The one who has the best chance to win the general election is Kerry. But I don’t know if he’ll get the nomination. Edwards has a decent chance as well. But I don’t think Gephardt or Lieberman will make it. Gephardt has tried this before - there’s something about him that just doesn’t play well to the general public outside his state. Lieberman is lacking in Charisma. Dean is a dark horse. The rest of them don’t have a chance, and are largely in the race for other reasons.
I hate to break it to Kerry fans, but Kerry will have zero traction in the South (military record notwithstanding). “Kennedy-esque” is not a compliment in these parts. (Just reporting that view, not subscribing to it.) And frankly, I think Kerry will be surprised by Dean in Northern primaries.
My picks:
Primary:
- Dean
- Kerry
- Edwards
- Gephardt
- Lieberman
- Graham
Graham’s biggest effect on the race will be to deny Edwards any chance of a primary victory in Florida. I’m sure Edwards is seriously pissed at Graham’s presence.
An unexpected scandal could still derail Dean, but at this point I see him as the likely victor.
General Election
- Dean
- Edwards
- Kerry
- Lieberman
- Gephardt
- Graham
I think Dean might surprise people at how well he will perform in the all-important Southern states. He is tough-talking, and entertaining, both very important features in any candidate who wants to do well down here.
Edwards doesn’t strike me as tough enough. (Strictly an image problem. Sadly, image is important.) He needs to get a little more backbone, a little more bass in his voice. He is capable of pulling this off, so he could pull ahead of Dean or Kerry, particularly if one or both of them implodes, or hits a scandal speed bump on the primary trail.
Edwards does have the potential to carry a Southern state or two in the general election, which is critical to Democratic success. You cannot win the general election without taking at least one Southern state. Edwards at the top of the ticket could deliver North Carolina, and possibly Florida. Unlikely that even he would be able to break the Republican vise grip on the rest of the South.
Edwards as a VP is trickier. I’m not 100% sure he could deliver NC as a VP candidate. If he were paired with Dean, I think he could, because I think Dean himself would have some appeal to Southerners.
I doubt that Kerry could take a single Southern state, which is why he is number three on my general election list. If you can’t take at least one Southern state, you lose. Period. Florida would be Kerry’s only possible salvation in a general election.
In case anybody is interested, MoveOn.org did a poll on the possible candidates:
Wow, Dean’s got a nice head of steam there.
And no worries, CyberPundit. 
Esprix
Chance of winning the primary:
- Kerry
- Dean
- Edwards as a DISTANT dark horse…
That is all.
Chance of beating Bush (ignoring primary chances)
- John Kerry
- Joe Liberman
- John Edwards
- Bob Grahamn
Chance of winning the primary AND beating Bush:
- John Kerry
Chances of Kerry winning:
- 40%
Is there a Vegas line on any of this yet?
If Iraq actually turns out to be the horrendous quagmire that it certainly appears to be heading for, then Carrot Top could beat GeeDubya.
But not Al Sharpton.
I think this is exactly backwards. Note that Nixon just barely nosed out Hubert Humphrey at a time when Vietnam had been a quagmire for years, when there had been massive numbers of casualties, when the country was being pulled apart, and when the Democratic Party was in disarray. No matter what happens in Iraq, conditions in 2004 can’t remotely match conditions in 1968.
Note that Bush Sr. lost to Clinton when his war with Iraq had been successful and was behind us. He lost on economic issues. If the war had been a front burner issue, Bush would have done better. The public generally trusts the Republicans more than the Democrats to conduct military action.
If Iraq is a problem in 2004, that will help Bush. There’s no Democratic candidate who’s likely to be perceived as more capable of dealing with the problem than Bush. Obviously Kerry comes the closest, but he would have to enunciate a different approach to make his point. Whatever approach he favored would repel some bloc of voters.
It is true that Eisenhower beat Stevenson partly because the Korean War was a quagmire. But, Eisenhower had unparalled respect, having led the free world to victory in WWII. It was enough for him to say, “I will go to Korea.” No Democrat could succeed next year by campaigning on a slogan, “I will go to Iraq.”
Dems would be wiser to hope for rapid and total success in Iraq. Then, they election might hinge Bush’s budget deficits, an issue where he is vulnerable.
We all hope for rapid and total success in Iraq, a peaceful and bucolic land of entreprenuers and Starbucks managers. As you are an atheist, you must necessarily find that impossible, divine intervention not being available to come to GeeDubya’s assistance. As an agnostic, I merely think it most extremely unlikely. There are two chances, slim and none, if none counts as one.
Headline, 6/27/04: US Soldier Shot in Neck at Baghdad Starbucks.
Well that is exactly how it happened. The war was a rapid success. Nobody thinks we are at war with Iraq any more, but they do see many peacetime difficulties over there that could be helped by the UN.
I think we are all unfairly biased by the fact that Howard Dean has a huge on-line presence. Don’t get me wrong, I like the man a lot, and he has the guts to say things that nobody else has said (except that speech by Edwards where he basically called Bush a pinko: http://slate.msn.com/id/2084686/ ).
Anyway, I think the off-line Democrat party faithful are going to push Kerry on us. Two reasons: he can confront Bush on national security and he isn’t The Next McGovern. He may be the next Al Gore, but that remains to be seen.
Anyway, I would rank Kerry first for the nomination because of this. I think he needs to attack Bush outright during the campaign in order to win, and I haven’t seen him show enough fortitude to believe that he will do so. If he doesn’t, the Democrats will get schmeissed. It will be worse than the virtual love-fest of the 2000 race (engineered by the pseudopopulist bullshit stylings of Gore’s campaign manager, Bob Shrum). Dean and Edwards (not to mention Kucinich or Graham) probably would directly attack Bush on policy, so I think that they would have a better shot at winning. But with a crystallization of Democratic thought behind one candidate, things change quite significantly.
It’s a long time until November.
Wow. If Edwards keeps that up, I’ll move him up ahead of Dean on my primary list.
I live in Las Vegas and as far as I am concerned, the line is Dean.
I really think this guy will do it. He will sneak up on the Democrats and during the General Election, he will be a breath of fresh air that will surprise the pollsters.
But if you are talking about betting (which I assume you are) I am not sure they have offical odds on that.
I am going out to a casino tomorrow and I will ask.
I’ll get back to you. Promise.
“If Iraq is a problem in 2004, that will help Bush. There’s no Democratic candidate who’s likely to be perceived as more capable of dealing with the problem than Bush”
This doesn’t make much sense. If Iraq is a problem that will be a major foreign-policy failure for Bush. That will undermine any claims he has to being an effective foreign-policy president and allow someone like Kerry to claim he can do better.
Edwino,
Actually Kerry has been pretty tough on Bush with respect to his intelligence claims on Iraq. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/170/nation/Kerry_Iraq_war_intelligence_questionable+.shtml
" think we are all unfairly biased by the fact that Howard Dean has a huge on-line presence."
That’s true but it’s also true that the online presence is going to translate into significant amounts of money and volunteers this time. For instance if Dean wins 50% of the Move-on vote in a future round then that will mean tens of thousands of members who have said they will give money or volunteer. This could make a big diffence especially in the early primaries.
Calling elections sixteen months in advance is a fool’s errand. That said:
Primary elections
- Dean
- Kerry
- Edwards
- Gephardt
- Graham
- Lieberman
- Kucinich
- Moseley-Braun
- Sharpton
- Clark
- LaRouche
Dean is the darling of the internet crowd, and I certainly am one of those Dean admirers. However, if the primaries began tomorrow, Dean would lose, because he’s not as well known off line. This will change as time passes and the political junkies and the netheads are no longer the majority of those paying attention to the race. I think that once Dean becomes better known, he’ll climb rapidly in others’ eyes.
Kerry is a close second, and there’s a long time until Iowa (well, seven months, anyway,) so much could happen before then. Kerry would be a strong candidate who, while he wouldn’t play as well in the South as others, could still win in the primaries.
Gephardt would do well in Iowa, I think, but I don’t think the guy has what it takes to go all the way. If Ben & Jerry’s makes a Howard Dean ice cream called Maple Powered Howard, they wouldn’t be able to extend the favor to Gephardt, because they already make a plain vanilla.
Ben & Jerry could make Kucinich Kold Kielbasa ice cream, which would sell as well as Mr. Kucinich would in many of the primaries, I’m afraid. This pains me, because I really do like Kucinich; I just don’t think he’ll make it all the way. I do, however, see a successful Kucinich beating Senator Mike DeWine in the 2006 Senate race.
General election
- Dean
- Kerry
- Graham
- Gephardt
- Edwards
- Lieberman
- Kucinich
- Clark
- Sharpton
- Moseley-Braun
- Dukakis
- The Tooth Fairy
- LaRouche
Though I put Dean at the top of the list, I actually view him and Kerry as neck-and-neck in this contest. Dean has the chutzpah to speak his mind, and Kerry has the cash on hand. Both would lock up the Northeast, and both with play well in the Rust Belt, with a slight edge there to Dean. They’d both do well in the Midwest (assuming that west of the Missouri River isn’t the Midwest anymore.) They’d also do well on the West Coast. Not so well in the South, though. But contrary to the opinion of some, you could lose every Southern state and still win, and this is a real possibility for a Democratic candidate. Consider that if Al Gore had won one more state in the North, Florida wouldn’t have mattered. Any state, even New Hampshire with its four electoral votes. (For the record, I don’t count Maryland, Delaware or Washington, DC—which Gore won—as the South, nor do I count Missouri or West Virginia—which Gore lost—as the South.) Regardless, Kerry and Dean could take Florida in the general election, particularly if they take Graham as a vice president. Some have accused Graham of actually running for vice president, which Graham has denied, but we’ll see how that plays out.
Edwards has surprised me. I figured he’d do better, but he’s been bottoming out. Top staffers have left his campaign, and he’s losing support in North Carolina, even. A large number of his constituents don’t like that Edwards is still in his first term as a senator, that he seems to be just using the Senate seat as a springboard to the presidency, that he hasn’t paid his dues working for North Carolina yet. I have a hunch that Edwards is going to give this up and run for reëlection in the Senate in 2004, which from what I understand will be difficult for him.
Like I said earlier: calling races this far in advance is a sucker’s bet. There are many variables that could come up and derail candidates, or give candidates unexpected boosts. Anyone who feels they can call this race this early has no idea what they’re talking about. If that were possible, then there’d be only one candidate running for president in 2004 in the first place.
The point is that there are two ways the Dems could use Iraq against Bush. The first is what you said. They can claim that he’s generally ineffective at foreign policy. The second possibility is more specific. That would be to claim that Bush’s specific policy is wrong and the Dems would replace it with a better policy.
I don’t think the first approach will be politically effective in 2004. It’s not easy to sell the public on general incompetence. It wasn’t even particularly effective in 2000, when there were good reasons to doubt Bush’s foreign policy competence. IMHO it’s now too late to make such a case, because Bush is perceived as having assembled a strong foreign policy team, he now has four years of experience, and he hasn’t made some hugely embarassing personal gaffe.
The alternative is to claim that Bush’s approach is wrong, and that his wrong approach is hurting the country. This was used somewhat successfully by Eisenhower in 1952 and Nixon in 1968. They both claimed that incumbant was wrong to continue fighting a war, and they could do better. In effect, they promised to withdraw, and they kept their promises. That approach worked for them, because much of the public was fed up with those two wars by then.
However, a Democrat cannot win an election in 2004 based on promising to withdraw from Iraq. Things aren’t going nearly as badly as they had been in Korea and Vietnam. And, the public sees Iraq as an essential part of the war on terror, so withdrawal doesn’t look like a good option to the majority. Much of the public believes (rightly or wrongly) that victory in Iraq is important to their personal security.
Agreed. I had not seen that side of Edwards, and am pleased to see it.
“However, a Democrat cannot win an election in 2004 based on promising to withdraw from Iraq.”
And they don’t have to do this. I think the line they will take is that they will be a lot more effective than Bush in gaining international support which will reduce the burden on the US in Iraq. The Dems will claim they are better at working with US allies and the UN than Bush. If you look at the polls , even now, there is a surprising amount of support among the public for more UN involvement. If the situation in Iraq remains messy that will probably increase.
As for your other point you have to remember that perceptions of foreign-policy competence aren’t set in stone. If Iraq turns out to be a failure and the Bush foreign-policy team won’t look as good any more. OTOH if Iraq turns out to be a success (which is looking less likely by the day), Bush will run as the tried-and-tested foreign-policy veteran.
Chance, I think you made an error on your list – you put Sharpton ahead of the Tooth Fairy.