Dean, Gephardt Tied for Lead in Iowa Poll

Dean, Gephardt Tied for Lead in Iowa Poll

WASHINGTON - Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt (news - web sites) are tied for the lead in the Democratic presidential race in Iowa, according to a poll of likely caucus voters.

Dean, former governor of Vermont, was at 25 percent and Gephardt, the Missouri congressman, was at 21 percent. The poll was conducted by Research 2000 for KCCI-TV of Des Moines and KIMT-TV of Mason City.

The difference between the two was within the error margin of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20030828/ap_on_el_pr/iowa_poll&e=1

He might pull out Iowa, because its so close to Missouri
and the name recognition, but everywhere else, he is post toasties
it will be Kerry/Clark/Dean

Or ma'am.

Even he admits that. And if Dean wins both Iowa and New Hampshire, he will have momentum that is close to unstoppable.

He was on Hardball (I know, I know, I shouldn't watch that schizoid Tweety) and Zogby said he is close to saying that Dean almost has a ticket to Boston (Dem. convention), meaining, obviously, that Dean is almost a shoe-in for the nomination. But he wasn't taking the monkey wrenches of Hillary or Clark into account, as far as I could tell.

Gephardt always does well in Iowa (he busses in supporters from Missouri and has strong union backing). If he can't cruise in Iowa, he's got nowhere to go after that.

I think that the big question now is if the Dean snowball keeps rolling, will Clark simply decide to sit out the '04 race altogether (secure in the knowledge that Dean would literally beg him to be Veep).

I agree with another post here. If Kerry doesn't start showing some signs of life in the next two months or so, the race is over for him.

This will be Dean's first test with Black voters.

which had Dean and Gep statistically tied with Dean 2-points ahead.

I wonder if he loses Iowa, will it all start to unravel?

Dean is the frontrunner nationally, though.

What must be sobering for Gephardt's campaign staff is that this his single best shot in the early contest where he had all the built in advantages along with a warm affection with Iowa Democrats --- and now he's trailing Dean.

Still, Gephardt is a strong contender at this point, something that can no longer be said about John Kerry and the rest of the pack.

But if the "high gear" they are planning to move his campaign to(including his official announcement) fails to create an important boost, then he is in big trouble. We'll probably know by early October how things are going for him...

But at some point some questions must be asked:

If Howard Dean can pull together such a smashing campaign and to continue eating up the scenery, why can't the others?

What has their money, talent, and campaign staffs brought them?

Do we, as Democrats who want to see Bush removed from office, want to rest our hopes in individuals who cannot put together an effective primary campaign?

Every four years I realize what a great system we have. Though certainly not perfect, it does hone campaign skills.

of the main contenders are out of the race yet. Polls have margins of error and people just plain change their minds. Also, we are not a cross section of the American voting public. We pay close attention the speeches, the endorsements and who has popular support and where. I would be willing to bet that the majority of Americans couldn't distinguish between Gephardt, Kerry and Dean in a lineup, at this point. I wish this were not true, but I believe it is.:-(

on edit: Check out this sad testament from Information Clearing House on the knowledge of everyday Americans:

Is This The Reason Bush Is Our President?

Is This The Reason The American People Supported The Illegal Invasion Of Iraq?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4562.htm