Rob that is not true IA will most likely move up it's caucus as will NH.

I disagree strongly with your contention that "We are 6 months to 1 year ahead of where things were in 2004." That is far too radical an attempted adjustment to compensate for changed circumstances. I would couner that a 6 weeks to 3 month shift is far more accurate.

Furthermore, frontloading favors momentum as well as favoring organziation, as there are reasons to suspect (supported by the 2004 experience) that the new hyper media attention to presidential politics will make perceived momentum at the time of the first contests a bigger variable than organziation in determining subsequent outcomes.

There is no historical track record to suggest that a "snap shot" taken of a presidential primary campaign taken 60 days prior to the first votes being cast, let alone 7 months prior, is remotely a reliable indicator of what the real results will likely look like once actual votes start getting counted.

I see the logical point you are making. Probably most significant is that all three of our leading candiates seem to be trending down, rather than only ups and downs going on between them. Also I factor in the rise of Richardson, and the rise of Gore when he gets included in polls also, as further evidence that earlier pundit efforts to frame the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination as an essentially closed contest between "the big three" was premature.

Kery was third in that snapshot you mention, but not grouped closely with the front runners, and later he almost fell out of contention completely before staking everything on a come from behind strategy in Iowa. Certainly it was not a predictable glide path that he folowed.

Actually when Dean faltered in 2004 it WAS Clark who was able to take advantage. Clark climbed from single digits in NH polls in December to a statistical margin of error tie for first place in with Dean in New Hampshire by mid January. It was only when Dean got essentially knocked out of the race in Iowa that Clark was unable to take advantage, because he could not claim to be one of the victors who knocked out Dean, since Clark was not competing in Iowa. Kerry and Edwards earned the headlines and momentum, and even Clark edging out Edwwards for third the following week in NH couldn't change that.

It wasn't money that stopped Clark. He raised the most of anyone in January, and he had organizations in place in multiple states that delivered him 3 second places finishes to Kerry (including New Mexico and Arizona) that far outstripped the votes gained by the third place finishers there. Edwards however won South Carolina which solidified his hold on the title as Kerry's main adversary.  

The lesson from 2004 was; if you enter after the point where you can organize a campaign in all of the first wave of contests, you likely are entering too late. But Clark 04 is a poor base line point of reference to apply, because Clark was building his campaign then up from the literal bottom with no prior political foundation whatsoever to build upon. It was that reality, more than the literal date of entry, that factored strongest into his campaign's political decision to skip NH and concentrate on Iowa.