Here is a nice article about Elizabeth Edwards and her new book and here is a nice interview with her. She is such a wonderful person. She should run for President herself!
As for her husband, a new poll from Iowa does not look good for Democrats, but of all Dem potential presidential candidates, Edwards still does the best of all of them. It looks really bad for Hillary, though, with negatives far higher than the positives.
There were a number of polls over the past couple of months, some polled everyone, some polled potential Democratic voters, some polled the Dem grassroots, and some polled the Dem netroots. It is interesting to compare these polls as they appear to be mirror images of each other, i.e., if you take the ranking order of potential candidates from a poll of Dem voters or grassroots and turn it upside down you get the ranking order of the netroots.
So, for instance, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Joe Biden rank high on the polls of Dem voters yet barely register in the opinions of the bloggers who generally despise those candidates. The netroots darlings - Al Gore, Russ Feingold, Mark Warner, Evan Bayh and Wes Clark are usually in single digits - or less! - in the polls of the average, non-informed citizens.
The only person who consistently polls 1st or 2nd in all polls - both superinformed netroots and uninformed Dem voters - is John Edwards. Perhaps that is the one we can all agree on and work for all together.
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The only person who consistently polls 1st or 2nd in all polls - both superinformed netroots and uninformed Dem voters - is John Edwards. Perhaps that is the one we can all agree on and work for all together.
LOL! That's why I love you Bora, never a mincer of words.
I do agree, though. Democrats need to come to a consensus as to who will carry their banner in 2008 (I speak the 3rd. person as I am still officially registered a Green, but will in all liklihood switch my party affiliation to Democratic in the near future for practical purposes). John Edwards looks good right now, even though I have a very strong preference for Russ Feingold. I have, in fact, even started to call myself a "Feingold Progressive".
Neil and the commenters also have an interesting take on this poll.
Thanks for the link, Bora!
The size of Edwards' lead over every other Democratic candidate is really amazing. In particular, the fact that he's behind McCain by just 1, when the next closest is Kerry at minus 14.
Feingold for me also...
These folks didn't have the courtesy to invite one of their biggest and closest supporters to their mini-bloggercon.
Bora, you are a glutton for punishment ;-)!
No, I read what Chris Nolan wrote about the Clinton dinner and realizied that the same can be said of the Edwards dinner - the purpose is to woo the opponents, to soften the anti-bloggers, the ex-Deniacs, Kuchiniacs and Clarkies to move over to the Edwards camp. There is no sense to wine and dine me - I am already squarely in the center of the Edwards camp.
Edwards was the reason this voter (who hates Bush as much as the rest of you), how to vote for none-of-the above in 04. Extracting 100's of millions from the medical industry, then claiming to be for the little person, was way too much for me.
Whatever happened to M Warner. I was very impressed with him, and felt that his cross party appeal would make him an easy win. My dream team is Warner/Richardson, both of whom should have good apeal to centrists.
"Extracting 100's of millions from the medical industry" is a Republican talking point which, as Luntzisms and Rovisms usually go, is 180 degrees away from the truth. This is old but still valid.
Check Bill Clinton's polls from 1990.
Is it really neccessary that every little blog post has to have spelled out all the disclaimers on all the points that everyone agrees on and takes for granted, e.g., that much can happen in two years? Of course it can, and we all know this. Why waste time and space spelling it out in every blog post? We only comment on the latest polls and operate with information at hand, adding some of our own opinions. As polls change and information changes, our opinions will change as well. Once a Dark Horse appears (an equivalent of Bill Clinton in 1992) we will start discussing him/her. Until then, we discuss the obvious contenders only. We are not soothsayers.
And, as for Dark Horses, I have a feeling that Dems, as well as many Independents and even Republicans disgusted with BushCo, are getting mightily realistic this time around. Kicking these asses out of power is the most important business - we can fine-tune the individual policies and ideological points later, after we win. That is why I think that the voters have no appetite for experiments this time around, including giving a woman, a Jew, yet another NE liberal, a Black, a macho general, someone uncharismatic, some waffling triangulator, a proven loser, or someone totally unknown, a chance. This, pretty much, leaves Edwards as the only "sure bet". He lost an election and yet, it did not hurt him at all - au contraire. People who know him, love him. His positives are huge and negatives tiny. He is liked by a broad spectrum of people (pretty much everyone but the batshit crazy Republicans). He is the opposite of Hillary in that he is a liberal perceived as moderate (she is a triangulator percoived as liberal) - a great position to have. There are many reasons why Hillary is a bad idea. And as much as I like Feingold and Gore, they have a much higher mountain to climb.
Bora is one of my regular reads. If he was omitted from the dinner, it was my oversight, for which I apologize. And the purpose of the dinner was to break through the barrier and allow give and take, which I hope there was.
It is wonderful to have you here, Mrs. Edwards. One of these days we WILL bump into each other at Elmo's Diner or some such place.
Elmo's would be a good bet. It is our default place to eat. And thanks for the nice post.
I believe that National Dems need to spend more time listening to the hundreds of different camps in the American political left. Publicly. ALL of them. They're the politically creative grass roots. A well of values and energy if you will.
The country, when viewed as a whole, may have a moderate majority but its the radical active minority that will fuel success. Especially when using bottom up tactics like blogs and social networking.
Nice post, Bora. Alas, I wanted to go to Converge South and finally meet you, NC Dem, Ed Cone, Sue, Robert Scoble and his wife. Sue managed to find a nice home host for me, but couldn't afford the airfares and I have only so much professional travel money, so I had to decline.
One of these days I hope to get down to NC and eat at Elmo's, if for any reason, that is the nickname of my tuxedo cat.
Benny
Gore is pulling a strong second, close to 20%, in 2008 primary polls
Hi Coturnix,
your claim "The netroots darlings - Al Gore, Russ Feingold, Mark Warner, Evan Bayh and Wes Clark are usually in single digits - or less! - in the polls of the average, non-informed citizens." is not correct as it pertains to Gore (if I may employ some fellow science-geek humor, it's emperically disproven :))
As I pointed out at Daily Kos, Al Gore is polling a strong second, at or near 20% in most national and statewide polls, and in the most recent general election match-up poll, he gained significantly to be within 4 points of Giuliani and 7 points of McCain.
Please see these links below for a good bit of polling data:
1. Nationwide poll archive at pollingreport.com
2. Strategic vision statewide polls
Here is a brief summary:
1. In the most recent national poll (8/30-9/2, 2006) by CNN: Hillary Clinton 37, Al Gore 20, John Kerry 11, John Edwards 11, Russ Feingold 3. In the recent Cook/RT political report poll: HRC 32%, Gore 19%.
2. In the most recent SV state poll which happens to be in MI: Hillary Clinton 34%, Al Gore 20%, John Edwards 14%, Russ Feingold 6%. Gore has consistently polled in the 15-20% range in almost all of their state polls (except WI, where Feingold ties with HRC at 32-33% each).
3. As mentioned above, he is within in 4/7 points vs Giuliani/McCain (respectively) in the most recent general election match-up pull. Link
4. Gore won the May Daily Kos straw poll by a whopping 68% share of the vote with some 12,000 votes case (it's been a struggle for us Gore supporters to get Markos to include him in his precious FP polls. Prior to this poll, Kos included Gore in a Sep'05 poll, and Gore scored a resounding 48% there as well). In a June/July Alternet poll, he won with 35% of the vote. He also won the TNR poll around he same time, with a narrower margin.
Essentially, Gore is polling respectably at this stage in field polls, and is a clear-cut leader of online polls for the 2008 Democratic nomination. Given that Gore would start with a significantly higher standing and stature than most other potential candidates, his entry into the race is likely to give him a substantial boost once (and if) he declares his candidacy.
Supporters of Al Gore may wish to join us at the Gore Portal by registering there.
Readers with an interest in promoting Gore's global warming cause or in collaborating with me on some ideas towards correlating CO2 with Temperature (using historical and recent data) may wish to write to me (background in math, climate science, or any type of scientific computation would be suitable for this).
Thanks.