We are starting to get into the middle innings of the presidential primary race for the democratic nominee for president.
At this point, the contest for the democratic nomination is solely a 3-man horse race and the odds of a second-tier candidate being competitive come next January is slim at a hopeful best. Bill Richardson is the only player from the second-tier who may have a slight chance for a 3rd place finish in Iowa if any of the first-tier candidates slip, but at the moment he is a good-looking vice presidential choice if the nominee is neither a woman or a half-black man.
In my opinion, there is a significant possibility that the candidate who receives the nomination may only garner 30-35% of the total delegates that are awarded in state primaries. Can you imagine going into Super-Tuesday (Feb 5th) and having that day decide who wins the primary, or even more stunning have it be decided at the convention in Denver, which hasn't happened since 1988.
Right now the fundraising push by Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, to seek additional donors has turned into arms race similar to what you see in professional sports when teams outbid each other to obtain the top players. While Clinton is treating her potential donor base as a glorified ATM machine, when on the other hand both Obama and Edwards are movement building for a more progressive democratic America.
The question now becomes does it really matter how much $$$$ Hillary raises off of Bill's donor base from his presidential days in the Whitehouse? When you factor in that her name id is close to 100%, you must realize that there are some elements of diminishing returns being at play here. As a result, Clintons' poll numbers have already peaked both in national and statewide polls. (You can't buy the votes of republicans ala Joe Lieberman when you are in a Democratic primary)
In this case, Edwards and Obama are using their best political decision making in order to appeal to the broadest scope of the democratic primary electorate that tends to be more liberal than not.
As of this week, Edwards may be behind Obama/Clinton in the fundraising department, but his sole ability to politically out-maneuver his front-running opponents on the Iraq war, universal healthcare, his wife's battle with cancer, and declining to participate in the fox news debates makes him the most electable candidate in 2008.
The next 9 nine & a half months will tell us if money will dictacte who wins the nomination or if it comes down to who is the most electable candidate of the bunch. In 2004 we loved Howard Dean, but Iowa Caucus-goers knew he couldn't win in a general election. I wonder how it will turn out in 2008.
(I wonder when the 950,000 ex-felons in Florida will be eligible to vote? By 2008. Can you imagine if the general election in Florida was decided by the ex-felon vote which is approximately makes up 9% of the state's population whom are mostly poor, and African Americans).