Kos puts Hillary's early lead in perspective

[bluestateguy]

Those of you resigned to the "inevitable" nomination of Hillary take care:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/19/13213/3838

How relevant is Hillary's early national lead?
by kos
Tue Jun 19, 2007 at 10:35:19 AM PDT
My operating theory of how Obama wins the nomination goes like this:

Hillary has the early lead based on name ID. But the more voters realize there are alternatives, the more they'll stray from Hillary. Since she has no room to grow (her negatives are huge), she has but one way to go -- down. And as she erodes support, and as other candidates gain on her, her support will crash as her cobbled-together old-school coalition turns on itself.

cut
So is Hillary running away with this thing? Let's look back to 2004 Gallup polling for some perspective.

6/12-18/2003

Lieberman 21
Gephardt 17
Kerry 13
Graham 7
Dean 7
Edwards 6
Sharpton 6
Moseley Braun 5



And get this -- Lieberman was actually slightly up from May, and up from 15 percent in March.

Let's fast forward all the way to August:

8/4-6/2003

Lieberman 23
Gephardt 13
Dean 12
Kerry 10
Edwards 5
Moseley Braun 5
Sharpton 4



Wow. But then Labor Day happened, and people started "paying attention". Then look at what happened:

9/8-10/2003

Gephardt 16
Dean 14
Lieberman 13
Kerry 12
Edwards 5
Moseley Braun 4
Sharpton 2



The whole field was shuffled around. Lieberman never recovered.

Now you want to be blown away? Look at the numbers before, then after Iowa (January 19) and New Hampshire (January 27):

1/9-11 1/29-2/1

Dean 26 14
Clark 20 9
Kerry 9 49
Lieberman 9 5
Edwards 7 13
Gephardt 7 n/a

[BuyingThyme]

1. Is she the one who used to live in the White House?

[samq79]

3. HA! N/T

[BeyondGeography]

2. Much as I want it all to be a mirage

Hillary has Bill and a media that seems to have bought into her qualifications over others on her side, which means she won't be shunted aside so easily. That said, skepticism about polls at this stage (and right into January up to Iowa) is always healthy.

[elocs]

4. It's interesting to see polls put in perspective with those from 4 years ago.

It also puts into perspective the inevitability of Senator Clinton's nomination. Who does not know her or about her who is a Democrat or will vote in the primary? I, too, think she has nowhere to go but down, especially this early. I also think that with so many lusting after a Gore candidacy that the support for the top contenders is soft. But most of all there are a lot of people like me who have simply not decided yet who we will support.