It is in fact unclear who the frontrunner is, because good arguments can be made for both Hillary and Obama right now. I’d argue for Hillary, but there’s definitely a respectable argument to be made that she’s not - that Obama’s actually in the better position to win right now. Hence she’s not the “clear frontrunner,” one who by pretty much any reasonable evaluation of the facts is ahead in the game.
You can take the pre-caucus national polls, add a dollar, and get yourself a cup of coffee. Look at the polling from 2004.
1/12/04-1/15/04: Dean 24, Clark 12, Gephardt 11, Kerry 7
2/12/04-2/15/04: Dean 8, Clark out, Gephardt out, Kerry 53
Within the next 10 days, we’ll probably be down to three candidates and one of them will have a huge lead in the polls, and I am not at all sure it will be Hillary.
There’s still a lot of name recognition at work in national polls. Giuliani and McCain simply have better name recognition than Huckabee and Romney at this point.
Moreover, national polls are less significant than polls in the swing states (since the election is not decided by popular vote). Hillary could have overwhelming support in populous states like New York and California, but those voters can’t help her in, say, Missouri.
Saying “I have personally decided those polls are no good so I am ignoring them” doesn’t cut it. That’s nice and all, but I doubt if the various Candidates and Media give a rats-ass which polls some dude on a MB thinks are good or not. :dubious: I know enough to not just take one single poll’s numbers but RC shows the overall winner in the polls, and it’s Hillary overall, every time. Like it or not.
Look, you are saying that I’m picking and choosing my polls by whether or not I like the numbers they pump out. I’ve demonstrated that that’s a pile of steaming bullshit.
If you think they’re good pollsters, fine. I happen to disagree - and made my disagreement known before we got into this discussion, and before they produced the numbers in question.
Now that you’re clearly wrong about claiming otherwise, you’re just saying you don’t like it. I don’t care if you don’t like it.
I doubt they know this MB exists. So? Who gives a flying fuck? I’m making a point on this MB, and it’s neither more nor less true if anyone outside it knows this debate is happening. What is this, some bizarre argument to authority?
I’ve noticed this. “Their average says this” isn’t much of a response to a critique of their average, or the fact that Hillary’s epsilon leads in two states in that average don’t mean she’s the ‘clear favorite’ in your words. I notice the absence of a rebuttal on that point.
Easy fellows. We’ll clear it all up in a couple of days. 
As Brad DeLong says, objects on the calendar are closer than they appear.
Anyway, just to get back to basics on this kerfluffle: if Hillary was the ‘clear favorite,’ then there’d be little debate about whether she was the favorite. There’s actually a fair degree of debate about that, these days, out in the larger world. So it’s not clear to a fair number of observers that she’s the favorite, so she’s not the ‘clear’ favorite. Q.E.D.
I’m not going to venture a prediction about who the Iowa winner will be; I think it’s too close to call. I’d put Obama’s chances somewhat lower than Clinton’s and Edwards’ because his success relies at least somewhat on getting all those students who aren’t yet back in their dorms to show up and caucus. But I wouldn’t give any of them a 50% chance of winning.
Obama widens lead. I think the undecideds are going to break big for Obama. I think he wins Iowa by 15 points.
I can’t figure out Iowa voters. They’ve been listening to these candidates for over a year and they still seem to be making up their minds.
I’m sort of thinking now that things might break for Edwards. As RTFirefly suggests, Obama has a lot of young supporters, and it may be hard to get them to caucus (as Dean learned in '04). It won’t help that the Orange Bowl will be on TV. (Iowa has moved the caucuses back to 6:30, though.)
Having said that, I’ll stick with my Obama prediction. Just hedging my bet a bit.
Here’s a hypothetical: If Edwards wins Iowa and Hillary finishes third, who wins New Hampshire? Not Edwards, I think. I don’t think the bandwagon effect would help him much in NH, which is traditionally a tough place for Southern Democrats to win. But would Hillary be perceived as a sinking ship? And would Obama pick up some of her wavering supporters?
Candidates were talking, yes. The listening part, not so much.
The polls are all over the place. A just-released CNN poll has Hillary up on Obama 33%-31%, with Edwards falling back to 22%.
Wake me up when Iowans make up their minds.
Good Lord, they’re going to poll all of Iowa before Thursday’s caucus!
As best as I can tell, the assorted pollsters have completed interviews with ~6000 Democratic ‘likely voters’ from 12/26 to 12/31. And probably an equal number of GOP LV’s in that time, though RCP doesn’t provide those counts.
It’s worth noting that the Des Moines Register poll BobLibDem linked to is considered to be the best in the business. Unlike most other polls, it’s done by an Iowa-based firm run by a woman who’s been polling Iowa voters exclusively for a very long time. However, it’s also worth noting that poll uses a turnout model that assumes a lot of independents are going to attend the Democratic caucus. Obviously, the pollsters have reason to think that or they wouldn’t put put the poll. But the Register poll is considered the poll in Iowa, and I’m pretty sure it was spot-on in 2004.
Of course, there’s always the chance Iowa will decide nothing at all.
Kucinich is supporting Obama for the second round of voting in Iowa. (In the same situation in 2004, he supported Edwards.)
Yeah, but he’s been polling a huge 1%, so who knows what difference it’ll make - especially after Dodd’s ‘I know Kucinich’s supporters won’t put up with being sold off’ bit.
I have absolutely no clue who’s going to win Iowa. None.
OMG! There will be a recount scandal, and the Supreme Court will decide that Bush won!
Regardless of who wins IA, Obama figures to be close. This is pretty noteworthy when you consider that IA has one of the whitest and most elderly populations in the US and it’s hugely rural to boot. It’s not his dream demographic by a long shot, but he’s hanging in there. That bodes well for him down the road.
Obama wins Iowa! Edwards second, Clinton third.
Why are you trying to say who the nominee will be before the nominee becomes the nominee? Furthermore, why is it important to know - that is if we aren’t Diebold?
This is akin to FOX and all those other news corps trying to tell me who to vote for because “that guys not goin’ to win.” These are the PRIMARIES! If you can’t vote who really should be president during the primaries, then when can you do it? (And Canada is looking better, especially with their encrypted, anonymous, and verifiable polling mechanism.)
I’m not saying predictive statistics aren’t useful. Once the nominee is nominated I like to know if it was statistically possible without cheating (using exit polls and that junk).
Let’s make some threads analyzing the strictly deductive rationalizations for voting for any specific candidate.
Why do people try to predict who will win the Super Bowl? It’s fun to speculate and what’s more, this is truly important stuff. I don’t think anyone here is telling anyone else who to vote for (there are other threads for that). And I think you can vote for who should be president during the primaries, in fact that’s the whole point.