Obama Wins Politico Straw Poll (Hillary 3rd Behind Edwards!)

Thompson won't win. He does not believe the Bush people have done anything wrong in pursuing the war with Iraq.

 

Plus he's knocked her up twice already so it would be difficult for her to leave!

 

cool...i have an obama bumper sticker.

 

I think Obama's supporters are the most passionate of any candidate in the race. I know that's kind of like Team A's fans are more passionate that Team B's, but it is demonstrable in the candidates' public appearances. I was in Selma when Obama and HRC were speaking at churches about 500 yards apart from one another and there was a perceptible difference in the size of the crowd for each. Obama's crowds are like that everywhere he goes.

It's kind of reminiscent of my understanding of Bobby Kennedy's campaign. We'll see how much this passion means on Feb. 5, but I do believe it could help Obama great in a place like Iowa, where the ground game is so important. I can see him bussing in volunteers from all over the country to canvass for votes in the 10 days leading up to the Iowa Caucuses.

And I certainly can't envision double H's GOP sweep to victory theory for a number of reasons. First, the mid-term elections where guys like Tester (lightweight) and Webb (lightweight) won against presumptively strong GOP candidates, where a black Democrat got 49.4% of the vote against a white republican (in Tennessee!!), where Claire McKaskill beat an incumbent republican in Missourri, the American Heartland, where red states turned blue more towards the west.

Unless the climate changes or unless Fred Thompson really is a reincarnation of Reagan, I don't see how a republican is a shoo in for the White House in '08.

 

Let's say Clinton is the Dem, Thompson the Rep. Bloomberg runs, with Lieberman as his running mate.

Clinton carries the west coast, Minnesota and Illinois. Thompson carries the South and the Rockies. Bloomberg takes the rest of the Rust Belt and the Northeast. Flip a coin between Clinton and Bloomberg on New York. Will anyone be able to reach 270?

Let's make this more interesting. What if Gore runs as a Green? This election could get funky....

 

I think a lot of people don't realize how much of a dark horse Edwards is in this race. I think he has potential to win the nomination over Obama and Hilary.

 

I'm so looking forward to a Democratic presidential win and an increased Congressional majority in 2008. U.S. out of the debacle within a year, tax breaks for the middle class, a bankruptcy law no written by the credit card companies, unfettered stem cell research. I see no reason why that will not be the result.

 

I agree. I think eventually the Democratic Party will wake up and realize Hillary is just not electable outside of the liberal bastions and that Obama just does not have the experience to win. I think Edwards or Richardson (if he can ever figure out how to have a good debate or television appearance) are more electable for the Democrats, and Huckabee or Thompson will probably come out of the Republican side.

 

Have you SEEN his national poll numbers? Scarily close to single digits in most polls, and people know who he is already. The only thing going for him right now is his lead in Iowa, which he has built by visiting there constantly. If he doesn't hold that through the August recess when Hilary and Obama can campaign there consistently, that's his ballgame.

He's got a long tough road. I'd honestly put my money on Biden or Richardson if I was betting on a dark horse.

 

An Edwards/Richardson ticket is the most likely outcome of the process, in my opinion.

The country is really down on Washington right now, and even though both have a lot of experience as statesmen, they are not viewed as "Washington guys."

Edwards has more gravitas now than he did four years ago, and he's much better at communiating his message. Of all the Democratic candidates, Edwards has the clearest, most consistent position on Iraq. And he's by far the best candidate on issues like health care and poverty.

Richardson is smart but not particularly smooth, which makes him a good VP candidate. And once you get into the general election, he'll shine on issues like North Korea and immigration. Plus, he can probably deliver very important states like New Mexico, Colorado and perhaps Nevada.

 

I think Ron Brownstein wrote the best analysis of the Dem race I have seen.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-brownstein25mar25,0,6496358.column?coll=la-opinion-center

Cliff Notes version: Democrat races generally turn into a matchup of a "warrior" versus a "priest." Think Gore-Bradley, Mondale-Hart, Clinton-Tsongas, Kerry-Dean. The warrior relies on support from the blue collar consistuencies of the Dems: the poor, union households, African-Americans. The warrior doesn't campaign on values as much as an ability to make people's lives better -- they are fighting for the little guy. The priest relies on support from upper-class white voters and speaks to their values. Priests are on a crusade to change how we do things and bring a new perspective to Washington. And warriors routinely trounce priests en route to the nomination. And the most successful Dem pols (Clinton, RFK, etc.) combine attributes of both. Hillary is a classic warrior and Obama is a classic priest and unless that dynamic changes, Hillary has to be considered a massive favorite.

One thought that came to me was that the very thing that makes a warrior successful in the Democrat primary (a methodical ability to divide Dem voters into interest groups and give them specific policy proposals to court their vote) hasn't been that successful in the general election. While Slick Willie was able to do it, I think he joins Reagan in a pantheon of politicians who are so immensely talented that the normal rules of political gravity do not apply to them. But this was the crux of Gore's and Kerry's campaigns: divide the voters up into interest groups and target them with specific policy proposals. But I don't think that is what moves independent voters. I think Rove is much closer to the way independent voters think when he said the voters ask themselves three questions about a presidential candidate: Is he a strong leader? Can I trust him? And does he care about people like me? While the divide-and-give-a-grocery-list-of-targeted-proposals might move the needle some on question 3, it doesn't get you anywhere on questions 1 & 2. And Rove was a master at getting the public to think the answer was no on Qs 1&2 for Gore and Kerry. And I have my doubts that Hillary will be able to make the necessary pivot in the general election.