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Latest CBS poll show Dean losing more support in the polls in the last week than any other candidate. CBS News Poll. Dec. 21-22, 2003. N=244 likely Democratic primary voters nationwide. MoE ± 6. . "Who would you like to see the Democratic Party nominate as its presidential candidate in 2004: , or someone else?" Names rotated
.
12/21-22 12/14-16 11/10-13
% % %
Howard Dean 16 23 14
Wesley Clark 10 10 9
Richard Gephardt 9 6 12
Joe Lieberman 6 10 9
Carol Moseley Braun 6 1 4
John Edwards 5 2 2
John Kerry 4 4 7
Al Sharpton 2 5 3
Dennis Kucinich 2 1 2
Other (vol.) 16 10 15
Don't know 24 28 23
http://www.pollingreport.com/wh04dem.htm
Dean dropped from 23 points to 16 points in this latest poll
This is over a thirty percent drop in support. The selection of "Other" has grown by 50 percent which is a clear indications that
the campaign to write in someone other than Dean if he is the nominee is the fastest growing campaign choice, with other as a selection growing by 60 percent. The write in "Hillary" if Dean is the nominee movement seems to be taking a large chunk out of Deans momentum. (Actually, going down is the kind of momentum I like to see in Deans campaign) His support "Bat" on the Internet has virtually ground to a halt and those signing up for the Dean for America site has slowed to a crawl. as very large numbers of those who orignally signed up for this site are not Dean supporters, but rather were people, who like myself, signed up to find out more about Dean a year ago. Many signed up early to find out about Dean, when he was actually the only person who had formally decided to run, and the others were all holding back in respect for Al Gore, waiting for him to decide whetther he was running or not.
As notes on the Nightly News, between the last two CBS polls:
JIM LEHRER: How do you read it?
DAVID BROOKS: Dean is still ahead but there are some straws in the way. John Kerry is doing suddenly well in Iowa, according to a poll. If he suddenly crashes through and does okay against Dean in Iowa, that transforms the whole race. Dean's volunteering, the rate of people joining the campaign has flattened. That is a sign that possibly there is a ceiling. And there is a poll this week saying how many people in this country, registered voters, strongly dislike Bush or hate him, and that's 22 percent of the country. You can't win with 22 percent. And I think there's been - the establishment Democratic Party, as Mark said, has finally cohered into an argument against Dean. They're not driving for his jugular yet but their mixture of fear and what he may do to the party and attraction to him because of what he says is now much more complicated.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/july-dec03/sb_12-19.html
Deans online suppoort and the number of perople volunteering to support him has been growing art a fraction of the mothly growth he experienced prior to labor day. Most of his growth in this area was the result of the fact that awareness of the camndidates prior to labor day was limited to more activist political elements, and once the general public has started to become aware of Deans inconsistancy on every issue, from the war, to domestic spending, his campaign and polling numbers have begun to flatten out, while other candidates are beginning to see increases.
What is becoming clear in these polls is that those who believe that Dean will be the nominee and do not support his political conservative ideology plan on voting for someone other than Dean, if hs is the nominee.
I will not vote for Dean if he is the nominee, for the same reasons that many went Green in 2000. Many Democrats see the choice between Dean and Bush leaves them with no choice whatsoever, adn will not vote for a conservative ideologue. and would rather choose to defend the party from falling towards conservatism in 2004, in order to restore the Party to a more progressive direction in 2008.
Dean's longest political and economic advisor makes this point about Dean more succinctly than any voter could:
"The joke among a lot of Vermont Republicans was that they didn't need to run anyone for governor because they basically had one in office already," said Harlan Sylvester, a conservative Democratic stockbroker and longtime adviser to Dean.
(St. Petersburg Times, July 6, 2003)
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/DVNS_Howard-Dean.htm
To those of us for whom Republicanism and other forms of conservatism represent the greatest threat to the Democratic Party, this comment about Dean from an advisor who has been backing Dean since the first day of his political career and before, says it all. REgardless of what party Dean is running his campaign under, Deans political ideas do not represent many if not most of the members of the Democratic Party.
Though Dean is still the frontrunner in polls, his showing is basically dismal, given that in the latest national poll, only 16 percent of the Democratic electorate support Deans call to change the Democratic Party, and his attacks on the Washington Insiders, but 44 percent still support those insiders as a group, rather than Deans supposed outsider, remake the party ideas.
If there were not 8 other candidates, the likelihood is that one of the Washington insiders would have left Dean far behind in the dust by now.
The fdact that there is even a rather large "Anybody but Dean" movement withing the Democratic party is another strong indication that if Dean is the nominee, we will see another McGovern scenario in 2004, or really even more likely, Deans run will resemble a McGovern/Dukakis like scenario, with large numbers of Democrats sitting at home on election day, and Rove turning Dean into another Dukakis.
Many academics and foreign affairs experts have recvently stated that Dean is vague regarding foreign affaris or national security"
Dean's foreign policy vague, scholars say
Monday, December 29, 2003
By DANIEL BARRICK
Monitor staff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Until recently, most supporters of Howard Dean could describe their candidate's foreign policy in a single phrase: The war in Iraq was a mistake.
But in the past two weeks, Dean has attempted to broaden his message on foreign affairs and erase any doubts that he's just a one-note peacenik. He may be succeeding on both counts, policy experts say - but only by the low standards of a presidential race that's still taking shape.
"It's much stronger in terms of rhetoric than in substance," Thomas Trout, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, said of Dean's most recent pronouncements. "But that's what candidates do. (Dean) is trying to carve out a position that's most appealing to the largest base of the Democratic party."
http://www.primarymonitor.com/news/stories2003/122403_deanforeign_2003.shtml
I found it almost laughable as to Deans threats about his 500,000 online supporters not being transferable, as the media has calculated that at least half of those Dean claims as supporters on the Internet, are not Dean supporters, and do not intend to support him as the nominee anyway.
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