Soldiering on for Wesley Clark

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:

Imagine that.

Rassmussen conducted a national poll of voters from both parties (as well as none and other, presumably) to assess what percentage view favorably or unfavorably the various potential 2008 candidates. Of the ten Democrats on whom they collected data (Biden, Clark, Clinton, Edwards, Gore, Kerry, Kucinich, Obama, Richardson, Vilsack), only THREE were viewed favorably by a significantly larger number of voters, statistically speaking, than viewed them unfavorably. In other words, only THREE had more people like 'em than not.

Care to guess who those three are?

Well, I won't keep you in suspenders. But I will withhold some detail until I can apply a little analysis. So in alphabetical order, the only three with more to the good than to the bad, in numbers large enough to matter, are Clark, Edwards and Obama.

UPDATE: New data from Rassmussen, as of 1/4/07. Hang on for a new blog entry after I get a chance to take a look.

In my last post, I took a close look at Rassmussen's favorability ratings for the three (and only three) potential Democratic 2008 contenders whose favorability is statistically higher than their unfavorability: Clark, Edwards, and Obama. Since that time, Rassmussen has new data on Edwards and Obama (but alas, not on General Clark).

The new polling data are dated January 4, 2007, and were most likely collected since New Years.

Briefly, Obama's numbers changed only one point in each direction -- both to his benefit, but with no effect on my prior analysis and, statistically speaking, not significant at all. And for what it's worth (since I didn't report on her before), they must have also done another poll on Hillary Clinton, as she gained a point in the unfavorable column -- likewise an insignificant change.

But Edwards is another story. His new numbers are 54% favorable, 37% unfavorable. That's a bump of 7 points in the good column, a loss of 4 points in the bad, and (obviously) an increase of 11 points in the difference between them.

Kudos to the folks who put this together:

Directed by John Bruder, Written by John Kramer
Produced by Mike Conway, Music by Chad Krueger, Starring Matt Craig, Andy St. Clair and Alex Fendrich

Sure, Americans would love to see their political leaders come together in a spirit of bipartisanship and compromise. BUT that doesn't mean we want you folks in Congress to roll over and give the President whatever he wants.

In a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, a whopping 70% of respondents, garnered from all political parties, as well as no party at all, said that Democratic leaders in Congress are either "not going far enough" or are "handling it about right" in "challenging George W.Bush’s policies in Iraq." This compares to a mere 23% who thought Reid and Pelosi are "going too far." Moreover, the same poll found that a full 78% think Congress should have "some" or "a lot" of influence over the direction of U.S. policy in Iraq, compared to only 18% who responded either "not much" or "none at all."

So hang in there, Democrats. Be strong, show some starch, and do what you know is right. That's all any of us can ask, and usually all we ever do.