Clark leads in another state poll: Alabama [View All]

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/106534573659010.xml

snip..

10/05/03

By SEAN REILLY
Washington Bureau


The good news for retired Gen. Wesley Clark: Roughly two weeks after jumping into the Democratic presidential fray, he leads the 10-candidate field in Alabama, according to a new Mobile Register-University of South Alabama poll of 405 likely primary voters.


The bad news: Clark's share of the vote amounted to just 13 percent. He was followed by U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri at 11 percent, with U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York at 9 percent each.

While Howard Dean has been firing up Democratic activists elsewhere in the county, only 5 percent of Alabama Democrats would cast their ballots for the former Vermont governor.
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This is the fourth state poll that Clark has led. He has led in NY, CA, WI and now Alabama. Does this make him the frontrunner yet? I think at this point that reporters are being disengenuous and downplaying Clark as the new frontrunner. I can suggest two reasons. In primary lingo, frontrunner means whomever is expected to win the first two races, and excluding the fact that the so-called frontrunner is polling at the the top of ONLY those two polls. Or, the press wants to continue to downplay Clark's popularity to stop his momentum.