idea of heaven. It became an election about itself, with voters voting on the basis of who could win votes later on.
It’s the tautology, stupid.

I’d forgotten that Kerry was the guy who voted for the war resolution and then turned around and voted against the 87 bil, for which Dean justly chided him a few months ago. The more I think about him, the more I figure he’s Hubert Humphrey resurrected. (You need to have read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by the immortal Dr Hunter Thompson to understand this. Actually, you need to read that book to understand anything at all about American Presidential elections. Between the laughs, a truly brilliant book.)
A few days ago I thought we Dems might have a chance, but I’m not so sure anymore. Dean may have gone down to a flaming defeat in November, but at least he actually stood for something. The only other guys who consistently stand for something are Lieberman, Kucinich, and Sharpton, none of whom have a snowball’s chance in Havana of winning the nomination, much less the election.
Problem is, Bush has brand recognition: blood and treasure, as in spilling it and spending it with abandon, since of course in both cases neither are his, so what does he care, as long as he gets re-elected and his friends get rich?
What’s Kerry’s brand recognition? Edwards’s?
Dean’s brand is simple: he’s against the wanton spilling of blood and the spending of treasure that isn’t his. In a moral universe, this would be a winning ticket eight out of the seven days of the week, but most people care more about their wallets and their security than they ever will about what’s right.