Reply #108: I didn't include NV in the total, and maybe part of the reason Clark...

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...dropped out before WI is because he saw that he wasn't polling well there. Dean held on until after WI probably because he clearly was polling well there.

Since Clark dropped out just before WI, I suspect a reasonable percentage of his supporters voted for him anyway -- maybe 10 or 20%. Even if it was just 5%, it suggests a lot of weakness for Clark in WI. Notice that he didn't do so well in MI either, which Clark did contest. These Midwest swing states are crucial states for Democrats to win.

With a vote total of 900k for Edwards after WI (vs Kerry's 1.4k, when it was probably clear that Kerry was going to win as early as NH) Edwards did very respectably. And like I said he got 100k more votes than Dean and Clark together, and Clark was behind Dean (albeit narrowly).

I don't think we're talking about "slight" edges here. I think we're talking about something a lot more significant: Edwards had appeal in the south, and he clearly translated that into appeal in the Midwest (he was strong in OH, MI, MN, WI, and MO) -- and he did it by talking about things that mattered to people in those states (work, poverty and opportunity). I think it's kind of obvious why Clark never really got traction in those states. Their fear of terrorism is lower and their concern about the economy is stronger.

My feeling about Kerry was that he was the average of Edwards and Clark, but not so much of Edwards (who is more of a populist progressive) but of the cliche northeast liberal (more like Dean). He was supposed to cover national security and he was supposed to be the guy who was anti-war, pro-feminism, pro-environment, pro-corporate responsibility, anti-corruption liberal. Even though the liberal he was trying to be wasn't exactly Edwards, I still think that a lot of progressives who cared more about economic issues and about class would have jumped on board with Edwards if Kerry hadn't been in the race. I think a lot of unions that supported Kerry would have been way way down with Edwards before getting on board with Clark. So, no Kerry, and I think these numbers still suggest Edwards would have been strong. With a 500K head start over Clark, Clark would have to have taken Kerry's voters 950 to 450, and I think if you look at the places where Kerry had a lot of appeal and votes, they also liked Edwards a lot, and Clark wouldn't have been able to break it that way.

As for the media coverage argument: I don't buy it. Edwards was often in single digits in every state more than 5 days prior to their primaries, regardless of how long after Iowa the primary was held, When all that national free media you talk about was the only source of information for voters, Edwards was in the single digits. (And you know why? It was because they gave Edwards happy talk, good VP coverage, but didn't tell you anything about his policies -- because he talked about the economy and class). When he started running his own ad campaigns and doing personal appearances and getting local coverage (which every other candidate was getting) he climbed exponentially. Edwards was getting support as people were getting more un-MSM-mediated news about him. Any good candidate should have been able to do the same. Bad candidates weren't doing that.

As for your last paragraph: you don't win the primaries by winning states. You win the primaries by winning delegates, and delegates roughly correspond to votes. So, Kerry won a lot of states. But he got 1.4 mil votes to Edwards's 900k, to Clark's 400k during a time when those votes roughly corresponded to the quality of the campaigns the candidates were running, and I dot think that Edwards was 64% the candidate that Kerry was and more that twice as good as Clark.