Time for people to drop out

Okay. Time to winnow the Democratic Primary field.

Dean is good to go. He raised about $15 million for the quarter, and has solid poll numbers across the board.

Clark is good to go. He has the buzz, a great deal of momentum, several strong poll showings, and the power of the Clinton fundraising machine behind him. He's in good shape.

Gephardt is good to go. Fundraising is not great, but he's still holding his own in the Iowa, and will likely win the Feb. 2 primary in Missouri. And he's got strong labor backing which should make him competitive elsewhere.

Edwards is good to go. He's got cash (though fundraising appears to be tailing off), and is surging in South Carolina.

Kerry is on the bubble. He's showing anemic poll numbers, but he still has the money and institutional backing to make a comeback. But he's got to show -- something. I don't know what, but he's falling behind.

Lieberman should drop out. He's showing uniformly plummeting poll numbers. He claimed victory at the NY debate because he wasn't booed. He doesn't have a lot of cash. He's become a sort of joke amongst the party faithful.

Graham should drop out. He seems like a good guy, and his 9-11 criticisms were important, even if they were ignored. But he has no money, no poll presence, no charisma, and no buzz.

Braun, Kucinich and Sharpton should stick around. They help pull the party to the left, which I think is a good thing. And if nothing else, they can make our more "centrist" candidates look even more moderate than might otherwise be the case.

So let's see .... that's only two of the seven "serious" candidates that are really out of the running and should drop down. That's not really whittling the field down much. Which is perhaps a testament to the strength of our field this year.

And it makes for great political drama for those of us who enjoy these sorts of things.

Posted October 01, 2003 09:45 AM | Comments (379)