Well, he looks better than "President" Bush did on that aircraft carrier...
Overall, Kerry leads the pack
Uber-liberals are agog that Howard Dean won move.on.org's online pre-Democratic primary with 44 percent (139,360) of the 317,647 votes cast. Second was Dennis Kucinich, with 24 percent, or 76,000 votes, and third was John Kerry, with 16 percent, or 49,973 votes. (The online vote was Tuesday and Wednesday and the results were announced today.)
Dean, Kucinich and Kerry were the only ones of the nine announced candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination who earned double digits. The three of them garnered a total of 84 percent of the online votes cast.
The other six candidates split the remaining paltry 16 percent among themselves, with fourth-place John Edwards getting 3 percent of the total vote (10,146 votes) and poor Al Sharpton getting the least number of votes, 1,677, barely over 0.5 percent.
It is gratifying to see that Republican wannabe Joe Lieberman got only 2 percent, with 6,095 votes. Two percent (6,378 voters) were undecided and 2 percent (6,121) wanted a candidate other than the current nine.
While Dean's performance in moveon.org's pre-Democratic primary is not insignficant, it is important not to overestimate its importance. Moveon.org is representative of Democrats (and non-Democrats) who are markedly leftist. Dean is the Democratic candidate whom moveon.org's members would like to see get the Democratic nomination. Polls consistently show that nationwide, Democrats don't want Dean.
For instance, in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup national poll taken earlier this month of just over 600 registered voters who are Democrats or who lean Democrat, unfortunately the winner was Lieberman, with 21 percent; second was Dick Gephardt, with 17 percent; and third was Kerry, with 13 percent. Dean (along with Bob Graham) got only 7 percent.
In a series of national polls taken by different pollsters over months, Dean sees only single digits; he performs nowhere nearly as well as he did in moveon.org's vote this week.
How are the nine candidates doing in fundraising?
According to the Federal Elections Commission's Website, through March 31 (the latest date for which figures are available), the top fundraisers were Kerry and Edwards, whose campaigns each had between $7 million and $7.5 million. Third was Gephardt, with almost $6 million, and fourth was Lieberman, with just over $3 million. Dean's war chest? $2.6 million.
Money isn't everything, but it is indicative of a candidate's popularity and organizational ability. People generally don't give money to candidates they don't like. And the more money a candidate raises, the more he or she can get him- or herself noticed, because to get oneself noticed in a crowded field of candidates takes money.
So the overall picture is that Kerry is the only of the nine Democratic candidate wannabes who:
consistently ranks in the top three in national polls, consistently earning double digits, and
so far is one of the top two fundraisers and
was one of moveon.org's top three winners in this week's online vote.
So far, John Kerry seems to have the most auspicious combination of indicators as to who probably will win the 2004 Democratic nomination. Probably none of the other eight candidates poll as well as does Kerry with both far-left and moderate Democrats, and his ability to raise campaign cash is indisputable.
Practice saying "President Kerry."
8:36:20 PM 
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