Unless Clinton does a huge about-face on some of her positions, there is no way I see Clinton rising among the blogs.

You know what I find amusing? When I reply to posts and the titles are too long for the comment subject line!

The DailyKos poll has serious problems.  After voting for Obama yesterday I noticed I was still able to vote.  It wouldn't accept me voting multiple times for Obama, but did accept me voting multiple times for Edwards.  I even logged a vote for Clinton before finally it stopped letting me vote again.  I don't know if others had this experience, but that was mine.  I doubt though that I was the only person who was able to do this.

despite Edwards being my #1, Obama does a lot of good things for Edwards.

Black voters love Bill Clinton and there's no way Edwards would get much support.  Obama helps split that.

Hillary's inevitability campaign was squashed single handidly by Obama's fundraising prowess.

Hillary's campaign as the first credible "woman" candidate was also squashed by Obama's firstness.

Richardson has no domestic agenda or at least not one the blogosphere liberals would support if they critically evaluated it.

The netroots is the real world of politics. Polls have shown (Hotline '06) that a strong plurality of Democrats read blogs and nearly all of them (Pew) vote; we are a majority in primaries.

Hi Jerome, can you provide links for these 3-4 claims, please?

You can't say anything about pluralities in a vacuum. A strong plurality of Democrats read blogs, as opposed to what? And how big was the plurality? A plurality can be 49% or 5%.

Rasmussen asks likely voters would you definitely vote for or definitely not vote for each candidate.

This month he found good news for Obama--and I think very good news for Richardson, my second choice.  

First Obama:

Thirty-three percent (33%) of Likely Voters say they'd definitely vote for Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D). That's the highest total received by any of ten leading Presidential hopefuls included in the poll. Thirty-three percent (33%) also say they'd definitely vote against Obama giving him a net differential of zero (33% definitely for minus 33% definitely against equals net differential of 0). All other candidates have a net differential in negative territory meaning more people are set to definitely vote against them rather than for them. Other polling during the past month found Obama's favorability ratings have increased to the highest level of any 2008 candidate

Richardson, out of all the candidates from both parties, has the lowest (28%) number of people who say that they would definitely vote against him.  Now he needs to improve in the voting for category (10%) but he does not have to make up nearly as as much ground as many of the others.

I think that this sort of poll shows why the GOP is pining for Clinton and the Dems should be hoping for Gingrich.  When 48% say that they will definately not for a person--it is not impossible to win but you have to capture almost 100 percent of all remaining voters in order to win.  Pretty tough to do.

http://rasmussenreports.com/Political%20 Tracking/Dailies/April%202007/fororAgain st20070417.htm

I'm really hoping for a strong people powered insurgency to boost him up into the top 3. While I really like what Edwards is saying and to some extent Obama, Richardson's got them aced as far as actual accomplishments and experience in addition to the fact that he's saying all the right things.

when dem primary voters find out that 48% of likely voters say thier definately going to vote against Hillary as thier nominee I suspect actual Hillary votes will move closer tho the support among the politically active.

Obama got a wave of crap for his so-called enabling remarks over continued funding of the Iraq War that is almost entirely responsible for his drop IMHO. I don't think the criticism was particularly fair on policy grounds as it seems to focus almost entirely on 'framing' the Iraq War debate - a debate that is more about whipping votes from now until January '09 than it is political framing. Framing is most effective when people have low-information and poorly formed views on an issue. Iraq doesn't fit that model.

I think some of the dynamic of the Daily Kos polling is the refusal to acknowledge how the actual mechanisms of government actually work. If you take the Daily Kos leadership polls Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have flip flopped their approval ratings since the new Congress took over - with Pelosi skyrocketing from her days as Minority Leader and Reid plummeting since his days as Minority Leader.

Why? Reid was able to block bad things with 40% opposition in the Senate. Pelosi could do nothing to block in the House. Now Speaker Pelosi wins every battle with 50%+1 but Majority Leader Reid is hamstrung but the need to get 60 votes to accomplish anything in the Senate.

Obama gets creamed on Daily Kos and MyDD by some who refuse to acknowledge building support for legislation in the Senate is much different than building a 50%+1 strategy to win an election. Edwards has the strongest rhetoric on Iraq but does it have any chance of building a coalition to either A) gain 2/3 support to override a veto or B) prevent the likes of Pryor, Landrieu, and Carper from defecting to more of a 'clean' bill? Obama's 'short leash' funding which has not been fleshed out but is likely a hybrid of 1 quarter of funding with the Iraq Accountability Act pushed by the Blue Dogs (and Iraq vet Rep. Patrick Murphy) is compatable with passing Feingold-Reid. The two aren't mutually exclusive. You can have 'short leash' for 2Q and then have a great chance of passing Feingold-Reid or something similar this fall.

But Feingold-Reid just doesn't have the votes today. It might in 3 months, or 6 months, or 9 months but it doesn't today. Just look at the vote totals of the Gregg Amendment and Kerry-Feingold from last year. So what do Feingold-Reid supporters do when it fails by 15 votes around May? Blame Obama?

Edwards spiked in the Daily Kos poll because he doesn't have to deal with the rules of the Senate any more. IMHO Obama did well to hold his own in the netroots under heavy criticism.

    I bet this slow rise of Richardson is correlated with a slow drop in support of Hillary.  I realize that they have different positions, but they're both former DLCers.  Richardson is probably more of a "centrist" candidate than Obama or Edwards.  I think Richardson steals support directly from Hillary supporters.  
    His eventual rise to the top tier, I think, would have to involve knocking someone down to the bottom tier.  The top tier is not big enough to hold four candidates.  Here's to hoping Richardson delivers the knock out blow to Hillary's primary candidacy.

They were on which candidates gave stronger presentations on Iraq, which while important is only a single issue. That's an important distinction.

I know these results are from April, but here are the results from Democracy for America's Pulse Poll in late March:

Barack Obama 27.69%
John Edwards 24.32%
Other(Mostly Gore) 13.32%
Dennis Kucinich 10.44%
Hillary Clinton 8.51%
Bill Richardson 7.56%
Undecided 4.82%
Joseph Biden 1.87%
Christopher Dodd 0.53%

I would love to see Richardson's foreign policy experience change things in the upcoming debates.  He has the best ideas for getting out of Iraq, and if he can become "top tier", these policies will get a lot more coverage.  

I'm passed the point of getting annoyed at the Anti-Obama posts and now find them quite hilarious because I know what spirit is really behind it, but I will say this in keeping on topic. I can't tell you how many e-mails I receive that say this:

Edwards Poll. Vote now! Time is of the essence. Show some love. Freep This Immeditaley.

LOL.

Then I see this chart posted like it's some scientific hard core poll and evidence that Edwards is preferred over Obama.

ROFLMAO!

I know commenting on possible tickets gets annoying but Richardson is more and more looking like a really obvious VP choice ESPECIALLY if Edwards gets the nomination.

Edwards has said he won't run for VP spot again.