by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
Here at Unofficial Edwards Central, we're of course exercising cautious optimism over the emerging blogospheric conventional wisdom (which in and of itself is something of an oxy-moron) that the '08 primaries will boil down to Hillary, Obama and John Edwards. Likewise, new polling that shows Edwards ahead of McCain 43-41 is certainly a nice bonus. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
As you might remember, polling from December 2002 showed Dick Gephardt leading the Iowa Caucuses, with John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Tom Daschle behind him. Over the next thirteen months, we witnessed the rise and fall of Howard Dean, the fall and rise of John Kerry, the surprise of John Edwards, and so on and so forth. Polling from the fall of 2003 showed both Dean and Clark beating Bush in the general election. So while the absence of both Evan Bayh and Russ Feingold from the "Not Hillary" crowd helps Edwards' chances of winning the nomination, there is a lot of time and effort between now and January 2008.
