NY Times: Dean's Odds? Surely, 50-50

[La_Serpiente]

Dean's Odds? Surely, 50-50

WHETHER you consider a half-century of history or listen to the claims of his rivals, it looks as if Howard Dean has a 50-50 shot at winning the Democratic presidential nomination in July.

Since 1952, Democrats have tried 10 times to put a new president in office. (We're not counting the campaigns of 1964, 1980 and 1996, when the Democrats renominated an incumbent president.) In 5 of those 10 campaigns, the candidate leading in the national polls in January, like Dr. Dean, went on to win the nomination: Adlai E. Stevenson in 1956, John F. Kennedy in 1960, Walter F. Mondale in 1984, Bill Clinton in 1992, Al Gore in 2000.

The other half of the front-runners did not make it. In January 1952, Estes Kefauver was favored by nine percentage points over President Harry S. Truman, but after Mr. Truman withdrew, the Democratic nomination went to Mr. Stevenson. Heading into the 1968 campaign, Robert F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson were essentially tied for first, but after Mr. Johnson dropped out and Mr. Kennedy was assassinated, the nomination went to Hubert H. Humphrey.

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Dean's Odds? Surely, 50-50

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[izzie]

1. My guess, even with all the GOP talk ,it is 50/50

My reasons are this, if your interested. The country is 50/50 right down to state houses and their bodies. We really took more of the 2000 pop. vote and college vote was really very iffy. If the people in Fa had voted right Gore would have taken that state.The people who love war and all that will be counter acted for by the anti-war and jobs going out of country people and war dead. Also this stepping onto taking rights has two sides in both parties.

[tedoll78]

2. Actually..

considering Gore votes and Nader votes totalled together, there is an argument to be made that this nation has the potential to turn leftward nicely.

[Bombtrack]

5. I'd say 9-11 produced enough conservatism to even it out

it got people listening to talk radio and watching cable news, which means alot of new conservatives, and dems who became independants

[Padraig18]

3. Another factor:

I can't locate the thread right now, but in the last several decades, the candidate who led in fundraising as of 1/1/YearXXXX has always gone on to secure the nomination.

50/50? At least...:)

[La_Serpiente]

4. that is true

the only other exception to that precedent occured in the Democratic primaries of 1968.