2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

PDiddie wrote:

I missed that specific speculation. Where did you see it?

Oh god - I must have looked at a hundred webpages the days before the caucuses. Damn if I know.

Meanwhile, interest, if not outright fascination, is high in N.H. ... and I must admit that I really like this Iowa-NH phase of the campaign, where all politics is local, and where the locals have national significance. Its all on a human scale, and the individual political interest, involvement and one-on-one interaction with (and criticism of) the political bigshots have me in awe at American democracy in action. You have a country where nationally, half of the people dont even vote, half cant point out Mexico on a map and the biggest story for two years was a President's sex affair - but then you go down to the general store, coffeeshop and school gymnasium in Berlin, N.H. or Davenport, Iowa (or whatever it is) - and there's democracy the way it was originally intended. Brilliant.

Anyway, this was the link I was going to leave: As New Hampshire Primary Nears, Few Can Recall a More Frenzied Final Weekend

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nimh wrote:

PDiddie wrote:
I missed that specific speculation. Where did you see it?

Oh god - I must have looked at a hundred webpages the days before the caucuses. Damn if I know.

Well, here you go: the day of the caucuses, Slate was left speculating whether turnout would be "in a more expected range, such as 115,000 or 120,000" - or go overboard and reach primary rates, "say, 180,000 voters?".

The article also quotes "Mort Kondracke say[ing] on Fox News that the Dean campaign is hoping for a turnout of 160,000", and "Dean's Iowa field director, Tim Connolly", asserting "that 65 percent of Dean's solid supporters are new caucus-goers". A Boston Globe-cited rumor mentioned in the article said "that Dean has a hard count of 50,000" - which, by any reasonable standard, would have implied a turnout well over 120,000.

On the other hand, it's true, MSNBC kept writing the same line: "Only about 100,000 people are expected to turn out for caucuses across Iowa."

Gephardt, too, predicted a turnout of only 100,000. And Gephardt and the Kerry people were predicting 35,000 would be enough to win. Those predictions were surpassed in reality - Kerry in the end got more like 45,000, I guess, if turnout was 122,000.

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the weather
The weather in New Hampshire may have an effect on the outcome. If the blizzard arrives early enough to keep older people from attempting to get to the polls, the younger folks may out vote the oldsters. That may be to Dean's advantage.

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The snow isn't expected to even start in NH until after midnight. The polls should all be long closed by then.

PDiddie - In 2000 NH had 387,500 people turnout and vote in the primaries. That was an all-time record high for NH but there were races in both the Democratic and Republican parties. The Democrats had 151,782 people vote in their primary which was 76% of all Registered Dems in the state.

I doubt we'd see a total record this year (because there is really only one race) but it could be a record for Dems.

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Latest poll is from Quinnipiac University.

It has the job rating for Bush at 53% approval, 40% disapproval.

Pitting Bush against each of the main Dem candidates, it has Bush still in the lead, but with slashed majorities against the best of them: in December, he had at least a 9% lead, now Kerry is only behind him by 3%.

Bush 49% (-2)
Kerry 46% (+6)

Bush 50% (-2)
Edwards 42% (+5)

Bush 51% (+1)
Clark 41% (0)

Bush 53% (+2)
Lieberman 39% (-1)

Bush 54% (+3)
Dean 38% (-2)

In terms of debating electability, it seems the dynamics of the primary race determines a candidate's chances against Bush much more than whether he is a liberal or a moderate, et cetera.

When Dean seemed like the winner, he did at least as well against Bush as his moderate competitiors; now, of course, he's down at the bottom. This time, Kerry is suddenly the most competitive candidate - whereas before, he usually was behind Clark and even Dean.

Among the Democrats, too, the poll has Kerry suddenly clearly in the lead (numbers compared to 4-8/12):

Kerry 30% (+22)
Dean 17% (-5)
Edwards 14% (+9)
Clark 14% (+2)
Lieberman 8% (-5)
Sharpton 4% (-4)
Kucinich 1% (-1)
Gephardt - (-9)
Mosely Braun - (-3)

Dont know 12% (-6)

Its the first time the `dont knows` number drops sharply under say, 18%.

N.H. primary:

http://www.pollingreport.com/images/NHkrc1.GIF

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Either Kerry has gotten a major, last-day boost - or Zogby just found out he had been majorly wrong yesterday and is now covering his ass..

Quote:

N.H. voting begins; poll shows Kerry lead

MANCHESTER, N.H. - With New Hampshire residents now voting in the nation's first primary, a tracking poll released Tuesday morning showed Sen. John Kerry back with a commanding 13-point lead over former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.

Kerry's advantage over Dean grew by 10 points in the poll as the state's undecided voters broke heavily in his favor, deciding he was the best Democratic challenger to President Bush in November. [..]

Factoring in "leaners" among the undecideds, Kerry led Dean 37 percent to 24 percent in the final poll by MSNBC, Reuters and Zogby. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina rose to third at 12 percent [..]

Dean had whittled Kerry's lead down to three points before Monday's poll, a statistical dead heat, although other media polls tracking the race showed Kerry with a much wider lead.

Pllster John Zogby said Dean, who rose to the top of the Democratic pack on his blunt criticism of the war in Iraq, had not been able to overcome widespread voter doubts about his ability to defeat Bush.

"In our final sample, just about half told us that Dean was unlikely to defeat the president," Zogby said, adding electability was the key issue for Democrats and Kerry benefited from his status as a decorated Vietnam veteran.

"Dean had bottomed out in the latter part of the week, was regaining some of his support among key voting groups, and had rehabilitated, up to a point, his unfavorable ratings," Zogby said. "But in the final analysis, New Hampshire voters have decided to nominate a possible president instead of sending an angry message."

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Kerry really opened up his lead in NH. And Clark has been dropping faster than Dean!
My prediction for NH:
1. Kerry
2. Dean
3. Edwards
4. Clark
5. Lieberman

Kerry/Edwards 2004
Secretary of Defense Clark
Secretary of State Richardson
Surgeon General Dean (Judy Dean that is)

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http://www.able2know.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10156/WBZ127.jpg

Its all just poll-ution, but I agree with nimh tht Zogby appears to be trying to cover his butt ... he's got it both ways. Despite the chart positions, I still think Edwards has considerable chance of edging Dean; look at the Favorable/Unfavorable numbers in this morning's WBZ poll ... and note the strength of "Undecided" is at large variance with Zogby's projections. Its still interesting, and it seems to push the focus forward into the Feb 3 and Feb 17 races.

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The Polls will close in a few minutes. I'm afraid I may have been overly optimistic of Edwards strength, but I'm gonna hazrd a guess that neither Clark nor Lieberman will have anything to feel good about. Lieberman is finacially incapable of competing with Clark, so I do anticipate he'll seriously review his options. I think Edwards will do better in the next rounds than Clark, but it looks to be a potential slugfest. I question whether Edwards can challenge Kerry and Dean with or without Gephardt's endorsement, but he and Clark are gonna be in there I while longer, I suspect.

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Wesley Clark 3,209 13%
Howard Dean 6,001 24%
John Edwards 3,306 13%
John Kerry 9,667 38%
Dennis Kucinich 440 2%
Joe Lieberman 2,649 10%
Al Sharpton 43 0%
Others 151 1%

Kerry 38%, Dean 24%, Edwards and Clark each 13%, Lieberman at 10%, with only a couple dozen precincts reporting. Dean holds what amounts to a disheartening second, and Kerry may be establishing a juggernaught similar to his Iowa performance. We'll likely hear Kerry thanking those who contributed to his victory before very long, which no doubt shortly thereafter will call forth a claim of "moral victory" and promises of continued effort from Dean.

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Dean and Kerry were only 2 percentage points apart regarding younger generation votes. This whole Dean campaign has been somewhat of a farce blown out of proportion.

The best thing they could do is tape his mouth shut, but then how would he finish the campaign?

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Over a third of the vote is in, and the percentages are remaining more or less static. The Networks are calling it a clear Kerry win/Dean disappointment. All the attention appears to focus on the Edwards/Clark tussle for 3rd place. Indications are that the Gephardt nod will go to Kerry, which likely would bring strongly into play Clark's cash advantage over Edwards in February. Interestingly, should Dean have won the votes that went either to Clark or Edwards, the results would have been very much more favorable for him. That is the hazzard of a crowded field, and avoiding that hazzard certainly plays to Kerry's advantage. He has the initiative, and no one appears poised to impede his momentum. His game is going very well.

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nimh wrote:

Nah, I'll pass on that rjb, thanks. I'll leave it at this: I think Edwards and Dean will do better than expected, and Kerry will do worse than expected.

Soooo, thaz the last time I go out predicting stuff ... <grins>

Well, Dean did marginally better than expected, I guess. Nowhere near enough to pull an upset, tho ... and Kerry seems to be about on target, far out ahead of him, that is.

No last-minute Edwards surge either, alas. He seems to be getting exactly what that last Globe poll predicted for him - i.e., none of the 16% Undecideds breaking for him.

From what it looks like now, after 34% of results in, that poll seemed to have been pretty much on-target, actually. Everyone got at least what the Globe had predicted for them, with the 16% Undecideds breaking (at the moment) into 5% for Dean, 4% for Clark, 2% for Kerry, 2% for Lieberman and 1% for Edwards. Lessee what'll still come in.

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so the people think Kerry is a Democrat,
not surprising:
there are also people who think Bush is a Republican.

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Kerry 39,591 39%
Dean 25,236 25%
Edwards 12,667 12%
Clark 12,506 12%
Lieberman 9,345 9%
Kucinich 1,394 1%
Gephardt 195 0%
Others 538 1%
152 of 301 precincts -- 50%

Dean edges up, and so does Edwards, both marginally. Clark and Kucinich edge down, Clark marginally, Kucinich irrelevantly. I hold no illusion that either 3rd spot contestant will surge, but for both Clark and Dean, inconvenience mounts and apprehension must be growing. Looks like we're in for an interesting spin cycle over the next week or so. If not sooner, I doubt there will be much question following the Feb 17th primaries; the March contests well could be merely affirmations of foregone conclusions, with a very much smaller field.

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lather
repeat
rinse
repeat
spin
repeat
don't forget the softner
career politican pulls out all stops leaving suds in the eyes of the people.

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dyslexia wrote:

so the people think Kerry is a Democrat,
not surprising:
there are also people who think Bush is a Republican.

Some think Kerry is more of a Dem than Ted, some think Ted is more Repub than Bush and one of them is me.

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and I quit thinking when Nixon was elected.(TWICE)

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So, the last Zogby tracking poll had:
Kerry 37, Dean 24, Edwards 12
and the last Globe one had:
Kerry 37, Dean 20, Edwards 12 and Clark 8

Compared to that everyone really kinda just did as predicted, with 57% of the results in:
Kerry 39, Dean 25, Edwards 12 and Clark 13

NH surprised all the pundits by pulling no surprises, I guess, thats about it.

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Dys, Florida wasn't a state at that time?

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2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

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