Two out of five Salon bloggers who participated in a poll on the 2004 presidential candidates last week prefer Howard Dean. One in four was undecided and about one in five chose John Kerry, who came in second. (See? I can post a flattering photo -- or at least a neutral photo -- of Howard Dean!)
Surprise! Dean is Salon bloggers' choice
Howard Dean was the clear choice of 72 Salon bloggers who participated in a poll on the 2004 presidential candidates that yours truly conducted this past week via e-mail.
The Salon bloggers answered the question, “Please tell me which [2004] presidential candidate you lean toward.” Their choices were the announced candidates George W. Bush, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Richard Gephardt, Bob Graham, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Joseph Lieberman, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton. They also could respond that they were undecided.
Dean trounced the rest of the eight Democratic candidates with 29 votes, or 40.3 percent.
In second place was Kerry, whose 14 votes gave him 19.4 percent. Dennis Kucinich came in at third place, with eight votes, or 11.1 percent.
“President” Bush got two votes, for 2.8 percent. Edwards got only one vote, for 1.4 percent.
The rest of the Democratic contenders -- Braun, Gephardt, Graham, Lieberman and Sharpton -- received no votes at all.
Eighteen respondents, or 25 percent, said they are undecided.
I e-mailed the poll to all of the Salon bloggers who rank in the top 100 (with the exception of the two or three that do not have a way to e-mail them via their blogs). For a week I also kept an eye on the list of most recently updated blogs to find bloggers not listed in the top 100.
I e-mailed the poll to more than 145 Salon bloggers, and about half of them responded.
Dean also was the winner in the online pre-Democratic primary that the progressive Internet organization moveon.org conducted on June 24 and 25. He won 43.9 percent of the more than 300,000 online votes that were cast.
Kucinich came in second in moveon.org’s online primary, with 23.9 percent, and Kerry came in third, with 15.7 percent. Dean, Kucinich and Kerry were the only candidates to get double digits in the primary, and because no candidate got more than 50 percent of the vote, moveon.org did not endorse a candidate.
Now the fun part: What do the numbers suggest to me?
Kucinich seems to be slipping, even among progressives. (I suspect that Salon bloggers, the majority of whom are progressive and Internet savvy, are very similar to moveon.org’s membership. Therefore, I suspect that Kucinich had more support among Salon bloggers a month ago, when he came in second in moveon.org's primary, than he does now.)
Because of Kucinich’s low national poll numbers -- always single digits -- and because of his struggle for campaign contributions (only Braun and Sharpton have less campaign cash than he does), he is commonly listed with Braun and Sharpton as being unelectable. I expect his candidacy to be among the first to tank. I like him, but without the money and without the poll numbers, a presidential campaign dies.
So among progressives, it looks like it’s going to be Kerry and Dean duking it out.
My guess is that among progressives, including Salon bloggers, Dean already has the bulk of supporters he’s going to have. I don’t think that too many undecideds are going to end up in Dean’s column, as he is a polarizing candidate, not a fence-sitter’s candidate.
My guess is that the majority of the 25 percent of Salon bloggers who are undecided will end up in Kerry’s column. My guess also is that should Dean drop out of the race, the majority of his supporters will go to Kerry’s camp. (I am conducting a second poll only of those Salon bloggers who picked Dean, asking them who their second choice is; I will post those results on Wednesday as an update to this post.)
In its online pre-Democratic primary last month, moveon.org also asked voters which candidates they would enthusiastically support should they become the Democratic presidential candidate. Eighty-six percent of voters said they’d enthusiastically support Dean and 75.3 percent said they’d enthusiastically support Kerry. In third place was Kucinich, whom 68.3 percent said they’d enthusiastically support. (It's interesting that Kucinich was in second place in the number of votes received but was in third place in terms of enthusiastic support -- and that Kerry was in third place in the number of votes received but was in second place in terms of support.)
That Dean, Kerry and Kucinich are the top three favorites of both Salon bloggers and moveon.org's members especially indicates to me a similarity between the two groups.
Salon bloggers evidently are unenthusiastic about Gephardt, Graham and Lieberman. While I’m not surprised that Braun and Sharpton received no votes, I am surprised that Gephardt, Graham and Lieberman received none and that Edwards received only one. The old-school Democrats don’t appeal to Salon bloggers, I think it is safe to conclude.
To be determined among progressives now, I think -- and this is where the debate has been heated -- is which Democratic candidate can best send Bush packing back to Crawford. Kucinich is out; no one who is oriented to reality would seriously suggest that Kucinich can unseat Bush. Among progressives, then, that leaves Kerry and Dean.
Stay tuned.
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