When Clark, Edwards, and Lieberman drop out: Kerry or Dean?

[srpantalonas]

I'm thinking Dean has the edge.Kerry will get the Lieberman crowd, and Dean will pick up 2/3 of both Edwards and Clark's folks. Which puts Dean pretty much even with Kerry...this is going to come down to Super Tuesday.

[Jack_Dawson]

1. Clark aint' dropping out - deal with it

[hlthe2b]

2. You are way too ahead of yourself...

These are very small primaries with minimal delegates.... The biggies are yet to come.

[Democrats unite]

3. I hope you believe in fiction.

It's way to early to call the race. Kerry is not going to do well in the south.

[spooky3]

6. He's polling VERY well in Florida.

[Democrats unite]

13. Being a Floridan Clark is doing very well also.

eom

[angryinoville]

4. I love Dean...

but how about the media holding down my man Wes? It's terrible. He's a great man and if he drops out, Dean better jump on him as VP pronto. Do we all agree on this?

[madmax]

5. Where is Clark going?

He's not going to drop out now. It's way too early!

[maddezmom]

24. South Carolina today

Clark isn't dropping out, he's got money and lots of supporters. :)

[Catch22Dem]

7. You guys need to look at the Feb 3rd numbers

[Dr Fate]

8. I wont count out Clark or Edwards at this point...

SC is a trip- I used to live right across the border in GA!!

[asjr]

16. No way would I

count Clark and Edwards out. All of them still have to come south.

[KathCO]

9. Kucinich of course

[newyawker99]

25. Hi KathCO!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[DjTj]

10. Johnny isn't going anywhere...

Edwards will be in this through Super Tuesday.

...things got a lot more interesting tonight...

[Maddy McCall]

11. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Nice try.

[LZ1234]

12. Aren't you a little...

overconfident?

[srpantalonas]

14. Not overconfident

Disclosure: I endorsed Dean.

I'm very close to backing Kucinich despite his numbers. I'm looking at this objectively. Edwards will get a temporary boost in SC and then fizzle. Dean will hang in there, and Clark will continue to be irrelevant except that he draws supporters aways from Dean and Kerry. I really like John Edwards and have since I saw him speak about a year and a half ago.

Overall, I only feel passionately about what DK has to say, and about what Dean has done to invigorate the party, no matter how he aggravates me with his maner of speech. ANY of these people are superior to Bush, which means I'll support Kerry if he wins. I just think Kerry is our next Mondale. He can win the nomination but he'll bore the general public to death.

[mikehiggins]

20. Clark is irrelevant?

Let's see how you feel after Dean and Kerry rip each other into tiny little pieces over the next few weeks.

Clark signed on in September and tonight he beat two Senators, a Congressman and a minister with a national reputation.

He got beaten by two professional, lifelong politicians who were competing in a state in which both were well known, and which bordered on the states each man came from.

He also did it while being pummeled, disrespected and dismissed by every pundit and newsreader (they aren't reporters; they only play them on tv) and at the same time being the target of attacks from both the left and the right and the Bush administration.

Now the campaign moves out of the NorthEast (I don't know about Missouri...nobody even thought of going there until Gephardt quit) into areas that are more friendly AND which will cost the national media too much money to cover as closely as they did Iowa and New Hampshire. The name of the game now is delegates and while Clark has none today (it isn't wise to count superdelegates, though the other campaigns appear to do) that should change pretty quickly in the coming weeks.

If you want to make a difference, why not get on the train?

[Lefta Dissenter]

22. Perfect post, Mike!

I'm printing that out and posting it up over my desk. THANK YOU! :toast:

[girl gone mad]

15. If someone doesn't..

drop out, it will be tough to beat Kerry. I would like to see one of them make a deal. Any of the three would be a better choice than Kerry.

[srpantalonas]

17. Kerry scares me

I think we'll lose with him. I like him, but he's been there forever and what has he done? People won't see him as transformational. The sad fact of retail marketing is that "people don't lknow what they like, they like what they know" and they know Bush, and they don't know Kerry as anything but some Senator. Bush wins the comfort vote.

[Leilani]

18. Forget it!!!

Nuff said!

[ShaneGR]

19. Win a primary and then tell me who's dropping out

Edwards is winning SC for sure, and he'll do well in Missouri too.

[Kathleen04]

21. Let's try "if"..

but I'll indulge your Kerry vs. Dean hypothetical and go with Dean.

[Kahuna]

23. I'd jump over ten Dean's to get to one Kerry...

And I'm not that crazy about Kerry either. (lack of leadership issues) But at least Kerry didn't try to split and polorize the party.