My apologies for not keeping up on this for awhile. The "big picture" stuff has really only started moving in the past couple of weeks, and while there's been a lot of posturing and some surprising developments (mostly pertaining to endorsements), the view from the top down has only recently started changing.
Right now, news headlines are blaring about how nasty this race is getting, and about Barak Obama's surge and the surprise emergence of Mike Huckabee. Then there's that little issue of Michigan not getting any delegates to the Democrat National Convention. I definitely want to take a closer look at these, starting with the Democrats.
On 9/21/07, the realclearpolitics.com poll aggregates had Clinton leading Obama nationally 41.8% to 23.0%. As of December 5, the national numbers are 41.5% to 23.3%. The biggest "hiccup" in there was a Rasmussen poll from 11/30-12/03/07, which gave Clinton a mere 35-23 lead. So the national picture really hasn't changed all that much, except that Clinton's popularity is slipping in some polls. What I'm also seeing is that Obama's overall popularity really isn't gaining much.
The bigger story here, though, is about the early primaries and caucuses, which tend to dictate how national trends will go. In Iowa, Obama holds a very, very slim lead: statistically, it's a dead heat, with different polls showing both Clinton and Obama holding slight leads. I'm giving Obama the edge right now because that's what the most recent polls tend to show. But it's much too close to call. That said, Clinton leads comfortably in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. The lesson here is, it looks like media outlets are trying to make this race look closer than it actually is. Still, Clinton can't afford any more weak performances.
Next up: the GOP.
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