Could there be a reshuffling of tiers in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination? Judging by an almost offhanded comment in a front page article in today's issue of The Washington Post by Michael D. Shear and Anne E. Kornblut, it seems possible. Take a look.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who is barely registering in most polls, has told other Democrats that he expects to raise more money than Edwards this quarter.
To parse the reporting of Shear and Kornblut just a bit before I get into the substance of this, it would be incorrect to assert that Richardson "is barely registering in most polls." In fact, while it is true that Richardson's standing in most national polls is rather low (certainly below 5 percent), in polling from Iowa and New Hampshire, which are significantly more important than national polling, Richardson is averaging 10.8 percent and 9.1 percent respectively, which is hardly "barely registering."
Yet moving on to the substance of this claim by Richardson -- that he will raise more money this quarter than Edwards -- there are a number of interesting implications here. First, this is an interesting way of playing the expectations game by Richardson if in fact he does not fully expect to outraise Edwards, because if he fails to meet this mark after setting it for himself he would seem to solidify his position in a separate and lower tier than Edwards. If this is a more traditional expectations game -- i.e. a claim passed to the press not by the Richardson camp but rather by the Edwards camp to lay the groundwork for calling their Q2 fundraising a success just by being greater than that of Richardson, even if it is only about a third of either Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- this would seem to bring Edwards closer to Richardson's tier than that of Clinton and Obama (because it would be his campaign making the comparison).
If it indeed ends up that Richardson raises more this quarter than Edwards -- or even raises about the same amount -- we may in fact be looking at a three-tier race for the Democratic nomination, with Clinton and Obama in the first tier, Edwards and Richardson in the second tier, and the rest of the candidates in the third. While this has somewhat been the case in the minds of many to this point, Edwards did previously appear to be closer to the top tier than the second (even if he was in between the two). As such, a slip to the second tier would be a slip.
Of course this is all the expectations game and we're going to have to wait a few weeks to find out just how the fundraising race turned out (a race that while having a large effect upon the race for the Democratic nomination will not determine the race's outcome). But for now this is perhaps an interesting preview of things to come.
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