CNN: Dean Leads Democrats, Trails Bush by Only 5 Points
Inside Politics reports on a new CNN/Time Poll of 1,004 adult Americans conducted by telephone on December 30 and January 1. Despite constant attacks from the inside-the-beltway pundits and campaigns, who keep charging that Dean is "unelectable," he now trails George Bush by a mere 5 points -- 51% to 46%.
Just to put that into perspective: in April of 1992, Bill Clinton trailed George H.W. Bush by 20 points.
The poll also shows Dean leading the Democratic field at 22%.
This morning, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that the other campaigns are now trying to use cell phones to try to prevent Dean from winning the Iowa caucuses:
Bill Carrick, one of Gephardt's advisers, said a Gephardt win is important in stopping Dean, or at least slowing him down. So other presidential hopefuls may be willing to throw last-minute support to Gephardt in the caucuses. The Gephardt campaign has even floated the idea of the non-Dean campaigns using cellphones to coordinate voting within the caucuses. "Every one of them needs us to win," Carrick said.
And if you're wondering why the other campaigns would work together to defeat Dean, it's because none of them seem able to do it on their own. CNN's poll looks at hypothetical head-to-head pairings that test what will happen when the race is winnowed down, and against any one of the candidates, Dean wins:
Dean vs. Clark: 46% to 32%
Dean vs. Lieberman, 50% to 32%
Dean vs. Kerry, 51% to 29%
Dean vs. Gephardt 53% to 28%
But we're not facing just one of the candidates. We're facing all of them, and they'll do anything to stop us, no matter that the latest poll shows Howard Dean is the best candidate to defeat Bush. We can't let up. Write letters to Iowans. Go to Iowa to help us win. If you weren't able to do so in the last month, please make a contribution today. We need everyone to participate. Only by acting together right now can we take our party back and defeat George Bush in November.
Update: Drudge has additional numbers: "Asked to vote for a Democratic presidential nominee if the election were held today, twice as many registered Democrats would choose Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (22%) over Mass. Sen. John Kerry (10%) -- or over Conn. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (9%) or Retired Gen. Wesley Clark (8%), according to a new TIME/CNN Poll." |
