Iowa Countdown - 6 Days
by Turkana
Guest post by idiosynchronic.
[Ed: our own idiosynchronic will be sending us regular dispatches from the Iowa Caucuses for the next few days.]
Did anyone else visit Zogby like I did, on a daily basis in 2004? In this cycle, I had completely forgotten about Zogby until just recently.
Turkana said something Wednesday, " . . my hunch has been that people who support dodd, biden, richardson, etc., are probably most unhappy with the ostensible leaders, which makes me think edwards will get a good chunk of their votes. hillary and obama are the big money, establishment candidates, and edwards has been running as a populist, so it makes sense that the disaffected would go to him."
Zog actually says that, "Clinton was able to solidify her standing among some likely caucus–goers [in November] by increasing the number of people who said she would be their second choice. . . Last month [October], Obama and Edwards were much more preferred as a second choice among those candidates who appear to be unviable under Democratic caucus rules. Clinton appears to be gaining ground among those who might consider experience to be an important factor in choosing a nominee – she wins the lion's share of support among those who make Biden their first choice, and she does well among those who would first choose New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
"Among those who make Obama their first choice, Edwards is their second choice, and vice versa. Among those who make Clinton their first choice, Obama is the favorite second choice."
Which makes sense, if you think about surface perception. Based on perception - and let's step away from eriposte's analysis of who is actually representing progressive values and running typical Democratic campaigns - Edwards is running as a progressive reformer (if not revolutionary), Obama as a moderating change agent, Sen. Clinton as a trailblazing experienced politician from a better time in America, Richardson as an honest, stable and experienced bureaucrat, Dodd as a Senator who's seen the light, and Biden as Senator Biden.
Clinton's appeal as the second choice shouldn't be discounted - tomorrow, I'll run some practice numbers based on recent polling results and show how things could break down in next Thursday's results. And I'll be taking both comments and questions for future posts as idiosynchronic at gmail.
(And an afterword by Turkana...
The second choices of the Edwards and Obama voters won't matter, as both candidates will easily clear the 15% minimum. Biden and Richardson poll fourth and fifth, but neither comes close to 15%, so their supporters' second choices will likely determine the caucus winner.
Zogby's been erratic, the past few years, after having been the only pollster to see Al Gore pulling ahead, in the final week of the 2000 campaign (the CBS daily tracking poll showed Gore pulling ahead on election morning; all other polls had Bush winning the popular vote). Even so, his results of the last few cycles suggest Zogby should be taken with a huge grain of salt. But not many are analyzing the second choice votes the way he is. If he's at all on target, this does bode very well for Clinton.)