I see the logical point you are making. Probably most significant is that all three of our leading candiates seem to be trending down, rather than only ups and downs going on between them. Also I factor in the rise of Richardson, and the rise of Gore when he gets included in polls also, as further evidence that earlier pundit efforts to frame the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination as an essentially closed contest between "the big three" was premature.

Richardson's advertising in Iowa, right?

Gore's a unique case, and I haven't seen any pundit saying that Gore entering would not shake things up. But I don't think that's dissatisfaction at the big three, I think that's a measure of Gore's stature and wealth.

Kery was third in that snapshot you mention, but not grouped closely with the front runners, and later he almost fell out of contention completely before staking everything on a come from behind strategy in Iowa. Certainly it was not a predictable glide path that he folowed.

He was at least as close to Lieberman nationally as Edwards is to Clinton now.

Actually when Dean faltered in 2004 it WAS Clark who was able to take advantage. Clark climbed from single digits in NH polls in December to a statistical margin of error tie for first place in with Dean in New Hampshire by mid January. It was only when Dean got essentially knocked out of the race in Iowa that Clark was unable to take advantage, because he could not claim to be one of the victors who knocked out Dean, since Clark was not competing in Iowa. Kerry and Edwards earned the headlines and momentum, and even Clark edging out Edwwards for third the following week in NH couldn't change that.

Clark didn't win. That's what I mean by being unable to take advantage. (And he couldn't even beat a weakened Dean in NH, anyway.) Whatever he did in the polls - well, we can chalk that up to the aforementioned point about how unreliable polls are. And whatever reasons you want to give for that, the fact is that Clark's late entry and subsequent inability to get an organization going in the state that mattered put him at a disadvantage compared to the candidates who had been out in the field six to twelve months prior.

I was a Clark 2004 supporter who wanted to see him make a big push this time around. I'd even be happy if he got in and proved me wrong this time around, even though I'm supporting Obama at the moment. But I just don't see how the pieces fit together for him.

There seems to be a certain tension in your argument. Polls now mean nothing, but the trend shows that something bad is happening to Clinton/Obama/Edwards. I don't think we can say anything about the trend yet. Let's see what happens when people start paying closer attention and plenty of ads start hitting.

I'm not sure that prior nominees Bush, Gore, Mondale, Bush or even Kerry prove your point about people at the top of the polls being eliminated. Nationally, Kerry was about where Edwards is now in June 2003 - third.

I agree with you that the polls now don't matter so much, at least not directly. One of the second or third tier players could catch fire and shake things up, although I admit I can't imagine how. Then again, if I could, it wouldn't be much of a shake-up. And someone else could enter the race - but I don't think the organizational and financial advantages that candidates are building now are insignificant. After all, when Dean faltered in 2004, it wasn't Clark who was able to take advantage.

JE voted against funding the war in 2004...

But he insisted he would never cut off funding - he explained his no vote by saying that he knew Congress would never let the war go unfunded, so he voted no on a particular bill in an attempt to get a better one written.

Which I have no problem with as a legislative strategy, but he wasn't trying to stop the war at that point.

OK, so the suggestion here is that, in order to have a real keep-on-talking filibuster, the Dems would

1) open debate on the bill;

2. never move to invoke cloture;
   
3. decline to use the two-track system to consider other business.

Now, if all of the Republicans save one are off the floor, could the Republican just sit back and do nothing except make quorum calls whenever the Dems try to vote on the measure?

If this is so, then the Dem response would have to be to try and get the sergeant-at-arms to bring the absent Republicans to the floor, right?

OK, then let's say that works. There's a quorum. The Dems figure it's time to sit back and wait while the Republicans talk. Could the Republicans then file a cloture motion themselves, which would then fail? Could they just keep on doing this without actually having to stand around and talk?

OK, let's say you got all of this to work somehow and the Republicans did have to keep on talking. Wouldn't the fact that the Democrats are choosing not to use the two-track system mean that it's the Democrats who are holding up every other measure? Would this idea make it out to the public? Would they hold it against the Dems?

I was under the impression that current Senate procedures do not actually allow for a keep-on-talking filibuster - if the cloture vote fails there can't be a vote on the measure, so there's no need for the talking. Could someone clarify the procedural elements here?

Given that there are many ways of making change, including backing a local council race, a primary candidate for a Congressional seat, doing journalism, working on an issue, or any number of other ways of being involved, why the hurry to back one specific candidate for a Presidential contest that is extremely difficult to affect as just one person?

Well, supporting a presidential candidate can have a ripple effect that supports an issue by helping raise awareness of it, or helps mobilize people for down-ticket races. And doing journalism might be the way that one supports a presidential candidate and/or an issue and/or a candidate in another race.

I do think the question you're asking can be expanded to all of the things you mention, though. What kind of significant change isn't extremely difficult to create as just one person? Heck, by that logic, why go out and vote for a president or a senator or a mayor or a council person - one vote is not going to affect the race.

I think that most people who want to make a change feel like their individual efforts can be magnified by being leveraged with other people's efforts. So in that light, it kind of makes sense to get involved in a presidential campaign where the scope is large and the numbers of people involved are significant.

Pennsylvania's primary may as well be in 2009 for all the influence we'll have on the nomination. If the legislature changes its mind about moving the primary, then I'll start caring about polls.

Polls of post-Feb. 5 states seem like a ridiculous waste of time and money to me.

Chris, don't you think that Nutter's long association with reducing/eliminating taxes, including the Business Privilege Tax, helps explain some of Nutter's appeal to businesses, including his ability to raise funds? And if so, do you think that has any effect on whether or not the Nutter coalition is - or should be - replicable? Other candidates seem to have more union support and/or more economically populist messages which under normal circumstances would resonate with many progressives. I know that under most circumstances, Nutter's economic plan and elements of his crime plan would give me pause in a primary race, but his work on ethics and campaign finance trumps those for me in the particular circumstances of Philadelphia in 2007. But I'm not sure that that environment extends out beyond the city.

But gambling is addictive and casinos are big draws compared to other forms of gambling. The last thing a poor family needs is its breadwinner spending all its money on the slot machines.

I'm really ambivalent on the casino question, but I admit I have a hard time really appreciating this objection. Wouldn't this logic support something like outlawing alcoholic beverages, given the problems posed by alcoholism?

I find myself having a hard time supporting the general idea of "no casinos" while having a much easier time supporting the idea of "how PA handled the casinos is really messed up and needs to be fixed."

Going with your definition of globalization, I certainly agree with your opposition to it, and prefer other forms of global social interaction. To the extent that globalization is happening, it is building a global society. I believe that efforts to build a pluralistic outlook into that global society are a means of stopping globalization, even if they piggyback in part on globalization.

I would prefer a pluralistic global society to the collection of self-sufficient nations you describe. I believe that without a rich network of cultural and social interactions, nations and/or cultures will not see each other with the mutual respect that you encourage, but as obstacles to overcome and resources to capture.

Instead of conceding to economic globalization, why not fight it through self-contained sustainability, energy independence, bilateral and uncoercive trade agreements, and corporate reform?  By the way, all of these steps require self-control: a correction of how Americans behave rather than how the rest of the world behaves.

The current form of globalization isn't actually very pluralistic, and I'll certainly agree with you on that, and say that there are definitely things Americans and Western societies need to change about their behavior. I think the West, especially America, needs to "assimilate" to pluralism as much as any other culture/society does, so I'm not saying we should unilaterally impose one culture onto another.

But even in your examples, you list trade agreements. So you foresee members of different societies/cultures exchanging goods with one another. Will people travel from one place to another? Will the goods that they exchange include cultural and idea-based items, like works of arts or academic writings? Will people from different areas/cultures/countries find reasons to collaborate with one another? Will they want to trade expertise with one another? I believe that the answer to all of these questions is yes. As a result, I do believe that a global society exists and is growing. And I believe that within that global society, there is a struggle over global values and global history. That's where I think the analogy is worthwhile. I don't think I should ignore a Darfur any more than I should ignore a Selma.

You mention self-contained sustainability, and I do not want to put words in your mouth. Could you define the term more for me?

If a society does not want to democratize, modernize, or embrace a Western view of tolerance, which the West arrogantly calls "human rights," then that society should be accorded the respect of being left alone.

I disagree, at least given the world as it is. A pluralist would support the 50s-60s civil rights movement, even though that movement demanded that white Southern culture assimilate itself into a more pluralistic approach. A pluralist would support a public education system that decries racism and discourages gender stereotyping, even if the families sending their children to said schools are racist, sexist, or what have you. Any effort at promoting tolerance demands a level of intolerance shown toward the intolerant. That's the consequence of having a belief about what should be valued - it puts you in opposition to others.

Now, all of the examples I've given so far are within a specific country. It could be argued that they all take place within a larger American culture that encompasses African-Americans and Southern racists, and that the civil rights struggle was a purely internal resolution to their conflict. A pluralist would not have grounds to demand that some other society start being pluralist, and certainly should not use violence to enforce this.

However, I do believe that through communications technology and economic globalization, we are part of a larger, global society. So I think the conflict between Western pluralism and other societies' non-democratic nature has relevant parallels to something like the civil rights movement.

The question then becomes what tactics are appropriate for the pluralist who wants to expand pluralism, not whether trying to spread pluralism should or should not be done.

Pluralism is also used within political theory to describe different cultures/ways of life/perspectives, which isn't always the same as different ideologies. Pluralists would look at Barack Obama, a black Christian, and me, a white non-theist, and say that we're from two different groups, even though we agree on many ideological points. Pluralists see themselves as facilitating the interaction of many different coexisting groups without demanding that one assimilate to the other.

I have a lot of sympathy towards pluralism, but where I disagree with it is that I think pluralism is itself a culture, a type of civilization to use Chris' term. Values like dialogue and tolerance are key to making a pluralistic society work, and there are cultures out there that oppose these values - some of which are cultures that pluralists want to incorporate into their pluralistic world.

Chris keeps making this point that MyDD's niche is election analysis. But I don't see how MyDD sticks to that niche. Jonathan talks to and about a lot of candidates, but he also has put up posts talking about the Justice Department scandal and other issue material. Matt has spent a lot of energy on issues like net neutrality, free trade, the way issue groups organize and react to Supreme Court nominations, and working with unions. Jerome tends to pop in with net/tech specific stuff or posts about campaign finance. Even Chris talks a lot about building a movement and wanting to be one of those people out in the vanguard creating a dramatic social change. it sure sounds like the niche that MyDD wants, let alone the niche Chris wants for the entire progressive blogosphere, is to be A Movement or at least a significant force in organizing A Movement. And that sounds like a big enough niche that the diversity of voices brought to the table matters.

Thus, you couldn't tell just from reading a piece the race or gender of the person who wrote it.

Like we wouldn't have known you were a white guy unless you'd told us.
Wasn't there a front page MyDD post about diversity a month or two ago that said the exact opposite? That there is research to indicate that even in the faceless written world of blogs, there tend to be sufficient cues that people are drawn to writers who are similar to themselves?

I'm in the middle of some things, so I can't look it up now. But if my memory is correct and that research turns out to be the case, the front page structure in particular is something that could be creating an unintentional segregation.