NH: picture of a race tightening up

[Bucky]

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Edifying graphic.

Much easier to connect the trends.

[Bread and Circus]

2. I'm glad Lieberman hasn't cought on. I can't stand that guy...

But I am all for Clark, Kerry, or Edwards -- preferably Clark
with a Clark/Kerry ticket being my dream ticket.

Edwards has many election cycles before him. It's do or die
for both Clark and Kerry.

[Redneck Socialist]

3. what happened around the 11th?

That looks to be about when Dean's numbers started to go down the others to trend up. I'm trying to recall any significant events but I don't recall anything dramatic. Did the Iowa polls start to tighten around then as well?

[beaconess]

4. Dean's poor performance at the Black and Brown debate, for one thing

n/t

[Bucky]

6. No, I think that IA got tight after the Clark surge

Dean musta said one of his "cute things" about the time that New Hampshirites started to pay attention. I think that for us poli-geeks tracking these numbers and the finer details is important and something to get worked up about.

For most NHers, the pols who trod their snow every four years are a nuisence regarded in a way comparable to how we feel about Hari Krishnas at the airport passing out flowers and love (or at least how we used to feel about them until Ashcroft had them all carted off to Gitmo).

Since Dean was getting incredible buzz, I imagine many respondents to pollsters simply gave the name of the candidate that they had heard of. When people started to really think about voting, Dean lost those fly-by-nights and leveled off at his current 28%. Dean's 36-39% high was always an inflated, name ID related phenom, not hardened support. Clark, who got some nice media buzz for a while, may have suffered a smaller version of that, leveling off to his current 20%.

We'll see who catches on. I think Kerry's probably gonna tick up a bit to take #2, but not much more will change. I'm for Clark, but I'm not confident that he can win over the needed last-minute impulse voters in the NH party. The south will be different, but Clark may have to settle for #3 here.

[Mz Pip]

5. Looks like everyone has

flattened out during the past few days.

I suspect things will start to move again once the results of IA come out.

MzPip
:dem: