The Craziest Political Season

  ARG Polls; Delegate counts; Rove
/by/ kos <http://www.dailykos.com/user/kos>
/Wed Feb 25th, 2004 at 17:52:43 GMT
http://www.dailykos.com/
/
American Research Group <http://www.americanresearchgroup.com/> has 
polled a slew of March 2 states. MoE 4%. 2/22-24. No trend lines.

           *GA   NY   OH*
*Edwards*    37   21   26
*Kerry*      45   54   47
*Kucinich*    1    2   11
*Sharpton*    4    8    1
*Other*       2    4    3
*Undecided*  11   11   12

Considering recent trends, Edwards should close the gap in Georgia and 
win it. Kerry will win most everything else. After March 2, the calendar 
becomes *extremely* favorable to Edwards.

March 9: FL, LA, MS, TX
March 13: KS
March 16: IL
March 20: WY, AK
April: 13: CO
April 27: PA
May 4: IN, NC
May 11: NE, WV
May 18: AK, KY, OR

And so on. Given that states aren't winner take all, it may be tough for 
Edwards to close the 515-delegate gap between him and Kerry (727-212). 
Kerry needs another 1,434 delegates to close the deal. 2,625 elected 
delegates are still outstanding. He needs 55 percent of those delegates 
to win this thing. There's no way, looking at that calendar, that Kerry 
can score that percentage if (and that's a fairly big "if") Edwards 
sticks around.

So two other factors will come into play -- delegates committed to Dean 
and Clark, and uncommitted super delegates. Edwards' best hope for 
victory is to create a steady stream of victories and deny Kerry the 
outright majority of delegates.

That way, heading into the convention, super delegates will have the 
uncomfortable choice of choosing between the guy with the most elected 
delegates, or the guy who has won the last dozen or so contests. Throw 
in Dean's and Clark's delegates, and Kerry's character assassination 
courtesy of Rove, and we have us a real circus. Possible? Yes. Likely? No.

But first things first. Given the electoral heft of New York and 
California, Edwards can't afford 55-30 finishes in those states if he 
hopes to make this a delegate race. He has to tighten the race 
considerably. The latest polls don't show that happening. But if the 
polls have shown one thing, it's that they consistently undercount 
Edwards' support.

One last thought, picking up that bit about "Rove's character 
assassination". The GOP wants to unload on our nominee. They've been 
waiting for the chance to use that $200 million (or whatever) warchest 
to define our candidate right out of the starting gate.

But they haven't been able to do so. We don't have a nominee. So that 
puts them in a quandry. They can start going after Kerry, or 
frontrunner, but if they hit him too hard they could damage him 
irreparably, helping Edwards take out Kerry in the upcoming primaries. 
Rove could very well end up doing Edwards' dirty work, and spending 
precious dollars doing so.

This has to be about the craziest political season ever.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



"[C]apital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and 
dirt."
--Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 31

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