Newsweek Poll: Dean Rising (Has 2 to 1 lead over Joe, Clark)

http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3703722&p1=01%7C%7C%7C%7C003

By Brian Braiker
NewsweekDec. 13 - Former Vice President Al Gore’s endorsement of Howard Dean appears to have hurtled the former Vermont governor into a comfortable lead ahead of the other Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll.

"I have come to the conclusion that in a field of great candidates, one candidate clearly now stands out," Gore told a $125-a-plate breakfast at the National Black Theater Institute of Action Art in Harlem on Dec. 9. Registered Democrats seem to have agreed: 24 percent of those polled rank Dean as their first choice, a big jump from 16 percent one month ago. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman are tied for a distant second with a distant 12 percent of Democrats pulling for their nomination (Clark is down from 15 percent while Lieberman is up from 8).

Meanwhile, neither good news on the economy, the passage of a Medicare bill nor his surprise Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad seem to have boosted President George W. Bush’s approval ratings among all registered voters: with 51 percent approving and 42 disapproving, his ratings are the lowest in the NEWSWEEK poll’s history. And less than half (45 percent) of voters say they want Bush to be reelected.
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A very good week for the Doctor.

I think people are looking at their own pocketbooks and not at the stock market......

Not that they might have noticed lies, lies and more lies. No one would trip over that.

Say the economy stays about the same as it is now--Dumbo and Rove will still spin it as an improving economy, and the stupid media will buy it. But it appears as if there's something fundamental going on where people think there's something very, very wrong with this administration.

Dumbo is ripe for the picking!!!!!!!!!!!

but only partially and only when the economy is helping the general public. Right now, stock holders getting rich is not all that thrilling for millions who don't have jobs.
With people seeing no improvement in their status and with the lie about Iraq... people have had it.
No matter how bush spins it, people now realize he has grown the government, increased the debt and lied to while thousands died.

...will return Bush to Crawford.

in a head-to-head matchup, if the general election were held now, Clark would have the best chance against Bush; 49 percent of registered voters would vote for or lean towards voting for Bush, while 43 percent would vote for or lean towards Clark.
So, a good week for the Dr is not necessarily a good week for the country. Fortunately, there are more weeks ahead until the actual votes (remember elections?)

and Dean's numbers vs Bush keep improving

that's not a big difference at least according to this poll.
It will be interesting what happens in the next few months.

Let's have some fun with math.

It could be Bush 48.5 (49), Dean 42.4 (42) = 6.1 point gap.
It could be Bush 49.4 (49), Clark 42.5 (43) = 6.9 point gap.

That's why we have concepts of margins of error and statistical significance, folks. (That's also why Newsweek doesn't start going to even the first decimal place. These are fuzzy numbers. "It's in the ballpark of..." would be the English equivalent.) Statistically, Dean and Clark are indistinguishable in this poll. In fact, they're both pretty much tied with Bush, a sitting president, which is pretty amazing almost 11 months before the election.

The poll shows that Dean and Clark would get 42% and 43% respectively, versus 49% for what's-his-name in both cases. One percent difference is well within the margin of error, so it's hard to tell who has the better chance of beating what's-his-name. Also don't forget that polls so early on are pretty inaccurate; after all, this is only a very small fraction of the registered voters that they are surveying.

...For two reasons. First is that you're trying to tease information out of numbers that just isn't there (statistical probability).

But the second reason is that Clark opted-in to the matching funds system, so he'll be limited to $45 million of total campaign spending until July, 2004. Bush won't. So Bush gets to run tens of millions of dollars in unanswered TV ads against Clark.

And we have real experience with that problem. Bob Dole in 1996 was on the opposite receiving end of Bill Clinton's millions in TV ads. And Bob Dole was dead before his convention.

So I'm getting a little tired of this tired argument. Not only are there no polling data to support it, there are campaign spending caps pointing the other way. I wish Clark opted out, but he didn't.

I thought Clarkies said he was the ONLY one electable.
heh, good news indeed.....

numbers when it's STILL measuring mere name recognition more than anything else at the national level.

Most people don't agree with him. However that is okay. If he gets the nomination democrats are going to have to suck it up and decide to stand behind the truth he is telling about Iraq. We need to educate the country about the reality of that "War". It is not going to be a comfortable fight, I hope we have the guts to risk it.

nt

Was there some point to you being cryptic? You may imagine we all read your mind, but we do not.
Let me guess, you think Iraq helps Bush in direct relation to the way it hurts Dean. Wrong, people are mad about the money and the lies, but they are in denial. And we are of course taling about two different groups of people with some limited cross-over.

Everybody's getting pulled into this quagmire.

the Dean vs public on Iraq will cause some of the skeletons in the closet... the plame affair, the uranium forgery, the WMD lies, Halliburton... to come out. Hopefully we can pull that off.

If Kerry goes down, will Rand Beers and Wilson transfer to Dean? I hope so.

Dean or Clark. Or whoever. It's about strategy, people. Not nitpicking.

If it's going to be Dean vs anti-Dean, it would be awful if it would be Lieberman. We could have a nice little Clark vs Dean war on who can diss Bush on national security the most. Assuming they just don't stupidly rip into each other. It also shows Kerry and Edwards at the same level as Sharpton.

Kerry had better use his tactical nuke soon, or he's out.

Clark v. Dean = Liberal ex-general versus liberal ex-governor

Since when is Clark the anti-Dean? DU'ers talk about giving voters a real choice, but why is it they prefer that voters choose among two liberals?

It just seems that Clark is the anointed anti-Dean. And many people here will argue that Clark is a Bush mole, so I don't see that he's that liberal.

And, for balance's sake, Dean is also a centrist.

So you have a centrist and a centrist and a center-right-hawk. Nobody's really gonna be shaking the country with earth shattering revolution.

It's amazing the kind of headlines you can come up with using the exact same facts.

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president? * 1426 web responses
RESPONSES WEB Newsweek Magazine

Approve 19% 51%
Disapprove 80% 42%
Don't know 1% 7%
Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the economy? * 1428 web responses
RESPONSES WEB Newsweek Magazine

Approve 19% 45%
Disapprove 80% 46%
Don't know 1% 9%
Does the current state of the economy make you more likely or less likely to vote to re-elect Bush? * 1430 web responses
RESPONSES WEB Newsweek Magazine

More likely 16% 30%
Less likely 66% 37%
No effect 18% 29%
Don't know 0% 4%
Consider the way George W. Bush and his administration have handled the situation in postwar Iraq. Does this make you more likely or less likely to vote to re-elect Bush? * 1426 web responses
RESPONSES WEB Newsweek Magazine

More likely 15% 34%
Less likely 79% 44%
No effect 6% 18%
Don't know 1% 4%
If Howard Dean is the Democratic Party's candidate for president next year, how much of a chance do you think he has of defeating George W. Bush in the November election - a good chance, some chance, very little chance, or no chance whatsoever? * 1433 web responses
RESPONSES WEB Newsweek Magazine

A good chance 55% 22%
Some chance 20% 31%
Very little chance 9% 24%
No chance whatsoever 15% 10%
Don't know 1% 13%
Which of the following do you think is the most important reason why Howard Dean has emerged as the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential race? * 1407 web responses
RESPONSES WEB Newsweek Magazine

His opposition to the Iraq war 36% 24%
Voter anger at the Washington Democratic establishment 29% 13%
His use of the Internet 13% 8%
His appeal to young voters 9% 24%
Don't know 14% 31%

Link: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3703611/

that for most of 1999, Gore was anywhere from 10 to 15% behind Bush in most major polls. Given that he ran a lukewarm-at-best campaign and still finished with half a million more votes, I'd say Dean is in pretty good shape. Especially if he continues to run a kick-ass campaign, and if can mobilize 3 or 4 million new voters to the polls next November.