Maybe this is a bit shameless, but I'm gonna spam a reply I made in the Q-poll thread as a diary item. It spins off from a comment there by Morat:
Where was Dean a month after he started? He was eleven months ago. That's the basis of the "Clark started late" issue.
Flip side: Where is Clark now? Running even with Dean nationally. Ahead of everyone but Dean in grass roots support. At least competitive with anyone but Dean in fundraising. Competitive with all but the two New Englanders in NH, competitive with everyone but Edwards in SC.
Sure, there's Iowa, but what does that prove? Iowa is a media event that has little to do with winning elections, as shown by how many non-incumbent winners there have gone on to the White House. Clark has taken no perceptible hit from choosing not to compete there.
All of this with three months to go till New Hampshire! On the face of it, "Clark started late" is a dead issue, because he is a top-tier contender by every measure.
Putting it another way - who but Dean has benefited in any way from starting a year ago? Lieberman has faded, Kerry has sputtered, Edwards is only just now showing some traction in the early states, while polling even with Sharpton nationally. Gep is clawing his way to a sliver lead in a state that should have been a gimme, and fighting to hang onto unions after being the unions' guy since Samuel Gompers was a boy.
For every one of them, it's been basically a wasted year. Only Dean used those months productively. On that basis, you would have to say that two candidates got into this race at the right time for them: Dean and Clark.
-- Rick Robinson