Nickdfresh
08-23-2006, 10:22 AM
Long ass article, but interesting nevertheless.
CLINTON RACING AGAINST DARK HORSES
Will the Democrats choose another unknown in 2008?
By PATRICK REDDY
Special to The News
8/20/2006
Well on her way to an apparently easy re-election victory this year, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton steadfastly refuses to discuss a 2008 presidential campaign. Why should she? Everyone else talks about it for her.
If she does run, Clinton will start as the solid favorite for the Democratic nomination with a base of at least 35 percent, mainly from women and black voters. No other Democrat is currently polling more than 20 percent in the latest Gallup Poll, not even those who have previously run for national office, such as former Vice President Al Gore, 2004 candidate Sen. John Kerry and 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards. In a divided field, the former first lady could be quite formidable.
But Clinton may not run in 2008 and even if she does, there will almost certainly come a moment in the primary season when the race narrows to her and one or perhaps two other principal rivals.
Who will that likely be: a national figure or a previously unknown, untested Democrat? Democrats looking for an alternative to Clinton could choose among several men who already appeared on the national ticket - Gore, Kerry or Edwards - or Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, who sought the party's nomination in 1988, and Wednesday declared his candidacy for 2008.
But the voters may be tired of the past and could be looking for a "new face." The online source Wikipedia defines a "dark horse" candidate as one "who is nominated unexpectedly, without previously having been discussed or considered as a likely choice." These nominees are largely unknown before the campaign and are usually from smaller states, resulting in less media attention.
If history is any guide, Clinton's toughest competition may be someone few people have ever heard of. After all, her husband Bill came out of nowhere to win the presidency.
Party concerns
Many party leaders are hesitant to voice their concerns or doubts about the Clintons on the record for fear of offending the power couple. Of course, the former president has strongly gone on the record that his wife is an outstanding human being and would make an excellent president.
But former Sen. John Breaux, a popular Democrat from red state Louisiana, was candid and cautious about Hillary's chances to win over Middle America: "People already think they know who she is. So for a vast segment of the population, she'd have to change their opinion of her. . . . She can keep the base, but that's all she has. And that's a real challenge. That's tough."
Biden commented: "She is, you know, the elephant in the room. She's the big deal."
TheWashingtonnote.com, an online political Web site run by Steve Clemons, recently reported that Harry Reid plans to step down as Senate Democratic leader, and Democratic insiders say Reid is offering to support Clinton for Democratic leader if she foregoes a run for president.
Clemons wrote: "Many are realizing that the electoral map is not something one can wave a magic wand over and reverse the views of 42 percent of Americans who believe that they know Hillary Clinton well and have strongly formed views of her and will not vote for her under any conditions, according to recent polls. Reports are that Sen. Clinton herself knows this and that her own enthusiasm for running actually trails that of her husband, her advisers and her staff, whose enthusiasm for the race is ranked in that order, with Hillary the least enthusiastic."
Emerging from obscurity
It's been said that the Republican Party is like a business: Republicans promote from within. Since 1945, the Republican nomination has almost always gone to the front-running candidate at the start of the primary season.
By contrast, the Democrats, who consider themselves more of a grass-roots "party of the people," have often turned to obscure candidates. Consider the following history of Democratic nominees who were "not considered as likely" choices.
Former Tennessee Gov. James Polk, chosen by the 1844 Democratic Convention on the ninth ballot, was the first "dark horse" elected president. Historians consider Polk the most productive one-term president, because he achieved all four of his main pledges: reducing the federal tariff; annexing Texas; settling a border dispute with Canada; and acquiring California and the rest of the American Southwest.
Polk also kept his promise to serve only one term, and died shortly after leaving the White House in 1849.
Buffalo's Grover Cleveland had an even more remarkable rise than Polk, going from an attorney in private practice in early 1881 to mayor of Buffalo in November 1881 to governor of New York in November 1882 to president-elect in 1884. Elected to every office as a reformer, he was the only Democratic president in the Civil War/Reconstruction/Gilded Age of war, division, big business growth and corruption.
Historian Richard Hofstadter called him "the flower of American political culture in the Gilded Age." Cleveland won the national popular vote while running for re-election in 1888, but fell short in the Electoral College. He then won a rematch with Benjamin Harrison in 1892, making him the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms.
Woodrow Wilson was the next Democratic president, rising from president of Princeton University in 1910 to governor of New Jersey in 1911 and the White House a year later after being nominated on the 46th ballot and then winning a three-way race between former President Theodore Roosevelt and President William Howard Taft.
Wilson presided over the allied victory in World War I, the extension of the popular vote to the U.S. Senate, the passage of women's suffrage and child labor laws, the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank, low-cost farm loans and the eight-hour workday and Prohibition.
An average of surveys by leading historians places Wilson as the sixth-greatest president, and even the Wall Street Journal's survey of conservative historians ranked him 11th best.
A meteoric rise
Jimmy Carter may have had the most spectacular rise from sheer obscurity. He was the first president elected by nailing down his nomination exclusively through the primary system. Carter was the only Democratic nominee of the last 40 years to surpass 50 percent of the national popular vote.
In the spring of 1975, only 6 percent of all voters knew enough about the one-term Georgia governor to have an opinion (4 percent positive, 2 percent negative). In short, the year before Carter was elected president, nearly 95 percent of Americans had never heard of him.
We all know that other Southern governor, William Jefferson Clinton, now but when he started his first campaign in the winter of 1991, only 25 percent of Americans had heard of him and just 2 percent of Democrats supported his nomination. After New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo withdrew in 1991, "undecided" led the Democratic field.
Although Clinton had been elected governor of Arkansas four times (beginning at age 32) and had been viewed within the party as a rising star, his nomination was in severe jeopardy until he won the Florida Primary and the rest of the South on March 10.
Other dark horses who won the Democratic nomination, but lost in November, include: William Jennings Bryan (a little-known, 36-year-old Nebraska congressman who stampeded the 1896 Democratic Convention with his famous "Cross of Gold" speech and was nominated three times); Alton B. Parker, chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals (1904); Ohio Gov. James M. Cox, whose running mate in 1920 was a young Franklin Roosevelt; John W. Davis, a New York City lawyer and former Virginia congressman (1924); South Dakota Sen. George S. McGovern (1972); and Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis (1988).
Sure, Democrats in the last century picked big names like New York Gov. Al Smith, the most noted governor in America and the first Catholic to be nominated; Franklin Roosevelt, the cousin of the phenomenally popular Teddy; Adlai E. Stevenson, the grandson of a vice president and presidential candidate; John F. Kennedy, the son of a Roosevelt administration appointee; and Hubert H. Humphrey, a national figure since 1948 when he fought Strom Thurmond at the Democratic Convention over civil rights.
Also rising to the top job were vice presidents like Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson. But almost as often, the Democrats went with dark horses.
Today's dark horses
What does all this mean for Democrats in 2008? Over the past year, Clinton has led every poll of Democratic primary voters with support ranging from 31 percent to 44 percent in multicandidate fields, and more than 50 percent in two-way races against well-known opponents Gore, Kerry or Edwards.
So Clinton starts off as the solid favorite. But upsets have happened before in the Democratic primaries: McGovern trailed Maine Sen. Edmund S. Muskie badly in 1971 before winning the 1972 nomination and Kerry overcame Howard B. Dean's initial lead in 2004.
The strengths and weaknesses of Gore and Kerry are apparent to most Democrats. Who else might step up to contest Clinton if Democrats are looking for a fresh face? Here, in alphabetical order, are the potential 2008 Democratic dark horses:
• Indiana Sen. B. Evan Bayh III: (polling 1 percent to 3 percent in 2006) was on Gore's short list of running mates in 2000. Though not the most exciting speaker, he's well-respected as a thoughtful, conscientious moderate-liberal who represents one of the most Republican states outside the Deep South. He's also a former governor who is the only nominee capable of turning red Indiana blue, and could also help in the crucial Midwestern battlegrounds of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. Despite his father Birch's 1976 presidential run, less than a quarter of all Democrats currently recognize his name. Like Mark Warner, his main pitch is that he has executive experience and can reshape the Electoral College battlefield in the Democrats' favor.
• Wisconsin Sen. Russell D. Feingold: (polling 1 percent to 3 percent in 2006) got some national notice for being the co-sponsor of campaign finance reform with the much more famous - and potential Republican 2008 nominee - Sen. John McCain. Feingold is the best-known of the dark horses listed here. But more than 60 percent of voters still didn't know enough about Feingold to rate him in April. Those who did recognize his name were split 19 percent evenly positive-negative, with Democrats obviously much more favorable than Republicans. But Feingold, a die-hard opponent of the Iraq war from the beginning, could surge based on anti-war sentiment as did Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy in 1968 and George McGovern in 1972. The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary are dominated by white liberals, so there could be an opening there for Feingold.
• New Mexico Gov. William B. Richardson: (polling 2 percent in 2006) has some foreign policy experience as former Ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration. If he runs, he will set a landmark as the first serious Hispanic candidate in America. And given the changing demographics of the 21st century, he will be the first of many. He's almost completely unknown outside of New Mexico. And the schedule as currently configured doesn't offer him much ethnic help: Other than the Nevada Caucuses, the first big concentration of Hispanics in Florida doesn't come until after the field gets culled in New Hampshire. But as an accomplished Hispanic governor of a key swing state whose formidable ethnic appeal could help greatly in Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, he'd make an excellent running mate who could help get back the million or so Hispanic Democrats lost to George W. Bush in 2004. As would Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar.
• Iowa Gov. Thomas J. Vilsack: (polling 0 percent to 1 percent in 2006) would presumably have the advantage in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. If he shows any strength at all, most of his Democratic colleagues would concede the state to him and fight on in New Hampshire, as happened with Iowa Sen. Thomas R. Harkin in 1992. Bill Clinton finished second to Paul Tsongas in the Granite State and then won the nomination a few weeks later with a sweep in the South. Virtually no one outside of Iowa has heard of Vilsack. But if he can finish first or second in New Hampshire, he will be Hillary's main challenger. Like Bayh, he'll be using a Midwestern strategy to make the "electability" argument.
• Former Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner: (polling 2 percent to 5 percent in 2006) seems to be basing his entire campaign on "electability." George Will has quoted him as asking: Which red states can Hillary turn blue? That's a good idea as rank-and-file Democrats are hungering for a winner. Warner made a multimillion-dollar fortune as co-founder of Nextel Cellular and reached out to voters by sponsoring a NASCAR team. In his successful gubernatorial bid, Warner ran more than 10 points stronger than Gore and Kerry in rural Virginia. He also left office with a 75 percent approval rating in a state that has gone Republican in 10 straight presidential elections and greatly helped a Democratic successor win. Voters nationally gave him a 21 percent to 16 percent favorable rating with 63 percent undecided. So he has tremendous potential for growth.
One possible problem is that he did sign a major tax increase early in his term. Like Bayh and Richardson, he also would make a good running mate for the next Democratic nominee. If the Democrats really want to play strategic in the Electoral College, they would go with a Warner-Bayh or Bayh-Warner ticket. Such a pairing could swing Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa and probably Florida into the Democratic column to easily win the next election. But such a ticket isn't likely.
Obama could jump in
It cannot be stressed enough that low early polls for dark horses are nearly meaningless because almost nobody outside of their home state has heard of them. Carter would be the classic example here.
So it's hardly surprising that these men currently trail "undecided" or "don't know." The Iowa caucuses will open the 2008 schedule only six months from now in the winter of 2007, followed by caucuses in Nevada, the New Hampshire primary and then South Carolina. A good showing in Iowa or New Hampshire will quickly get any of these candidates the name recognition they'll need in 2008. And of course, some fairly well-known "up-and-comers" like Illinois Sen. Barack Obama could jump in to liven up the race.
Using history as a guide, we can forecast with reasonable accuracy the outlines of the 2008 Democratic primaries.
No person since the process was reformed in 1972 has won the nomination of either party without finishing in the top two in either Iowa or New Hampshire.
After New Hampshire, the field is usually "winnowed" to two or three main candidates. If she runs, Clinton's base of white feminists, Clinton loyalists, some labor support and minorities should get her into the top two.
The race heads South after New Hampshire and it will be very interesting to see who Clinton's main rivals will be. Gore says he is not running now, while Kerry almost certainly would like to give it another try and Edwards and Biden are already running.
Last December, Eleanor Clift wrote in Newsweek that, "Democrats want to win, and they'll abandon Hillary in a New York minute if they think there's a new, more competitive model coming on line."
If that is true - and don't think it's been close to proven yet - virtually all of her opponents will likely gang up on her and then try to pick up the pieces if she falls. Who will be her main rival? Gore, Kerry, Edwards or someone else?
The best way for a dark horse to upset Clinton is to ambush her in Iowa or New Hampshire and then quickly become the main alternative. In a split field, that will be a very tall order.
But if history guides 2008, the primaries won't be a cakewalk for Clinton. Sooner or later, someone somewhere will step up to challenge her. It's ironic, but the toughest opponent for the wife of the last dark horse Democratic president may be another unknown.
Patrick Reddy serves as a consultant to California's Assembly Democrats.
Temp. Link (http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060820/1052943.asp)
CLINTON RACING AGAINST DARK HORSES
Will the Democrats choose another unknown in 2008?
By PATRICK REDDY
Special to The News
8/20/2006
Well on her way to an apparently easy re-election victory this year, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton steadfastly refuses to discuss a 2008 presidential campaign. Why should she? Everyone else talks about it for her.
If she does run, Clinton will start as the solid favorite for the Democratic nomination with a base of at least 35 percent, mainly from women and black voters. No other Democrat is currently polling more than 20 percent in the latest Gallup Poll, not even those who have previously run for national office, such as former Vice President Al Gore, 2004 candidate Sen. John Kerry and 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards. In a divided field, the former first lady could be quite formidable.
But Clinton may not run in 2008 and even if she does, there will almost certainly come a moment in the primary season when the race narrows to her and one or perhaps two other principal rivals.
Who will that likely be: a national figure or a previously unknown, untested Democrat? Democrats looking for an alternative to Clinton could choose among several men who already appeared on the national ticket - Gore, Kerry or Edwards - or Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, who sought the party's nomination in 1988, and Wednesday declared his candidacy for 2008.
But the voters may be tired of the past and could be looking for a "new face." The online source Wikipedia defines a "dark horse" candidate as one "who is nominated unexpectedly, without previously having been discussed or considered as a likely choice." These nominees are largely unknown before the campaign and are usually from smaller states, resulting in less media attention.
If history is any guide, Clinton's toughest competition may be someone few people have ever heard of. After all, her husband Bill came out of nowhere to win the presidency.
Party concerns
Many party leaders are hesitant to voice their concerns or doubts about the Clintons on the record for fear of offending the power couple. Of course, the former president has strongly gone on the record that his wife is an outstanding human being and would make an excellent president.
But former Sen. John Breaux, a popular Democrat from red state Louisiana, was candid and cautious about Hillary's chances to win over Middle America: "People already think they know who she is. So for a vast segment of the population, she'd have to change their opinion of her. . . . She can keep the base, but that's all she has. And that's a real challenge. That's tough."
Biden commented: "She is, you know, the elephant in the room. She's the big deal."
TheWashingtonnote.com, an online political Web site run by Steve Clemons, recently reported that Harry Reid plans to step down as Senate Democratic leader, and Democratic insiders say Reid is offering to support Clinton for Democratic leader if she foregoes a run for president.
Clemons wrote: "Many are realizing that the electoral map is not something one can wave a magic wand over and reverse the views of 42 percent of Americans who believe that they know Hillary Clinton well and have strongly formed views of her and will not vote for her under any conditions, according to recent polls. Reports are that Sen. Clinton herself knows this and that her own enthusiasm for running actually trails that of her husband, her advisers and her staff, whose enthusiasm for the race is ranked in that order, with Hillary the least enthusiastic."
Emerging from obscurity
It's been said that the Republican Party is like a business: Republicans promote from within. Since 1945, the Republican nomination has almost always gone to the front-running candidate at the start of the primary season.
By contrast, the Democrats, who consider themselves more of a grass-roots "party of the people," have often turned to obscure candidates. Consider the following history of Democratic nominees who were "not considered as likely" choices.
Former Tennessee Gov. James Polk, chosen by the 1844 Democratic Convention on the ninth ballot, was the first "dark horse" elected president. Historians consider Polk the most productive one-term president, because he achieved all four of his main pledges: reducing the federal tariff; annexing Texas; settling a border dispute with Canada; and acquiring California and the rest of the American Southwest.
Polk also kept his promise to serve only one term, and died shortly after leaving the White House in 1849.
Buffalo's Grover Cleveland had an even more remarkable rise than Polk, going from an attorney in private practice in early 1881 to mayor of Buffalo in November 1881 to governor of New York in November 1882 to president-elect in 1884. Elected to every office as a reformer, he was the only Democratic president in the Civil War/Reconstruction/Gilded Age of war, division, big business growth and corruption.
Historian Richard Hofstadter called him "the flower of American political culture in the Gilded Age." Cleveland won the national popular vote while running for re-election in 1888, but fell short in the Electoral College. He then won a rematch with Benjamin Harrison in 1892, making him the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms.
Woodrow Wilson was the next Democratic president, rising from president of Princeton University in 1910 to governor of New Jersey in 1911 and the White House a year later after being nominated on the 46th ballot and then winning a three-way race between former President Theodore Roosevelt and President William Howard Taft.
Wilson presided over the allied victory in World War I, the extension of the popular vote to the U.S. Senate, the passage of women's suffrage and child labor laws, the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank, low-cost farm loans and the eight-hour workday and Prohibition.
An average of surveys by leading historians places Wilson as the sixth-greatest president, and even the Wall Street Journal's survey of conservative historians ranked him 11th best.
A meteoric rise
Jimmy Carter may have had the most spectacular rise from sheer obscurity. He was the first president elected by nailing down his nomination exclusively through the primary system. Carter was the only Democratic nominee of the last 40 years to surpass 50 percent of the national popular vote.
In the spring of 1975, only 6 percent of all voters knew enough about the one-term Georgia governor to have an opinion (4 percent positive, 2 percent negative). In short, the year before Carter was elected president, nearly 95 percent of Americans had never heard of him.
We all know that other Southern governor, William Jefferson Clinton, now but when he started his first campaign in the winter of 1991, only 25 percent of Americans had heard of him and just 2 percent of Democrats supported his nomination. After New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo withdrew in 1991, "undecided" led the Democratic field.
Although Clinton had been elected governor of Arkansas four times (beginning at age 32) and had been viewed within the party as a rising star, his nomination was in severe jeopardy until he won the Florida Primary and the rest of the South on March 10.
Other dark horses who won the Democratic nomination, but lost in November, include: William Jennings Bryan (a little-known, 36-year-old Nebraska congressman who stampeded the 1896 Democratic Convention with his famous "Cross of Gold" speech and was nominated three times); Alton B. Parker, chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals (1904); Ohio Gov. James M. Cox, whose running mate in 1920 was a young Franklin Roosevelt; John W. Davis, a New York City lawyer and former Virginia congressman (1924); South Dakota Sen. George S. McGovern (1972); and Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis (1988).
Sure, Democrats in the last century picked big names like New York Gov. Al Smith, the most noted governor in America and the first Catholic to be nominated; Franklin Roosevelt, the cousin of the phenomenally popular Teddy; Adlai E. Stevenson, the grandson of a vice president and presidential candidate; John F. Kennedy, the son of a Roosevelt administration appointee; and Hubert H. Humphrey, a national figure since 1948 when he fought Strom Thurmond at the Democratic Convention over civil rights.
Also rising to the top job were vice presidents like Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson. But almost as often, the Democrats went with dark horses.
Today's dark horses
What does all this mean for Democrats in 2008? Over the past year, Clinton has led every poll of Democratic primary voters with support ranging from 31 percent to 44 percent in multicandidate fields, and more than 50 percent in two-way races against well-known opponents Gore, Kerry or Edwards.
So Clinton starts off as the solid favorite. But upsets have happened before in the Democratic primaries: McGovern trailed Maine Sen. Edmund S. Muskie badly in 1971 before winning the 1972 nomination and Kerry overcame Howard B. Dean's initial lead in 2004.
The strengths and weaknesses of Gore and Kerry are apparent to most Democrats. Who else might step up to contest Clinton if Democrats are looking for a fresh face? Here, in alphabetical order, are the potential 2008 Democratic dark horses:
• Indiana Sen. B. Evan Bayh III: (polling 1 percent to 3 percent in 2006) was on Gore's short list of running mates in 2000. Though not the most exciting speaker, he's well-respected as a thoughtful, conscientious moderate-liberal who represents one of the most Republican states outside the Deep South. He's also a former governor who is the only nominee capable of turning red Indiana blue, and could also help in the crucial Midwestern battlegrounds of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. Despite his father Birch's 1976 presidential run, less than a quarter of all Democrats currently recognize his name. Like Mark Warner, his main pitch is that he has executive experience and can reshape the Electoral College battlefield in the Democrats' favor.
• Wisconsin Sen. Russell D. Feingold: (polling 1 percent to 3 percent in 2006) got some national notice for being the co-sponsor of campaign finance reform with the much more famous - and potential Republican 2008 nominee - Sen. John McCain. Feingold is the best-known of the dark horses listed here. But more than 60 percent of voters still didn't know enough about Feingold to rate him in April. Those who did recognize his name were split 19 percent evenly positive-negative, with Democrats obviously much more favorable than Republicans. But Feingold, a die-hard opponent of the Iraq war from the beginning, could surge based on anti-war sentiment as did Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy in 1968 and George McGovern in 1972. The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary are dominated by white liberals, so there could be an opening there for Feingold.
• New Mexico Gov. William B. Richardson: (polling 2 percent in 2006) has some foreign policy experience as former Ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration. If he runs, he will set a landmark as the first serious Hispanic candidate in America. And given the changing demographics of the 21st century, he will be the first of many. He's almost completely unknown outside of New Mexico. And the schedule as currently configured doesn't offer him much ethnic help: Other than the Nevada Caucuses, the first big concentration of Hispanics in Florida doesn't come until after the field gets culled in New Hampshire. But as an accomplished Hispanic governor of a key swing state whose formidable ethnic appeal could help greatly in Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, he'd make an excellent running mate who could help get back the million or so Hispanic Democrats lost to George W. Bush in 2004. As would Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar.
• Iowa Gov. Thomas J. Vilsack: (polling 0 percent to 1 percent in 2006) would presumably have the advantage in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. If he shows any strength at all, most of his Democratic colleagues would concede the state to him and fight on in New Hampshire, as happened with Iowa Sen. Thomas R. Harkin in 1992. Bill Clinton finished second to Paul Tsongas in the Granite State and then won the nomination a few weeks later with a sweep in the South. Virtually no one outside of Iowa has heard of Vilsack. But if he can finish first or second in New Hampshire, he will be Hillary's main challenger. Like Bayh, he'll be using a Midwestern strategy to make the "electability" argument.
• Former Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner: (polling 2 percent to 5 percent in 2006) seems to be basing his entire campaign on "electability." George Will has quoted him as asking: Which red states can Hillary turn blue? That's a good idea as rank-and-file Democrats are hungering for a winner. Warner made a multimillion-dollar fortune as co-founder of Nextel Cellular and reached out to voters by sponsoring a NASCAR team. In his successful gubernatorial bid, Warner ran more than 10 points stronger than Gore and Kerry in rural Virginia. He also left office with a 75 percent approval rating in a state that has gone Republican in 10 straight presidential elections and greatly helped a Democratic successor win. Voters nationally gave him a 21 percent to 16 percent favorable rating with 63 percent undecided. So he has tremendous potential for growth.
One possible problem is that he did sign a major tax increase early in his term. Like Bayh and Richardson, he also would make a good running mate for the next Democratic nominee. If the Democrats really want to play strategic in the Electoral College, they would go with a Warner-Bayh or Bayh-Warner ticket. Such a pairing could swing Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa and probably Florida into the Democratic column to easily win the next election. But such a ticket isn't likely.
Obama could jump in
It cannot be stressed enough that low early polls for dark horses are nearly meaningless because almost nobody outside of their home state has heard of them. Carter would be the classic example here.
So it's hardly surprising that these men currently trail "undecided" or "don't know." The Iowa caucuses will open the 2008 schedule only six months from now in the winter of 2007, followed by caucuses in Nevada, the New Hampshire primary and then South Carolina. A good showing in Iowa or New Hampshire will quickly get any of these candidates the name recognition they'll need in 2008. And of course, some fairly well-known "up-and-comers" like Illinois Sen. Barack Obama could jump in to liven up the race.
Using history as a guide, we can forecast with reasonable accuracy the outlines of the 2008 Democratic primaries.
No person since the process was reformed in 1972 has won the nomination of either party without finishing in the top two in either Iowa or New Hampshire.
After New Hampshire, the field is usually "winnowed" to two or three main candidates. If she runs, Clinton's base of white feminists, Clinton loyalists, some labor support and minorities should get her into the top two.
The race heads South after New Hampshire and it will be very interesting to see who Clinton's main rivals will be. Gore says he is not running now, while Kerry almost certainly would like to give it another try and Edwards and Biden are already running.
Last December, Eleanor Clift wrote in Newsweek that, "Democrats want to win, and they'll abandon Hillary in a New York minute if they think there's a new, more competitive model coming on line."
If that is true - and don't think it's been close to proven yet - virtually all of her opponents will likely gang up on her and then try to pick up the pieces if she falls. Who will be her main rival? Gore, Kerry, Edwards or someone else?
The best way for a dark horse to upset Clinton is to ambush her in Iowa or New Hampshire and then quickly become the main alternative. In a split field, that will be a very tall order.
But if history guides 2008, the primaries won't be a cakewalk for Clinton. Sooner or later, someone somewhere will step up to challenge her. It's ironic, but the toughest opponent for the wife of the last dark horse Democratic president may be another unknown.
Patrick Reddy serves as a consultant to California's Assembly Democrats.
Temp. Link (http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060820/1052943.asp)