Lawrence Kudlow made the mistake of having Wes Clark on his show yesterday (maybe he had to because of Clark's contract with NBC) along with neocon Jed Babbin. The discussion was mostly about Iran. It wasn't really fair, with Clark taking on only two neocon nutcases. General Clark issued General Smackdown. Kudlow and Babbin didn't know what hit them; they were so nonplussed they were forced by Clark's submission hold into mostly having to listen to Clark's logic and brilliance. They even tried to call Clark insane for advocating diplomacy, and tried to accuse him about not knowing anything about air strikes (Kosovo anyone?) Clark squashed them like the bugs that they are. http://securingamerica.com/node/2530 Read the transcript and see the video here.

Who better equipped to take it to the Rethugs in 2008?
2008 is all about flipping a few red states into our column. Wes Clark is a progressive wolf in military uniform sheep's clothing. Many Republicans who didn't care for Bush, still couldn't vote for Kerry. Clark was the only Dem. they could consider. Clark has had more EXECUTIVE leadership roles than any Senator by virtue of his military commands where he had responsibility for the lives of hundreds of thousands of servicepeople and their dependents--the whole range of housing, education, training, healthcare, social services, sometimes in a dangerous spot. When Clark was Supreme Allied Commander Europe (Eisenhower's last military position), he had "Head-of-State" status, meaning that he dealt directly with prime ministers/presidents, not underlings. And Clark was virtually the only voice urging help for Rwanda. And Clark and Madeleine Albright were the ones who convinced Clinton to take action against the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, where Clark carried out the military action w/o the loss of a single American life. In this he stood up to the Pentagon brass who wanted nothing to do with "saving Albanians." And it was Clark who served for more than 30 years AFTER getting shot up and winning hero medals in Vietnam, when he could have gone for the big bucks in private industry. Try Swift Boating this guy--the smackdown will be heard around the world. Clark is all about duty, honor, country. When Clark's American Dream/American Hero story gets out to middle America, watch how many red states flip. And the beauty of Wes Clark is that HE IS A REAL LIVE D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T, with a progressive agenda equal to anyone. And when Wes Clark debates the Rethug nominee, he can say, "You supported Bush in his Iraq fiasco. I knew what was going on beforehand and testified to Congress before the IWR against such a blank check.(unkike HRC and IWR co-sponsor John Edwards). In fact I was chastised by neocons for being so cautious. My whole professional life has been about a multi-faceted approach to international relations, with war only, only, only as a last resort." THIS, FOLKS, IS THE DEMOCRAT WHO CAN TAKE IT TO THE RETHUGS ON THEIR TURF, AND WHUP THEIR ASSES.

Some polling data the media seems to have missed
Imagine that.(posted by a pro-Clark blogger)

Rassmussen conducted a national poll of voters from both parties (as well as none and other, presumably) to assess what percentage view favorably or unfavorably the various potential 2008 candidates. Of the ten Democrats on whom they collected data (Biden, Clark, Clinton, Edwards, Gore, Kerry, Kucinich, Obama, Richardson, Vilsack), only THREE were viewed favorably by a significantly larger number of voters, statistically speaking, than viewed them unfavorably. In other words, only THREE had more people like 'em than not.

Care to guess who those three are?

Well, I won't keep you in suspenders. But I will withhold some detail until I can apply a little analysis. So in alphabetical order, the only three with more to the good than to the bad, in numbers large enough to matter, are Clark, Edwards and Obama.

Now for the details.

As with any statistical data (and no doubt at the root of the old admonition against figures who lie and liars who figure), there are a number of ways look at the facts, each way answering different questions, based on different assumptions. Here are the ones that struck me as most significant and why. Your milage may vary.

Most favorable. Simply put, the three potential candidates whom more people favor than don't, currently enjoy the most people who like them in this order:
1. Barack Obama 51%
2. John Edwards 47%
3. Wes Clark 39%
These numbers don't account for how or even whether voters' opinions are informed, only that they are willing to tell the pollster they like a guy (or gal) for any reason at all. At the end of the (primary) day, this is the only figure that matters. This soon before, not so much.

Least unfavorable. A wholly different concept, and possibly more important if one believes people are more inclined to vote aginst one candidate than to vote for a different one:
1. Wes Clark 28%
2. Barack Obama 32%
3. John Edwards.42%
Again, this doesn't account for how or whether opinions are informed. And since all voters were polled, it must by definition include everyone from any party (or no party) who will not admit to viewing any Democrat favorably, whether they know them or not. For this latter reason, it doesn't have much affect on primary/caucus results (although if Democrats voted with a little more savvy, it probably would).

Best liked. A synthesis of "most favorable" and "least unfavorable," the net percentage points between the two values is probably the best snapshot of who is the most popular and/or likeable at the time of the poll.
1. Barack Obama 19 pts
2. Wes Clark 11 pts
3. John Edwards 6 pts
Don't believe me? Look at Hillary Clinton's numbers at the link below.

Most favorable extrapolated. In this concept, one assumes that current opinion reflect a "true" value, such that those who currently admit to no opinion will eventually form opinions in proportions similar to those who have already made up their minds:
1. Obama 60%
2. Edwards 52%
3. Clark 52%
In many cases it's reasonable to believe that public opinion is likely to remain relatively static, especially when a candidate relatively well known for what he or she actually is. A relatively blank slate has much more room for variance.

Growth Potential. The opposite of extrapolating current data, growth potential is a simple measurement of the percentage of voters who admit to no opinion. It is not, however, as a simple concept in what it means to a candidate's future prospects. Growth potential assumes the candidate will be actively courting the "no opinion" voters; the more of them there are, the more opportunity he or she has to impress them favorably. It futher assumes that as a generally likeable guy or gal, the candidate stands a reasonably good chance of making those favorable new impressions. In this respect, the three are ranked:
1. Wes Clark 33%
2. Barack Obama 17%
3. John Edwards.12%
Growth potential in extremely important this early in the race. Theoretically, a guy who's rated 40% favorable and 25% unfavorable (expressed as 35%, or the total of the two subtracted from 100) has the potential to reach an 75/25% split (granted not likely, but theoretically possible); whereas one who is already 50% favorable and 40% unfavorable can at best aspire to reach 60/40%. Each is almost certain to fall short of their optimum, but the one with greater potential is likely to finish higher. For this reason, over a year before the first caucus, a large potential for growth can only be a good thing for any candidate so long as he or she maintains significantly greater favorability than not.

It's worth noting that poll respondents tend not to want to admit they have no opinion, even when they don't. That is why standard presidential polls this early show very small percentages for "undecided" when it should be fairly obvious that most people have not made up their minds. It's also why those same polls are a more effect barometer of name recognition than anything else.

Unfortunately, it's also worth noting that since candidates typically do not reach their full growth potential by primary/caucus day, name reconition often remains as large of a factor in the results that count as it does in presidential polling.

If for those who are curious as to how the other seven Democrats stacked up, a more a complete chart is buried in the Rassmussen archives. In a nut shell, there are five (Biden, Clinton, Gore, Richardson and Vilsack) for whom there is no statically significant diffterence between the numbers who favor them over the numbers who don't. They're a statistical wash. Of those five, two (Clinton and Gore) have almost no growth potential at all.

Last, and in this case least I'm afraid, there are two (Kerry and Kucinich) of whom significantly more people seem to think they suck than don't.

Posted by Jai on January 2, 2007 8:28 PM | Permalink

My wife had lunch the other day with relatives who thought it was great how strongly Bush supports Israel. When my wife explained why(what I've written below), they landed on her. Support of Israel, in their minds, outweighed everything else. I think most of their information comes from sound bites on the 11 o'clock news. It is as if any U.S. President/Administration since Israel's formation in 1948 didn't fully support her as a pro-western democracy through foreign aid, military sales, unwavering diplomatic support in the U.N. and elsewhere. Yes, Bush's support is real, but not many people realize the foundation for his apparently extra-strong support. It is his and his Fundamentalist Christian supporters'/base's belief that Israel must be maintained intact for the second coming of Christ (the Armageddon/Rapture literalist interpretation of the Bible). Problem is that this interpretation has Jews playing their part in this scenario, in which some Jews accept Christ, the rest perish. Other Jews wave off the Rapture, saying it couldn't happen. In my opinion, it is immaterial whether other people believe that these events could come to pass; Bush and his Christian Fundamentalist base believe it and behave accordingly.
In my opinion again, Bush's misguided policies vis-a-vis Iraq and his failure to address peace attempts elsewhere in the Middle East or North Korea, or to go after the real terrorists like Osama bin Laden, Hizbollah, and the like, have made their neighborhood a MORE dangerous place for Israel. For example, where was the strong effort to help Lebanon control Hizbollah in southern Lebanon? Answer, our time, effort, resources, were busy taking out a (yes, bad guy) dictator who ran a secular country whom Osama would destroy if he could because Saddam was not a "True Believer," who no longer had WMDs, and who was nowhere near even having ingredients to begin a nuclear program. In the 1990s, after the Gulf war, and upon the wreckage of Saddam's army and equipment and the dismantling of Saddam's WMDs, the Israeli intelligence services downgraded the Iraqi threat from #2 or 3(after only Syria and/or Iran) to #7. That's how much they were worried about Saddam. As for Democracy throughout the Middle East, democratic elections installed Hamas in Palestine, and democratic elections produced the Lebanon that we see.
Meanwhile George Bush in America violates his oath of office which requires that he uphold the laws of the country and protect and defend the Constitution. Facism rears its ugly head in America. Jews should be worried about THAT.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."
Martin Niemoller
(Martin Niemoller was a church leader in Germany and a supporter of Hitler's brand of nationalism. Unfortunately, Hitler got around to being displeased by Niemoller's church, and Niemoller wound up in a concentration camp for a number of years.)