Four years ago, how wrong we were…

A friend of mine passed along these interesting poll numbers from exactly four years ago, on the eve of the 2004 Iowa Caucuses.  Compare this New York Times poll to this one released this morning.  Moral of the story: yeah, we have no idea what can happen.

Poll: Dean Pulls Away In Dem Race

Ex-Vermont Gov. Leads Clark And Lieberman By 13 Points

NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2003

CHOICE FOR DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE
(Democratic primary voters)
Now
Howard Dean
23%
Wesley Clark
10%
Joe Lieberman
10%
Richard Gephardt
6%
Al Sharpton
5%
John Kerry
4%
John Edwards
2%
Carol Moseley-Braun
1%

CBS) Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean has pulled away from the field in the Democratic Presidential nomination race: his support among Democratic primary voters nationwide has risen in the past month, and held steady after the news of Saddam Hussein’s capture. But the race remains open: more than half of Democratic voters still have no opinion of Dean, most have not made up their minds for sure, and large numbers remain undecided.

Dean has been a vociferous critic of the Iraq war. Most voters believe, as Dean does, that the U.S. is no safer from terror in the wake of the arrest of Saddam Hussein. And while Dean’s rise may have been helped along by former Vice-President Al Gore’s recent endorsement, most primary voters say Gore’s nod makes no difference to them.

Dean has the backing of 23 percent of likely primary voters, the same as he did in the days just prior to Saddam’s capture, and up from 14 percent in November. His nearest rivals today are Wesley Clark and Joe Lieberman, both at 10 percent.

Clinton, Obama groups start on campus

[Originally posted at The Daily Colonial on 4/2/07]

By Riki Parikh
Associate News Editor

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama officially have a presence at GW. Student supporters of both Democratic presidential candidates met for the first time this weekend in the first campus political activity for the 2008 presidential election.

“GW Students for Barack Obama” met on Saturday in Phillips Hall to watch a Web cast of Obama from Iowa. The group’s meeting coincided with house parties around the country that featured the Web cast and an informational DVD about the candidate.

The 20 students in attendance were welcomed by Chapter Director Benjy Locks ’09, who started building the organization in February. The GW chapter is recognized by the national Students for Barack Obama campaign, a grassroots organization that hosted Obama at George Mason University in February. The group, which at the time was unaffiliated, recently became the official student outreach arm of the Obama campaign.

The Obama group became a registered student org earlier this month, said Locks, and since then has a list of 40 members. There are seven members on the E-board, including a communications director and a field director.

Edwards won’t regret a run

The New York Times interviewed John and Elizabeth Edwards yesterday to talk about his decision to stay in the race.  Elizabeth said that she made the decision in the hospital room.

As she spoke with the nurses, Mrs. Edwards recalled: “They said they really supported John, and I started sort of breaking apart. I said, ‘It’s really important that he run.’ ”

John said that no matter what happens to his wife, he won’t regret running for the presidency:

Mr. Edwards said he could not anticipate a situation in which he would ever regret running for the presidency or serving, even if his wife’s illness brought her an early death. “Honestly I don’t,” he said.

“He shouldn’t,” Mrs. Edwards interjected.

Politico screws up big time

An hour before John Edwards’ official announcement that he would continue his campaign for president despite the return of his wife’s cancer, The Politico‘s Ben Smith blogged that Edwards was suspending his campaign. It was the only news outlet to report on what was going to happen, based on a source Smith had that was “an Edwards friend.”

Here was the original post:

John Edwards is suspending his campaign for President, and may drop out completely, because his wife has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that sickened her in 2004, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, an Edwards friend told The Politico.

“At a minimum he’s going to suspend” the campaign, the source said. “Nobody knows precisely how serious her recurrence is. It’ll be another couple of days before there’s complete clarity.”

“For him right now he has one priority which is her health and the security of the two young children,” said the friend.

As for the campaign, “You don’t shut this machine off completely, but everything will go on hold.”

Then the conference started and The Politico got egg on their face, majorly.

Edwards said that he was actually going to continue his campaign. Oops…

Smith posted this mea culpa:

The source, whose anonymity I agreed to respect, spoke of the kind of grim prognosis Elizabeth Edwards herself just described hearing before a second round of tests came back. I trusted the source, somebody I’ve known for several years, and who has always been reliable.

And with less than an hour before Edwards was to announce, I unwisely wrote the item without getting a second source.

For those who know, I’m a frequent reader of The Politico, just because I love political news. But there is no doubt in my mind, and this confirms, that you should only trust The Hotline for your political news. And I say that with no bias whatsoever.

Edwards campaign continues as wife’s breast cancer returns

John Edwards announced today that his wife’s breast cancer has returned, but that his campaign will go on.

The money quote: “The campaign goes on. The campaign goes on strongly.”

He added: “Any time, any place I need to be with Elizabeth I will be there — period.”

Elizabeth Edwards went to the doctor on Monday complaining that he rib hurt. XRays showed that a tumor that was removed had returned. The tumor is small but the cancer is not cureable.

John said the campaign will continue as planned; they will both be in California tomorrow.

Developing…

Joe Biden on the Tonight Show

Last time a Democratic presidential candidate went on the Tonight Show…

Just saying…

Florida moves its primary to 1/29

Just when you thought it couldn’t get earlier, it has.  In an effort to become more relevant during the primary process, the Florida legislature voted yesterday, 115-1, to move its primary to Jan. 29,  right after NH and IA and right before “Tsunami Tuesday” on 2/5, when California, New York and half the other states will hold their primaries.   FL Gov still needs to sign the bill into a law.

John Edwards to hold presser with wife

BREAKING NEWS – John Edwards will hold a press conference from North Carolina tomorrow with his wife, who has been treated for breast cancer. After Elizabeth visited doctors on Wednesday, John canceled events in Iowa to be with his wife. The news conference will be held in Chapel Hill to discuss her health.

Will John Edwards drop out? If his wife’s health took a turn for the worse, can he possibly run for president?

Inside ObamaHQ

The New York Observer will run a really interesting look in its next issue at Barack Obama‘s campaign HQ in Chicago. The really smart people at The Hotline summarized the tour of the office as such:

• The field operations office “is cramped into a small corner room overlooking downtown Chicago. … The walls are papered in maps and yellow strips of oversized legal pads, one of which listed more than 20 states” looking to move up their primary.
• A sign reading “Welcome to the Jungle” hangs on the door of the press shop, “located outside the campaign’s main offices and opposite the locked bathrooms.”
• Elsewhere, “the people charge with finding the means to close that gap” between Obama and HRC “are plying their trade in a drab, gray-carpeted horseshoe of an office space behind the counter of the reception desk.”
• “Down the hall, policy experts without ties conferred with the campaign management in the corner office.”
• “Back toward the reception area, Eureka Gilkey,” Obama’s dep political dir, and Josh Dubois, who runs Obama’s religious-outreach operation, “sit back to back in a stuffy room that smells of scented hand lotion.”
• The entire campaign will soon move to the larger 11th floor, “filled with bullpens, conference rooms, cushioned orange seats and ample electrical outlets.” The new media team is up there now.

Axelrod works out of an office on North Franklin Street. He “almost seems to be the campaign’s token feet-on-the group realist, not only keeping the idealistic staff grounded in a day-by-day campaign approach, but keeping the young candidate himself from revealing as much of himself as the press might wish.” Both Gibbs and Axelrod say that substantive policy proposals will come in time. Axelrod: “This campaign just began, and we have 10 months to go.”

He also talks to Chris Hughes, who is the head of the new media dept., and is, at 23 (!), the youngest staffer. He comes directly from Facebook. I’m so jealous in so many ways.

Facebook and Politics

As the ’08 campaigns are heating up, I figured I should try once again to post this video clip of an interview I did with CurrentTV before the ’06 elections. I was asked about effective Facebook campaigning — what works and doesn’t. This was filmed on 10/26/06 and aired during election week.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg8oed_jHnw]