Front-runner is a status vulnerable to change. (NY Times Article yesterday)

[gateley]

Out in front, Clinton still faces formidable opponents

NEWS ANALYSIS
By Adam Nagourney

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 -- - Anyone wanting to understand why Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign is being praised these days in many quarters — including rival campaigns and the White House — needed to look no further than their televisions on Sunday morning. Mrs. Clinton appeared on five interview programs, the campaign equivalent of a home run.

Mrs. Clinton appeared from her home and for the most part on her terms, primarily to talk about health care, wringing another day of what has been mostly positive coverage from the plan she announced Sept. 17.

Mrs. Clinton’s proposal came long after the ones put forward by former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, and it was very much derivative of them. No matter; by the end of the week, her plan was, at least for the moment, defining the discussion — serving as a reminder that the Democratic presidential contest these days is to a considerable degree being defined by and around Mrs. Clinton.

Politicians and journalists inevitably try to simplify crowded political contests by identifying one candidate as a front-runner, long before a single American even votes. It is a designation that is often based on the most tenuous of evidence and one that often proves to be wrong.

snip

More... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20982557/

[NC_Nurse]

1. That's what I'm counting on.

I REALLY don't want to be stuck with her. She's WAY too centrist and beholden to corporate interests for me.
And I think her health plan blows.

[gateley]

3. That's my hope as well, which is why I DEVOUR pieces like this! Good luck

to both our candidates!

PS -- I'm in NC, too if that's what the NC means. Biden (my guy) said "give us more Democrats" so they're not shot down every time on the floor, and I vowed to get involved in the local level. I just vowed that this morning, so I haven't accomplished anything yet. :7

[tekisui]

8. NO MORE DOLE!

[gateley]

12. I saw her speak the other day and she looked as though she'd walked off the

set of Dynasty. Maybe she's not really alive and her embalmed remains are being manipulated. It was really spooky.

[NC_Nurse]

10. I have yet to volunteer this year...

But yes, Burr and Dole are AWFUL.

I may yet go volunteer for the Edwards campaign, but I don't know when I'd be able to help.

[Hippo_Tron]

2. True, but Hillary's lead is a lot bigger than the typical frontrunner

Still, Hillary's so-called inevitability is perhaps the only thing that could be her undoing. For her sake, I hope that her advisers aren't already assuming they have it locked up.

[Clintonista2]

4. Hillary has been leading since 2003, too

People like to claim that Dean was in the lead around this time 2003 in order to prove that things can change very quickly. However, if you look at polls around that time, if Hillary was included on the list, she beat dean by almost 3 to 1.

[Hippo_Tron]

6. Yea, but the front-runner vulnerability goes back way before Dean

Early favorites and front-runners have tended to collapse in Democratic Primaries, except for incumbent Presidents and Vice Presidents, going back to when McGovern upset Ed Muskie.

Republicans, on the other hand, almost always try to anoint a candidate as early as possible and take down all meaningful opposition.

[Pab Sungenis]

7. Yep.

2004 Howard Dean
2000 Al Gore
1992 Mario Cuomo
1988 Gary Hart
1984 Walter Mondale
1976 Henry Jackson
1972 Edmund Muskie
1968 Eugene McCarthy

Only two of those front-runners ever went on to win the nomination, and both lost in November.

[Hippo_Tron]

9. Well to be fair, Mario Cuomo might have won if he'd actually run

[slick8790]

13. That doesn't show me anything positive.

It shows me it's mostly name recognition.

[gateley]

5. Her advisors are too smart to start feeling confident. Someone posted an

e-mail her campaign sent out where she was asking for contributions by a certain date which would translate to the media that she has even more more money and support. So they're not resting on their laurels.

[jillan]

11. Guess there is another scandal about her fund raising today.

It is getting to be as bad as Bsh - a new scandal everyday.