And it looks like we got us horse race.
Two polls taken by Research 2000, one for Iowa, the next for NH, both conducted in mid December (before Bayh dropped out, but no factor), both with about a 4% margin of error, and here's what we get:
First, for KCCI TV8 in Des Moines:
John Edwards 22%
Barack Obama 22%
Tom Vilsack 12%
Hillary Clinton 10%
Al Gore 7%
John Kerry 5%
Wesley Clark 4%
Dennis Kucinich 4%
Joe Biden 1%
Evan Bayh 1%
Bill Richardson 1%
Undecided 11%
Second, for the Concord NH Monitor:
Hillary Clinton 22%
Barack Obama 21%
John Edwards 16%
Al Gore 10%
John Kerry 7%
Wesley Clark 4%
Dennis Kucinich 4%
Joe Biden 2%
Tom Vilsack 2%
Evan Bayh2%
Bill Richardson 2%
Undecided 8%
A few simple observations and obvious thoughts...
I wonder how the right wing media will spin this... or more likely ignore it. How do ya keep the republican rank & file sending in their pension money without a Clinton to scare the stuffin' out o' them?
Vilsack needs to hang it up if he can't do better in his home state. Same goes for Kerry in his own backyard. Neither one is gonna change anyone's mind about what they have to offer -- the voters know 'em already about as well as they need to.
Edwards too -- he's been campaigning non-stop in Iowa and NH since, well, since the day after the Nov 04 election, and Obama comes out of nowhere in a sprint.
As for Clinton... well, she's hardly down and out -- no one with her money, connections, political savvy and sheer dogged determination can ever be counted out -- but these numbers are bound to be setting her teeth on edge.
And my own dog in the fight hangs in there with a core 4%. Solid second tier, and just where he needs to be since he has yet to so much as announce his exploratory committee. Ahead of "Every Sunday" Biden, even on the east coast, statistically tied with Gore in the mid-west, and not that far behind in the east. Carter and Clinton were polling 2-4% by the end of '74 and '90 respectively. It's not a bad place to be this early out.
