The numbers for Edwards and especially Gore are surprising.

Your link doesn't work.  This one does for me.  I don't know if gallup does screwy urling.

Further evidence that the Gore late entry scenario is a recipe for failure. I think Chris is correct to say that many democrats weren't remotely impressed by his 2000 campaign. If Gore had started in Jan 2007 then he would have had a decent chance of convincing people that this time around he's a new man. But the still possible, though unlikely, late entry will not give him enough time to persuade people that he's a strong campaigner.

I think your analysis to Clinton's electability number misses the most important aspect; money.  I have never spoken to a single person about her chances in the primary or general without them referring to how big her warchest will be.  

Right or wrong (I happen to think recent elections have given us indications it is wrong) there is a widespread perception that s/he who has the most money will win.  She seems to be able to raise the most money, therefore she is most electable.  QED.

Frankly, I would have thought the fact that Kerry won Iowa and New Hampshire primarily because he was perceived as the most electable would have been enough to squash the idea that it is a useful analysis.  I guess I was wrong.

It is increasingly starting to look like a two person race Clinton and Obama. If Gore could not enter and pull it off and Edwards is slipping the only other scenario left would be for someone like Richardson to get traction and move out of the second tier. It would take a lot of money and momentum to do that though. Other than Richardson there is not really anyone else even in the second tier who could do it considering the low poll numbers Biden, Dodd, etc. have.

Wow, Hillary has absolutely no excuse not to win in Iowa now. She'll have far more money than everyone else (maybe even everyone else combined). The state's favorite son has dropped out because she can raise more in one night than he could raise in three months. And there's still almost an entire year before the Iowa Caucuses, plenty of time for her (and Bill) to make her case directly to Iowa Democrats and independents.

If she can't close the sale in this swing state, with all of these inherent advantages, then she's clearly the wrong choice for a general election campaign.

At the Oscars, Al Gore won Best Documentary Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth", a highly deserved award for an important film. Even a utility company in Texas got the global warming message.

A Gore/Obama ticket would be a shoo-in. But Gore won't get into this fray. Too bad; he's more relaxed now and wouldn't drone on about a Social Security "lockbox".

Homer   www.altara.blogspot.com

It was quite apparent that former Mayor Giuliani is the darling of the media, alongside of Senator Obama.  

That is the contest the establishment prays for, because the greener-than-green Senator Obama will be re-defined (one envisions: "Was that Osama or Obama?" style commercials) devoured by the former Mayor's minions, thus preserving another two terms of sheer misery for most of the American electorate, whose nation is now rapidly dying much as the USSR was a quarter-century earlier.

If the United States is to survive, no GOP president can rule for at least another eight years--a correction, not merely a lip-service perceived more progressive social correction in former Mayor Giuliani is in order.  The Supreme Court is already far Right for the foreseeable future--Giuliani will assuredly kow-tow to his Right wing acolytes if put in power.

And of course, having so long genuflected before President Bush 43, Giuliani will continue with the horrid quagmire not merely in Iraq but in the Middle East as a whole.  The ultimate egoist, he will believe that running the United States is rather like running New York City, and apply his dictatorial practices to such an administration.

His fuming, notorious rages will also manifest themselves concerning foreign relations.  The result will be a moribund United States, more isolated in the world than ever.

Of course he would preserve the status quo for the Right regime which, with the exception of the moderate Clinton administration, has governed America, to its great detriment, for a very long Dark Ages.

And it is why the media trumpets him, his "electability," his "broad appeal," without even considering his egregious qualities, background, and total lack of presidential credentials.  Giuliani is the last of the images surviving from the very false constructs manifested by the status quo in the aftermath of 9/11.

Yet it is not enough to trumpet his seemingly "broad appeal"--to get Giuliani, warts and all, in the White House requires that his bizarre (by anybody's standards) personal life, baggage of also bizarre (by anybody's standards) business deals, and truly bizarre (by anybody's standards) fits of distemperment somehow remain veiled from the electorate.

And for any other candidate running, save Senator Clinton, that will be difficult to do.  This is because she and her husband alone in the current political arena understand just how ruthless is the Right Wing.  

The Clintons have learned, deeply battle-scarred of the "culture wars" as they have been, that indeed the best defense is a very bold offense.  One must understand that former Mayor Giuliani's horrendous aspects can only come to light (the established press will be covering for him all the way) if a very well-oiled political machine like that of the Clintons (and no other players on the political scene come close to having such a machine) can drive home those Giuliani negatives.

This is why that same established press first baited Senator Obama, and now effusively sings his praises.  To witness longtime Clinton haters like Chris Matthews and Brian Williams speak of him, Senator Obama is Christ and Buddha combined.  It is hysterical to witness their obsequious praise.

But that, dear bloggers, is the great ruse.  In truth, it remains the Clintons that the establishment much fears.  They know all too well that their Rudy--their last hope at preserving the Rightward status quo--is also a very loose cannonball.  Against the political masters, the Clinton tandem, implode Rudy shall, and those notorious Giuliani warts will rise far above the false imagery of 9/11--as only the Clinton machine can drive them to.

This is the last American Civil War before us.  It is between the last effort at preserving the current ORDER (Bush to Bush to Giuliani) or an attempt to return to the OLD (the Clintons). There will be no middle ground.  And, although the wistful progressive bloggers may wish otherwise, all the other candidates are in fact minor players.  

Senator Obama is there as the wedge to offset the Clintons and help buttress Giuliani.  If ever Senator Obama were to become the Democratic candidate, his devouring would be truly sad to witness.

Contrary to the perception of the bloggers, it is the potency of the Clinton tandem that the establishment fears.  The question for them now becomes, how long can they sustain that false 9/11 patina for their darling Rudy?  His warts surfacing inevitably can only drive his numbers precipitiously downward.

Hopefully the obsequious praise of Senator Obama will be enough to divert and drive a Democratic Party wedge.  Otherwise, neither press nor pundits nor weird pollsters nor Ralph Nader nor Supreme Court will prevent the Clintons from returning.  

They are beyond being masters of the political game.  Much to the chagrin of this current order (media darling Giuliani included), the Clintons have learned how to make the process their very own game.

The glaring omission in the OP is which wing of the Party the various candidates are identified with.

Gore is a moderate wing candidate, furthest to right politically.  Edwards is positioned at the junction of the moderate wing and Left wing.  (This site is essentially Left wing.)  Kucinich is essentially Left wing but noncredible.  Obama is positioned at the junction of the Left wing and the liberal wing.  Hillary tries all kinds of positioning, but the public knows she's clearly liberal wing at heart and pragmatic/cautious in action.  (At the moment the mushy middle prefers that stance, prefers to let Republicans disqualify themselves and their policies fail.)

Bluntly, moderate wing-identified candidates fail now.  Their wing's time was from 1998 to 2001.  They're not trusted to do the hard stuff.  Edwards and Gore do well in Border States, but Blue State voters see them as blahdom incarnate (despite photogenicity) and defined by small issues, business interests, and cowardice before the big problems. Left wing-identified candidates (Dean, e.g.) don't do well enough either- our problems as a society are not essentially ones of management, employment rules, government programs, or a proper ideology for expanding economic rights.  The Left wing lost out in the early/mid Eighties and its resurgence is soon but not yet.

Hillary and Obama lead because they are identified with the liberal wing.  That was also why Kerry got the nomination three years ago.  The liberal wing is the one that has credibility on the issues that matter- properly reshaping the federal government, purging it of the colonialist (corporatist/segregationist/religionist/ imperialist) ideology and Cold War messes and leftovers that define it now.  Iraq/'Terror', deficits, corruptions, subsidies, deliberate inefficiencies, structural social iniquity and inequality, and degeneration internationally.

The competition...well, all three coherent wings of the Republican Party are presently discredited.  Their moderates were done with in '90/'92, the conservative wing in '98/'00, and now The People is finished with their classical Right wing.  Their candidates are running off to the center or far Right, or both at the same time.  Their Party is unelectable in '08, even though they'll still get a reluctant 45% to 48% of votes.

Whoever brings the troops home from Iraq, and supports the ENFORCEMENT of our current immigration laws, will get the support of MODERATE DEMOCRATS and win BIG!! DEPORT ILLEGAL ALIENS!

Interesting poll. I'm certainly not going to gnash my teeth over it. There's a natural tendency to assign everything great to the person who is in front.

Hell, it doesn't even have to be a person. I've experimented with this before: play a tape of an obscure horse race on TV. Then midway through the race, stop the tape and ask someone who will win. In incredible percentage they pick the horse who is in front. Regardless if it's a nag longshot speedball who is about to wilt in the next 200 yards.

I would rate it Edwards, Obama and then Clinton. But 2008 is definitely much more difficult to evaluate electability than '04. I've abused my related theory, that it takes populist likability and charisma to oust a presidential incumbent, and only Edwards fit in '04.

No doubt Chris is right, that Edwards suffers from '04 association. I hear the word phony attached to him occasionally now. And one trick pony. But if he were to gain the nomination it would mean vanquishing heavyweight Hillary and star power Obama, so Edwards would regain a glow and benefit of a doubt and IMO his electability level at that point would surpass anything Hillary or Obama can manage.

Electability in my mind means holding the Kerry states plus at least one among Virginia, Florida or Ohio. Unless the nation tilts decidedly our way, Hillary is going to be hard pressed to carry any of those. None of those states have demonstrated a tendency to elect women to high statewide office. You've got backward thinking white males who are going to reject her in small but critical percentage.

Just two nights ago a registered independent friend of mine, but one who thinks and generally votes to the right, said to me, "Guys like me MIGHT vote for Obama. There's no chance I'm voting for Hillary." He is a straight shooter and a reliable barometer. He likes Edwards more than any recent Democrat. Last fall he told me the same thing about the Democratic gubernatorial nomination between Jim Gibson and Dina Titus, that he could have supported Gibson but not Titus.

That's one reason I don't reject electability. My most recent experience is not March 2004, but August 2006. And now this state has to live with a buffoon like Jim Gibbons as a result.