On October 12, 2006, former Virginia Governor Mark Warner announced he would not be a candidate for President, and I offered interested Kossacks an opportunity to say who they favored. So far, as I write this exactly 800 have responded, and the big news is the low level of support received by national poll frontrunner Hillary Clinton--3%.
Al Gore is leading with 28%, but it is difficult to know what to make of that. He has said that he will not be a candidate in 2008, but he has relentlessly toured the country, sought out media opportunities, and acted like a candidate with the exception of raising money and starting a direct campaign. He is close to Hillary Clinton, and I would be surprised if they both ran. A Hillary withdrawal could bring him into the race.
Second place with 16% is held by Russ Feingold, who was not inserted into the poll until 57 people had already responded and a reader complained; it was my goof indicating that I was not very focused on his candidacy.
Feingold's leadership on key public policy process issues--most notably the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill makes him an attractive candidate. So does his strong opposition to the war in Iraq. But his preliminary vote with the Republicans on the Clinton impeachment and his votes for Bush Supreme Court nominee John Roberts and his public equivocation about voting on Alito before voting against him dampen and limit some people's enthusiasms.
Close to Feingold, also with 16% is John Edwards, who is now leading in the early polls in the early primary states. Edwards is certainly picking a diverse base of support that he did not have last time; he has representatives of the early primary states, labor, business, and bloggers on his side. The question for him is whether he has enough of each category.
Behind Feingold and Edwards is the only other candidate in double digits: Wesley Clark with 12%. Like Edwards, Clark appears to wear well with time. He is clearly a man of depth and wide insights; I especially liked his innovative 2004 plan, similar but more extensive to what we have in Pennsylvania, eliminating federal income taxes for families with incomes under $50,000. My guess is that like Gore, Clark would not run if Clinton was in the race.
Hillary Clinton will start 2007 with as much as a $20 million surplus from her Senate campaign available to run for President. She will start with a lead in the public opinion polls for the Democratic nomination and the cachet of perhaps becoming the first woman President. Her problem is that the same polls that show her leading among Democrats also show her losing among the electorate as a whole. The electability issue could sink or prevent her candidacy as it did Howard Dean's in 2004.
My guess is the Daily Kos community is enough of a cross-section of America--conservative enough to have a strong strain of anti-gun control sentiment, traditional enough to have a number of advocates of military draft restoration, pragmatic enough that Mark Warner's backers are a force here--that having only 3% of our respondents on her side is an indication of ultimate weakness that might well lead her to decide not to run.
I would further guess that Gore would be very tough to beat if he ran and she didn't. But, if both she and Gore chose not to run, we could have a wide open race in which Edwards, Feingold, and Clark would be the leading contenders, the charasmatic and innovative Obama would be at the top of the second tier, and longshots like Joe Biden, Christopher Dodd, John Kerry, Bill Richardson, and Tom Vilsack would be in contention.
I am putting Kerry in the longshot category because of his dismal poll showing here (2%) and nationally despite being a household name. But he has the infrastructure in place to challenge that standing, and to regain his status as a frontrunner. In past races for state and national office, he has excelled at coming from behind.
The use of indicators has become very much a science in the areas of economics, financial, and stock market projections, but it is still much more an art than a science in politics. I have found that one only knows what a good indicator is after the election is over and after time has passed.
In 2004, for instance, I was the only state legislator in Pennsylvania to visit the pre-Iowa Upper Dublin Township Caucuses, held about a half hour away from my house in Northeast Philadelphia. Only bragging rights were at stake: Township Democratic leader Jeffrey Albert, a friend of mine since college days and the mastermind behind all Joe Hoeffel's campaigns from 1974 through 2004 and today a state senate candidate against longtime incumbent Stewart Greenleaf, thought that having non-binding caucuses based on Iowa's rules would be a lot of fun for political junkies and would build interest in the elections.
The Upper Dublin Township Democratic Caucuses--one for each precinct, all held in the same large room--showed the weakness of 2nd place finisher Howard Dean and the energy of the Montgomery County Democratic Party, which was to have its best year ever in 2004. But ultimate nominees Kerry and Edwards got less than 5% of the vote between them, and winner Wesley Clark did not even feel he had enough strength to enter the Iowa caucuses.
Because of the inherent uncertainties of unscientific early tests like internet polls, your interpretations of these results is welcome and vital to a fuller understanding.
And I--and other readers, I am sure--would welcome comments containing advocacy and rationales for one or more of what I believe is an excellent, in-depth Democratic field.