Dean and Gephardt fight for 1st place with Kerry fading in 3rd place and Edwards surging for 4th

This was the Iowa polling from 4 years ago. Many believed it was already a done deal - Gephardt and Dean were locked in a close fight and the winner would cruise to the nomination as Kerry faded and Edwards remained too unknown.

See http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=1173 ("Dean leading Gephardt 25-23 percent, with Kerry in third place at 14 percent. But the real news was that Edwards had moved up to 13 percent, just one point behind Kerry.")

Just a reminder of the limited value of polling this early. Don't expect any second tier candidates to jump into contention, but don't doubt that Obama, Hillary, and Edwards will be trading off for the lead in the early caucus and primary states between now and February (when the nomination will be over before I - and most of us - get to vote).

This shows how little these polls are worth.

And he came out of the race the nominee. To all the Edwards supporters who have to fight charges that John isn't going to be the nominee, and Obama or Hillary is...hang in there!! Frontrunners this early have a history of downfalling eventually. Not saying they will, but we'll see. I think Edwards and Richardson will get a lot more competitive sooner then later!!

and gave all his delegates to Kerry. It wasn't so much a "surge" as a smokey back room sweatheart deal.

I watched on tv as the delegates changed rooms. He didn't announce it, but his votes went to John Kerry. Look it up.

Toward the early going it seemed as if Dick Gephardt would just take it. He'd won Iowa once before, he was a neighbor from Missouri, he knew a pig from a cow, he did the ethanol thing as well or better than anybody, he was tall, blond, and reminded people of their junior high school principal.

He got 11% of the vote on caucus night the following January, was buried alive, and dropped out of the race. I wasn't just off the mark, I wasn't even on the canvas.

and make their decisions well into the series of debates.

It is the Republican powerstructure strategy to make their candidate "inevitable'" so debates don't even come into play much on the GOP side.

Democratic voters are wired completely differently - we want to hear the candidates debate as much as possible first.

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