THE INSURGENT'S SURGE.* Ben Smith almost had me convinced that "Pollwise, nothing has happened in the Democratic field all year," but today's USA TODAY/Gallup Poll showing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama neck-and-neck among Democrats and independents briefly gave me hope that my increasingly shaky-looking early March prediction that Obama would pass Clinton in national polls by summer may yet come to pass. (It's always nice to be right.) Among Democrats alone, however, Clinton still had a 5 percent lead over Obama in this poll, and most other polls continue to show her with a more comfortable lead even than that, so the long-awaited cross-over many folks were expecting earlier in the year looks like it may take a bit longer yet to materialize, if it happens at all.
(* Thanks to the war in Iraq it seems odd to keep using the traditional presidential contest terminology of front-runners vs. insurgents. Every time I write that word I feel uncomfortable, because I hate using the same word to describe American political contenders, especially a Democrat who is already being appallingly confused for a terrorist, and the people attacking American forces in Iraq. Does anyone have a better idea for what to call the "insurgent presidential candidates"? Challenger works, but also has the problem of suggesting that front-running candidates are incumbents, when they are not. I've been leaning toward "contender," but that doesn't describe a candidate's relative strength or position, just that he or she is running. Suggestions welcome in the comments.)
--Garance Franke-Ruta
