Actually it's from DraftWesleyClark.com--too long a name for my headline. They commissioned a poll from big-name pollster Zogby, with a really silly question intended to gain publicity, but some interesting results nevertheless.

It showed Dean clearly in front (which their analyst concurred on) among likely Dem voters. The top rankings:

• Dean: 16.6%
• Gephardt: 11
• Lieb: 10.1
• Kerry: 9.2
• Clark: 4.9

The also-rans: 2.7 and lower, including early media darling Edwards wallowing below Sharpton and Moseley Braun -- shows what they know.

Clark would rank him among the also-rans, except that it's a very good showing for someone not even running yet. It definitely indicates potential.

It also continues to show Dean surging. Interesting to see a competing campaign speak so enthusiastically about his assent. One of many passages along these lines in their analysis:

Governor Dean has rocketed from a pour percent standing in the March 5th-7th, 2003 Zogby poll to 16.6 percent in the current August 16th-19th Zogby poll. Among the nine current candidates, only Howard Dean is trending in a positive direction.

However, when voters supporting each candidate were asked how strongly they supported that person, Dean came out the weakest of anyone but Lieberman. That surprised me. Hard to say, though. A great many of his supporters have just arrived in the last month, as the national media finally began to focus on him. I imagine a lot of that is still soft.

And comparatively he's doing much better than that suggests, though I would have thought he would be doing better. Nearly all of those with significantly stronger support had tiny overall numbers. For example, Edwards is down to a pitiful 1.8% of likely Dems supporting him, but the few die-hards left are really committed to him. Big deal. Dean's numbers were about the same as Kerry's despite a lot of Dean's support being recent converts. More bad news for Kerry. The one person bucking the trend a bit was Gephardt. He was the only person with any respectable overall support who also showed somewhat stronger support than the other leaders. Not way stronger, but appreciably stronger.

Clark did extremely well on the strength-of-support question, which is probably the biggest finding of the poll, and very good news for him. His strength was second-highest, after Sharpton. 47.8% of his supporters rated their support as "very strong," and another 44.4% said "somewhat strong." (Compared to 23.8 and 55.6 for Dean.)

Read the full, lengthy analysis here.

Now for the dumb to dishonest part of the poll. First, the dumb:

The Clark draftees were hoping to grab media attention with the main point of the poll, a "blind-bio" matchup. Here the pollster reads a short "bio" of each candidate without the name, and you're asked to pick your favorite. That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of. Only a beltway boy would think voters choose candidates that way. (Especially once you read the so-called bios, in the appendix.) 

Clark topped half the top Dem candidates, plus Bush that way, and the group trumpeted the news in its press release. Big fucking deal. I am embarassed for them. In fact, they unwittingly demonstrated how stupid the queston is. Guess which candidates beat Clark in the blind-bio test? Gephardt fractionally, and Kerry by two points. Guess whose campaigns have gone nowhere? Both are at nearly the identical place they were in March. Apparently the country likes their bios, just not them so much.

What Clark offers is not just a great bio, but a great personality. This campaign has some real promise, because some of us believe Clark can really electrify the electorate, if the press gives him a real spot on the stage.

Then comes another silly question, followed by dishonest analysis. The poll asked another silly question, about whether it is too late for a candidate to enter the race. 84.1% said no. That is such the example of misleading polling. They're asking the wrong people. The question is not whether voters are open to someone new--of course they are; most haven't even started looking--the question is whether a candidate can raise the money, build the infrastructre, gain the momentum, etc.

The analysis concludes from this question that, "The most formidable obstacle fo Clark, which is whether it is still possible to gain the support of a majority of likely primary voters, simply does not exist." That is so blatantly dishonest I want to vomit. I am extremely attracted to a Clark candidacy, but he better distance himself from people disreputable enough to put statements like that into print. (The analysis is attributed to Dr. Chris Kofinis, Democratic Political Consultant.) It also makes me all the more wary of anything else written there. Sad, I expected more from these people.

As usual, filter out the noise, there there is some useful info here.

I got so wrapped up in Chip & Reichen this past long weekend, I neglected Howard Dean's big event of the quarter, his Sleepless Summer Tour. Newhouse News Service describes it as "a four-day, nine-city tour that looks more like a general election campaign swing than one that is five months before the first caucus and primary."

It is drawing stunning crowds for the summer before the primaries--really good crowds to draw during the heart of the primaries, actually, but out of the realm of normal politics for this time of year.

Check out the sea of people in this photo from Seattle. The Seattle Times reported 8,000 there last night, though they attributed it to a campaign staffer. (But they must believe it's in the ballpark if they're citing it.) This line from the story bears out the overall point: "Paul Berendt, state Democratic Party chairman, said the crowd was the largest he had ever seen here for a presidential candidate so early in a campaign."

Here's the gimmick the whole thing is based on, from the Dean site:

George W. Bush will be on a month long vacation in August. While the President vacations, more than 3 million unemployed people are having a sleepless summer trying to find work.  Join Howard Dean and thousands of Americans in August for the "People-Powered Howard Sleepless Summer Tour."

A little hokey, but kind of a fun stab at the bozo (not at the moment) in the white house, and a good excuse to build a big event to demonstrate how broad his support is. It's definitely working. Hopefully these crowds will end the ridiculous characterizations which have slowed way down but are still showing up in the press corps that Dean is attracting just "internet liberals"--a laughable phrase from the W Post a few days ago (though most of their coverage has dropped that nonsense).

Meanwhile, the campaign is also using the event as a fundraising drive, shooting for a million dollars over the four days, and halfway there since Saturday ($578,450.38 as of this posting). Once again, they are tracking it hour by hour on the Dean blog, and have brought out the bat again to track it.

(Update: I had some thoughts here on going to the internet well one time too many (too soon), because I thought the money was coming in more slowly than the last time. I checked and was wrong. It is actually faster than the Cheney drive, though both are/were slower than the huge push on June 30th for the end of the quarter. The latter was a less manufactured event, with a very real impact: end-of-quarter reporting, which could lead to lots of press reports and the beltway finally starting to take the campaign seriously. It worked, too: that was the day this phenom really took off, and the press began to take real notice. So the end of Q3 may provide a similar incentive to break new records, but for their sake, I hope the campaign gives it a rest until then. There is definitely some fundraising fatigue out there.)

But the fundraising is ancillary rather than the main event this time, and the crowds are impressive. If you want to taste the enthusiasm, head over to the blog, where they are posting a dizzying volume of pictures and reports from each event. Be sure to plunge into the comments to see what is really going on at the volunteer level.

One more downer for the campaign. I know lots of people who have gotten sucked in to this thing as supporters, and they and their friends have been very impressed by the candidate, but I'm getting lots of reports of people displeased by treatment from the campaign. A lot of it is understandable, because the staff is just in way over their heads. (One friend reported staffers being extremely helpful and friendly trying to scramble for the information over repeated calls, but never quite producing.) Candidate punctuality appears to be a recurring problem. Dean was 45-minutes late for the huge rally in Seattle, and it didn't seem to go over well. Hopefully this line from the Seattle Times story raised the hair on the backs of their necks for two reasons:

By the time [Dean] got to the podium at Westlake Park, the crowd filled the plaza and a full city block between Pike and Pine streets. Angry at the delay, many started booing the local campaign volunteer who was introducing him.

The tour culminates in Chicago and New York tomorrow, where where huge crowds are expected.  (Bryant Park in NY.)

Newhouse News has a pretty good overview of the whole tour here. And if you want to see how Dean is playing out in the heartland, I've indexed a boatload of local news stories on the events here. The press is definitely getting impressed out there in the country. We'll see if the beltway boys ever catch up. Info from the campaign on attendance estimates and remaining events here.