The 2008 Campaign has begun

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

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Second, the likelihood of Obama winning the Dem nomination is much higher than most people currently realize.

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Is this also based on insider info?

Personally, it would not surprise me one bit if Obama ran. Could be one hell of a cat fight between he and Hillary, though.

[BluffTHIS!]

Whoever runs for the democrat nomination should realize that any repub nominee, especially McCain or Giuliani, is not going to defend Bush's record totally, so will have to be able to matchup against whatever platform that repub uses. Also, someone like Obama or Hillary is coming from a home state almost assured of going democrat regardless of who the candidate is, so that is kind of a negative unless they have a VP from a swing or southern state. If I were a democrat, I would be wanting Evan Bayh to be the candidate.

[ElliotR]

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Whoever runs for the democrat nomination should realize that any repub nominee, especially McCain or Giuliani, is not going to defend Bush's record totally, so will have to be able to matchup against whatever platform that repub uses. Also, someone like Obama or Hillary is coming from a home state almost assured of going democrat regardless of who the candidate is, so that is kind of a negative unless they have a VP from a swing or southern state. If I were a democrat, I would be wanting Evan Bayh to be the candidate.

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Note to self: Oppose Bayh at all costs.

[BluffTHIS!]

Note to self: our masterful plan is working. All we have to do is to tout the democrats with the best chance of beating any repub candidates, and the dems will think something is wrong with such persons and nominate the typical east coast/northern ultra-lib we run best against.

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

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Whoever runs for the democrat nomination should realize that any repub nominee, especially McCain or Giuliani, is not going to defend Bush's record totally, so will have to be able to matchup against whatever platform that repub uses. Also, someone like Obama or Hillary is coming from a home state almost assured of going democrat regardless of who the candidate is, so that is kind of a negative unless they have a VP from a swing or southern state. If I were a democrat, I would be wanting Evan Bayh to be the candidate.

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I have to disagree here. Presidential elections are more about personality than policy. People vote for the candidate whom they find more intelligent, trustworthy, dynamic, attractive, and whatever other adjective you want to use. I'll present this without offering any sort of proof, although it's worth noting that the swing in the popular vote in presidential elections is much larger from cycle to cycle than the swing in congressional elections, which suggests that voters are doing more than simply going with their partisan allegiances.

I don't think a party does very well for itself by nominating a "focus group candidate". I define a "focus group candidate" as someone who is triangulated to offend the fewest people, rather than someone who inspires/motivates the most people to vote for him. I think this label applies pretty clearly to Bayh and Edwards on the Dem side, and probably Huckabee and Romney on the Republican side. These guys make great vice presedential nominees. They don't make any kind of presdential nominees, because they're almost invariably selected out in the primary process.

That leaves open the question of just which Democrat would have the best prospects in the general election. My guess is that Gore would be a couple of percentage points better than Obama, and Obama would be a couple of percentage points better than Clinton, and Clinton would be a couple of percentage points better than Edwards. But I don't think there's anything resembling the situation you have on the Republican side, where the party's chance to control the White House would drop precipitously if McCain is not the nominee.

[Moneyline]

Dem Primary if held today: Clinton 29%, Obama 22%, Gore 13%, Edwards 10%, Kerry 4%.

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Rep. Primary: Giuliani 24%, Rice 18%, McCain 17%, Romney 9%. Of interesting note, half of Rice's supporters would support Guiliani if she didn't run.

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Presidential Election:
Clinton (43%) vs. McCain (48%).
Clinton (46%) vs. Giuliani (46%).

Article

[Jeremy517]

How many of those 24% (plus half of Rice's 18%) realize that Guiliani is pro abortion, pro gun control, and pro gay marriage?

Guiliani has absolutely no chance of getting the Republican nomination.

[4 High]

The right wing blogs are big upping Pawlenty right now. He might be an option. Gingrich/Pawlenty is possible. I think people are still not giving Brownback and Huckabee a look as possible. Also people forget that Frist is locking down tons of operatives, will have plenty of free time, money and support.

[TheMainEvent]

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How many of those 24% (plus half of Rice's 18%) realize that Guiliani is pro abortion, pro gun control, and pro gay marriage?

Guiliani has absolutely no chance of getting the Republican nomination.

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Even if he gets the nomination the Christian Right will find a socially conservative third party candidate that will steal a far from trivial amount of votes from him. Conservative Christians will never, ever accept a pro-choice candidate, even as the lesser of two evils.

[Dan.]

I really hope the Dems don't nominate Hillary. She's too unelectable. Moderates view her quite unfavorably, with no justification, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that they won't vote for her.

39% of people would "definately not vote for her"