Reply #122: One more round.

[Tom Rinaldo]

When you wrote: "If you're basing the statement, "outside of the South, Clark overall finished higher in the races both he and Edwards competed in" on only three states: NH, OK, and NM, all I have to say is "MO." " , why did you leave out Arizona and North Dakota, both states outside the South where Clark beat Edwards? Both men put up only token campaigns in a number of the states in which they did poorly, but I left them all in the mix. What I was referring to when saying Clark did better "outside the South" were those states where at least one of the men scored reasonably well, eliminating States like Maine and Washington where Edwards came in 4th, and Clark came in 5th. Counting those States, they tied.

Regarding delegates won, in the 13 states in which Kerry Edwards Clark and Dean all competed, Kerry won 354 delegates, Edwards won 113, Clark won 77, and Dean won 67. If you use that as a standard then one could say there were only three tiers; Kerry in the first, Edwards Clark and Dean in the second, and everyone else in the third.

Again, all my comments were made in the context of debunking the statement that Clark had pitiful results compared to Kerry and Edwards, when and where Clark was in the race. Yes Edwards had overall better results than Clark, but Kerry roiled over both of them, relatively speaking. Some here on DU, and I am not putting you in this category AP, cling to the notion that Clark did horribly in the Primaries, and that is patently untrue. You talk about Edwards being absent from New Hampshire for a month, but Clark was absent from New Hampshire for a year, compared to Dean Kerry and Edwards who were barnstorming the state long before Clark entered.

But it's all history anyway. Kerry won hands down. Still Gore was a flop in 1988 the first time he ran for the Democratic nomination, but in a fair universe he would be President now. Some were unimpressed with Clark during his first run in 2004, others were deeply impressed by him. But 2004 was the first time in his life that Clark campaigned for any office, and he had a steep leering curve to master at the highest level. Whatever anyone thought of Clark as a campaigner in 2004, he is so much better now, and Clark still has a few more years to master the art further. I'm sorry AP, I know we disagree here, but I was not greatly impressed by Edwards as a campaigner as our VP nominee last year. I think he did well, but not exceptionally well. I'll take Clark with 3 more years under his belt, but I know both of us would work hard for either man if he ends up with the nomination in 2008.