Blue Jersey's First Presidential Strawpoll

For My Money (4.00 / 1)

Edwards is the only one speaking to what I feel is the most role the government has--protecting the people.

Tres FDR

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by: M. Sullivan @ Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 18:27:45 PM UTC

Al Gore should be a choice (0.00 / 0)

I voted "Other" but would have selected Gore had he been an option.

I would guess there are others out there who'd go the same way, hmmmm??

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by: kevmor @ Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 19:29:34 PM UTC

if/when he announces, we'll add him nt (0.00 / 0)

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by: Juan Melli @ Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 20:10:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Gore '08 (0.00 / 0)

Frankly, I'm thinking Al has some real mojo coming into this cycle -- a positive message about the challenges we face ecologically that could prove tremendously galvanizing. I hope he runs.

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by: denniscmcgrath @ Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 20:12:57 PM UTC

maybe he'll use the post oscars... (0.00 / 0)

...for the announcment.  assuming he wins of course.  i mean, the media would be paying attention at that point anyway.  i guess al gore whole pretty much blow the whole running calculus. Hello.

activist for hire.

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by: Jay Lassiter @ Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 21:07:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

1) Edwards 2) Clark 3) Vilsack 4) Biden 5) Obama (0.00 / 0)

Edwards seems to be becoming the consensus pick of the progressive community, online or not, and I find myself inspired by him like I've been with few other candidates -- and I think he would win a general election against Giuliani-McCain-Romney-Gingrich. Incidentally, he has recently picked Corzine's traveling press secretary, Teresa Wells, to take on the same position in his campaign.

Gore, who has recently disbanded some of his political committees (not a sign of someone who is running for president), has unfavorable ratings that best his favorable ratings, and he reminds me of Kerry in that regard.  I wonder whether a changing of the guard from the Clinton-Gore years isn't necessary, too.

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by: Martin @ Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 22:14:00 PM UTC

You're probably right about Gore (0.00 / 0)

But that won't stop me from being a latter-day Jacobite, pining away for the Restoration of the True King.

We wuz robbed by our Cromwell, and the last six years feel illegitmate. There hasn't been as much open warfare as the English Civil War, true, but perhaps we've been lucky.

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by: kevmor @ Wed Feb 07, 2007 at 14:30:58 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

immigration... (4.00 / 2)

...is gonna be a really hot issue next cycle and i think it'd be really advantagous for us to have someone like richardson on the ticket (at least well into primary season) to get the debate going. i have a feeling with an issue like immigration it could go either way for us so it's gonna be important to make sure we start it and keep it moving on our own terms.

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by: mariel2036 @ Tue Feb 06, 2007 at 23:37:13 PM UTC

Last Thing We Need (0.00 / 0)

The last thing that presidential politics needs at this point is more polls, especially more straw polls.  Right now, they are either a measure of name recognition or a way to express discontent without requiring any other action.

I agree with Dennis (I know, I don't see any snowballs in Hell either!) about Gore.  He would be my first choice.  Unfortunately, I am forced to believe his repeated denials and will probably wind up as an Edwards supporter.

Unfortunately, with the continued frontloading, the consequence seems to be to magnify the significance of NH and IA.

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by: Creed Pogue @ Wed Feb 07, 2007 at 04:34:22 AM UTC

frontloading (0.00 / 0)

Would you prefer for NJ to retain their irrelevant status as an ATM machine and source of volunteer labor for IA and NH?  I would actually prefer a single national primary election day that is later, not earlier in the process (approximately 30-45 days before the national convention).

As far as straw polls go, I think that this one is harmless and less fueled by name recognition than most since I am pretty sure that most of the 59 people who have cast a vote thus far are savvy enough to make a decision based upon a good enough understanding of who the various candidates are and what they stand for rather than name recognition.

I am still baffled by the support for Al Gore that I continuously hear about.  Yes, An Inconvenient Truth was a great movie and Gore definitely deserves an Oscar and a Nobel for his work on the environment, but is he really any different than the dreadful candidate/campaigner that he was in 2000?

As far as Edwards goes, I could be wrong, but I think that the strong support that he is getting right now amongst progressives has to do with the lack of a truly progressive option (don't get me started on why Kucinich fails to qualify for that) and a recognition that he, Hillary, and Obama are the only candidates with a chance in hell of winning the Democratic nomination and based on this narrowed scope of the field, they are basing their support more on the belief that he has the best chance of beating the Republican nominee and less about common values.

Most progressives will use his antipoverty agenda as their reason for supporting him, but I have a hard time believing that any sophsticated progressive truly believes that a real war on poverty is possible even under a Democratic House and Senate under the current pay-as-you-go environment.  For this reason, I think that the Edwards antipoverty agenda is almost as insincere as his mea culpa for his vote in favor of the war in Iraq.

That said, I think that Iowa will be huge for Edwards unless Clinton or Obama can cut into his numbers there, which even as early in the process as we are now appears unlikely unless Edwards does or says something very stupid, which is very unlikely since he does not appear to be running a campaign that involves any risks whatsoever.

And with South Carolina in Edwards back pocket, Clinton and Obama will need to sweep Nevada and New Hampshire to stall his momentum.  And if Obama is able to sweep those states, New Jersey could by Hillary's Waterloo, especially if the Edwards and Obama campaigns are as organized here as I think that they will be.

I still believe that Corzine and most of the Democratic establishment will be with Hillary when push comes to shove, but it may not be as monolithic as I once thought.  It will be interesting to see who John Graham supports.  If he goes with Edwards as I expect he will and the progressive community goes there as well, Edwards will have a base of support that will be able to compete with the Democratic establishment, especially if the urban mayors go for Obama as I predict that they will.

If this all happens, then Corzine et al will have a lot of egg on his face as Hillary will probably win or lose with less than 40% of the vote and will not be able to get much traction from such a pyrrhic victory.

Bill Richardson is probably the only candidate outside of the big 3 that has a shot at surprising people as he could get some momentum out of a win in Nevada, although I think that it is more likely that Harry Reid will roll the dice and endorse Clinton, Edwards, or Obama in an attempt to position himself for the VP slot.

Does anybody else think that an Obama/Richardson ticket would either be brilliant or political suicide, but not anything in between?  Personally, I am leaning towards brilliance, because I think that it would take full advantage of the supercharged organization that Howard Dean has put together at the DNC, result in significant voter registration increases and turnout in urban areas.  I addition to maximizing the national non-white vote, I think that this team could get a 50/50 split amongst white women and 45/55 split amongst white men, which should be enough to win if the nonwhite vote goes 90/10.

My only concern would be the Jewish vote if John McCain picks Joe Lieberman to be his VP as I predict that he will to enhance his crossover appeal that will probably be challenged on many occasions over the next year.

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by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Wed Feb 07, 2007 at 16:01:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Where Do You Start? (0.00 / 0)

There are a lot of false choices in this.  All the polling does is let us know that the junior Senator from New York is known by many people.  It doesn't answer any questions about her electability or lack thereof.  It doesn't answer any questions about whether Edwards, Obama, Gore or anyone else is truly a viable candidate.

Neither your bafflement nor your "interesting" scenarios is anything new so I will not bother to comment on either.

All I am trying to say is that people should be given the opportunity to decide who they like without the artifical pressure to go with a frontrunner today.  I would think that is something we both could agree on.

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by: Creed Pogue @ Wed Feb 07, 2007 at 16:46:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

straw poll (0.00 / 0)

I would think we could all agree that polls like this are fun and hurt nobody. If you don't want to vote, move along to the next post.

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by: Juan Melli @ Wed Feb 07, 2007 at 16:59:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think everyone should have fun and vote. (0.00 / 0)

And that we should have punch and pie.

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by: JRB @ Thu Feb 08, 2007 at 03:41:23 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

what kind of punch? what kind of pie? (0.00 / 0)

Let's have a straw poll to decide, unless the last thing that we need is another poll in our lives dictating the kind of punch that we drink and pie that we eat.

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by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Thu Feb 08, 2007 at 05:09:00 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

actually, what this poll does is... (0.00 / 0)

...tell us that only 2 out of 68 Blue Jersey readers who voted like Hillary Clinton.  I think that tells us much more than the "scientific" polling data out there that is much more about name recognition than the Blue Jersey straw poll.

As far as viability goes, I think that is an irrelevant issue, just like electability was in 2004.  Every candidate in the current Democratic field with the exception of Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich is a "viable" candidate based on my understanding of what the word means.

If Chris Dodd, Tom Vilsack or any other single digit longshot somehow won the Democratic nomination, he would have as much of a shot if not possibly a greater one than Clinton, Edwards, or Obama to defeat John McCain or Rudy Giuliani in the general election, because he would have the full support of the national Democratic political apparatus.

What is unfortunate is that because the primary process is so money and name-recognition driven, the candidate who wins is not necessarily the candidate who will best take advantage of that apparatus.  Joe Biden doesn't have a chance in hell of winning the Democratic nomination, but his experience, especially with regards to foreign policy, would probably position him best against an opponent like McCain.

John Kerry won the Democratic nomination in 2004, because he was perceived as electable, but in reality, he was only electable enough to stay within 3 percentage points of Bush in either direction, which was more than enough for the Republican dirty tricks machine to steal.  Howard Dean would have either won or lost by 10 points, which would have been too much of a margin for the same Republican dirty tricks machine to overcome.

There is only artificial pressure to go with a front runner if someone is more interested in voting for someone who they think can win than someone who shares their values.  Based on the Blue Jersey straw poll, it appears that very few of the voters based their decision on artificial pressure to go with a frontrunner.

If you want to go to the Gallup, Zogby, Rasmussen, Quinnipiac, or Eagleton websites and tell them to stop polling, because they are having a detrimental effect on the democratic process, I would be more than happy to join you.  But for the reasons that I have provided, I don't think that your complaints apply to the Blue Jersey straw poll.

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by: Bertin Lefkovic @ Thu Feb 08, 2007 at 05:46:12 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's GORE (0.00 / 0)

for me, as well!  Or else, I would settle on Webb!  No one else comes close!

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by: krose @ Wed Feb 07, 2007 at 16:03:26 PM UTC