Rasmussen- Clinton 43% Obama 20% Edwards- 16%

[DemocratSinceBirth]

In the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton is the top choice for 43% of Likely Democratic Primary Voters. Senator Barack Obama earns the vote from 20% while former Senator John Edwards attracts 16%. Bill Richardson is preferred by 4% and no other candidate tops the 3% level among Likely Democratic Primary Voters (see recent daily numbers).

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2008__1/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

[rinsd]

1. Something for everyone...from Ras's article

"Among Democrats, the campaign has become a tale of two narratives that will collide in Iowa on January 3. In one narrative, Clinton’s campaign has been hurt by the stumbles of recent weeks while the other considers her the dominant frontrunner. Both have the virtue of being true."

Here's the link expanding on that theme - http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2008__1/2008_presidential_election/2008_democratic_presidential_primary

[Tellurian]

4. You mean in spite of all the attacks coming from the parasitic twins..

Obama and Edwards, Hillary still leads by 23 pts?

:rofl:

[Stop Cornyn]

7. Maybe you're missing the trend (graphed eloquently -- by someone else -- here):

I neither did this cool graph, nor claim that I understand all the neat work that went into it, but I'm pretty sure I get the point.

Here is a LINK to the smart guy's blog where I found this good work.

[Basileus Basileon]

15. He's not even being totally serious in picking that trendline.

I...chose the one that gave me the results I wanted

As he admits, there is no underlying mechanical/physical process being graphed here, and so extrapolations are meaningless except for amusement.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. I Did Post Grad Work In Poli Sci...Took Lots Of Research Courses

Those graphs indicate a largely static race... Am I missing something?

[emilyg]

21. LOL

[griffi94]

2. I'm still voting for Edwards

in the primary, and in the general election...for whoever wins the dem. nom.

[Basileus Basileon]

3. She's certainly stumbled badly, but

Obama has failed to make up much ground; she still has more than twice his support. And that's the problem with negative advertising--it drags your opponent down, but drags you down too.

[bigdarryl]

9. Negitive ads work thats why campaigns do them

[Basileus Basileon]

11. In a general, yes. In the primaries? Hard to say.

In the primaries, the fundamental problem is that most everyone at least sort-of-likes all the candidates. A negative ad will lower your opponent's favorables, but will lower your own as well; most people won't appreciate it. They can be very effective close-and-late when there are only two candidates, as McCain/Bush showed in 2000. On the other hand, in an open field, they're absolutely suicidal, as Dean/Gephardt showed in 2004.

Against Clinton? Given her extremely high positives among Democrats, the fact that she's a known quantity, and given the relatively unknown (and charisma-dependent) campaigns of Edwards and Obama, I've said for months that going negative wouldn't help their campaign. Since they started it, they've dropped Clinton's favorables by 10 points, from about 80 to 70. They've also managed to halve their own, and haven't picked up any ground.

Clinton is a polarizing candidate. When you have a polarizing opponent with favorables above 51, you do not want to make the campaign a referendum on him/her. You will lose.

[geek tragedy]

5. The big key will be tomorrow, since any trend

needs to have 5+ days to be confirmed. It appears that last Thursday's polling was especialy good for Clinton and especially bad for Obama. I predict she'll be down about 2% and he'll be up 2% tomorrow.

[Stop Cornyn]

6. National polls have little meaning, but you see a real trend if you graph this:

I neither did this cool graph, nor claim that I understand all the neat work that went into it, but I'm pretty sure I get the point.

Here is a LINK to the smart guy's blog where I found this good work.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. I Realize There Isn't A National Primary But The Nat'l Numbers Are Still Instructive

They are instructive because primary voters are drawn from the same universe as those surveyed in national polls...

[Beaverhausen]

10. Who was leading nationally at this time in 2003?

National polls mean very little. It's the early primary states that matter.

[rinsd]

13. The "frontrunner" in 2003 was getting their ass kicked by the undecideds (2 to 1 in some cases).

The "frontrunner" in 2003 was lucky to have a 5 point lead going into Iowa.

http://www.pollingreport.com/wh04dem.htm

Its a very different race this time around.

That doesn't mean that the polls are set in stone, merely that saying 2003 is lazy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. Dean Had A Four Point Lead Over His Opponnts At This Time In 03

http://www.pollingreport.com/wh04dem.htm

I also am aware of the scenario touted by Edwards and Obama supporters where Hillary loses IA and NH and her campaign implodes... Anybody who believes that "misuderestimates" Hillary Clinton's stamina, toughness, persistence and the organiztion she has built...

[Bullet1987]

20. No...the national polls

don't account for what will happen when/if Clinton does not win Iowa or NH...or either!

[Basileus Basileon]

12. The projections off the end are little more than wishful thinking.

Nothing in politics is so static that extending current trends weeks into the future is meaningful. Still, it is interesting to see, to say the least.

[DavidDvorkin]

16. Thanks for calling me a smart guy :)

I post that graph here every day, but I won't be able to update it till this evening, unfortunately.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. It Looks Like A Static Race

I don't know what the black lines are supposed to suggest...

[DavidDvorkin]

19. Yes, it does look static

The dark lines are trend lines. Actually, they're fifth-order polynomial fits, which probably don't mean anything since there's no underlying physical process for the polynomials to approximate. Such fits will only be useful when the race is over, as a way of trying to see when trends developed and what they were. I added them in hopes that they'd show trends, but there really aren't any yet.

[HERVEPA]

22. The black lines at the end seem to be extrapolated...

only from the most recent very short term data.
Looks rather dumb to me.
And no, Clinton not my first choice, though neither is Obama nor Edwards.

[Auntie Bush]

23. I can't believe Biden is doing so poorly.

I wonder if it's the media's fault. They just push Obama and Hillary and now they're in the process of boosting Obama and tearing Hillary down...after they built her up. She was getting too far ahead and they were in danger of not having a horse race. Just tear Hillary down a few pegs and Obama up a few pegs and wallah...we have a horse race and everyone will watch TV while chewing our fingernails to the bone.

[CyberPieHole]

24. I guess the piling-on failed to damage Clinton as much as Edward/Obama had hoped...

it still seems crappy that they would feel a need to pile-on in a desperate attempt to garner votes for themselves. Why don't they tell the voters what they can do for the country and leave Clinton alone? Could it be because they have nothing to offer?:shrug:

k&r