Recent Polls

I grabbed some recent NH tracking poll data from ARG and made this chart of the top 3 Dems' support:



Not much movement for Clark and Dean, but Kerry's bleed out is sad to watch. While I'm a Dean supporter, would be happy to vote Clark if he's the nominee, way early on I anticipated voting for Kerry. I'm very disappointed with his disaster of a campaign and how crappy a candidate he turned out to be. I guess it's all more proof that generals and governors do make the best Presidential candidates.

There is a little bit of a silver lining:

[T]he loss of support for John Kerry has stopped. A total of 93% of all those saying they will vote for Kerry are strongly committed to Kerry.

Yay! Most of the people who are left are really behind Kerry. Well, back of the envelope calculations indicate that he might lose one more point, but that's it. Might be enough for Clark to earn a 2nd place finish, though.

Similar good news for the other 2 leading candidates, particularly Dean:

89% of all those saying they will vote for Dean are strongly committed to Dean, whereas 54% of all those saying they will vote for Clark are strongly committed to Clark.

There's been a lot of crowing over at the Clark blog about ex-Deanies getting behind the Good General. I'm not sure they're really going to get that many people switching, at least in the near future. That doesn't help Clark much with the imminent, fast-paced primary season.

One other thing to note about the ARG poll: the other Dems are at 6% or less, and Undecided is wobbly, but consistently in the high teens. It will be interesting to see how much that changes in the next couple weeks. Oh, I can't wait until we get actual voting started. I'll let Kos do all the heavy lifting with polls, but you'll see me post about them from time to time.

Another bit of polling news that you might have seen before: Bush's "post-Saddam bounce" has evaporated, so Dean is very close (most of the Dems also do well head-to-head). In November, the CNN/Time national poll had Bush leading Dean 52-40, with 8% undecided. Now it's 51/46/3--looks like the undecided voters are making up their minds and going for Dean. Pretty damn amazing this early in the game against a "popular wartime President".

ntodd

[Update: I just saw this in a related thread over at Atrios:

I was just over at Ex-Deaniacs for Clark browsing through all the testimonials. There has been a recent flood of new testimonials, mine included. It is also posted to the Clark Community Network, where it was promoted to the front page (Woo Hoo!).

While reading all the stories written by Clarkies who had once been Dean supporters, I noticed that many of them regretted having contributed money to Howard Dean’s campaign. I don’t think they are aware that it is entirely proper to demand a refund from Dean's campaign.

It happens all the time. A political campaign would rather return the money than have a disgruntled former supporter bad-mouthing its fundraising. They won’t send the money back if you don’t demand it, so get on the phone.

If you have given money to Stubby Dean’s campaign and are now dissatisfied with him, call (802) 651-3200 and demand your money back. Be prepared to provide some documentary proof of your contribution, such as credit card records, cancelled check, or receipt. Be polite, but firm. If there is any resistance from the campaign about returning your money, write a press release and letters to the editor. Post it to ALL the blogs you can.

And when your refund arrives, send it to Wes Clark’s campaign!

Written by alleged ex-Deanie, politus, who has been annoying me for quite some time. I refuse to link to his blog, but I will provide the main URL for reference: http://politus.blogspot.com/.

I hate this "I want my money back" attitude. This is not just about the Dean campaign. Some GOP donors were pissed at Jim Jeffords when he bolted the party and demanded their contributions back. Bullshit, I say.

A candidate is not a product, but an individual manifestation of our democratic process. You take a risk when you donate to them or vote for them. You don't like what the candidate has become? You get your "refund" by giving your support to another candidate. That's it, thanks for playing.]  ¶ 1:58 PM