John Kerrry: Things in the mirror are closer than they appear.

[AP]

A few comments:

- Matt Drudge is a media whore for lying about Kerry's MOV. He oversold it by almost 100%.

- Ted over at the Kerry Blog is no longer credible.

- I always said, as the field narrows, more people will pay attention to John Edwards, and the more attention people pay, the more they'll like him.

[woofless]

1. Do you think that Edwards will be able to overtake Kerry?

[AP]

2. I don't think Edwards has found his ceiling yet.

He closed 31 points on Kerry in a week.

Where do you think it will stop?

Send him some money if you want to find out.

[woofless]

3. I truly wanted to know if you thought it possible for Edwards to

overtake Kerry. To answer your question I think it will be apparent after Super Tues whether Edwards has the legs to carry on. He had an excellent showing today and has a lot of support. Is it enough? I don't know. The way I read the exit polling stats, Edwards did much better with Independents and Kerry with Democrats. Some people point to this stat as a reason to believe that Edwards is more electable in the General election. I, on the other hand, believe that Kerry will be just as popular with Independents in the GE when Edwards is gone.

[AP]

4. What's your theory about why a guy who looks like Dukakis on paper

will do better with Independents than a southerner who is a surface moderate and reminds people of Clinton?

[woofless]

5. Simply stating that I think that kerry will pick up

those Independent voters in the GE. If he picks Edwards as veep all the better. Do you think Edwards can get the nomination of our party?

[AP]

6. He closed 31 points on Kerry in a week. At that rate, he's going to beat

Kerry to the finish line. Kerry has bee averaging about 50% of the Delegates in the first quarter of primaries. If Edwards hits 60% on super tuesday, and then climbs after that, it will be Edwards.

For comparison, once Clinton became the favorite he started winning states by 80% (if memory serves).

What really matters is whether Edwards gets a lot of money in the next two weeks.

[jmoss]

24. remember Paul Tsongas?

March 2nd (on or about), 1992: Paul Tsongas won the majority of Maryland & Georgia votes, I believe, on Super Tuesday. A man named William J. Clinton came in close second. Mr. Clinton had been finishing 3rd & 4th behind Tsongas, Harkin & Brown.

We all know the rest......! :-)

[DemDogs]

7. When he beats him one week, its over for Kerry

Think about March 9.

[Punkingal]

8. I loved that objects in the mirror line.

We were watching Hardball, and Tweety was so pissed because they cut away from the Edwards speech. He mentioned it several times. (I was disappointed, too. I like Kerry, but I've heard his speech a gazillion times now. Edwards doesn't always say the same thing.)

[AP]

9. Yeah that was good. That will get coverage tomorrow.

I hear that Kerry not only stole Edwards's TV time, but he stole his song too -- he entered to "I was born in a small town..."

[AP]

10. Another observation - notice how Edwards ALWAYS loses votes

as the night goes on. He's never gained late, He's only lost late. There's not reason this should be the case. There's now pattern to how votes are counted. Maybe bigger districts come in later. But I don't think that's reall true.

You'd think, law of averages, that Edwards would gain late every once in while.

Anyone think this is an odd pattern?

[DjTj]

11. bigger urban districts do come in later.

I know that's what happenned in Oklahoma. Tulsa and OK City gave Clark a final boost.

The small rural districts only have a few hundred votes to count and are done quickly. Edwards generally does better in these districts. Some the the urban districts will first move all the votes to a centralized location and then start counting them. They usually have a lot more votes too, so it ends up taking a lot longer.

Edwards always loses in the cities, so he always loses ground towards the end.

[AP]

13. I could look again, but I think Edwards and Kerry did almost exactly the

same in cities and suburbs and rural areas, so that wouldn't explain why Edwards went down there.

Also, I think he and Clark did the same in cities and rural areas in NH, yet Clark closed there too.

[King of New Orleans]

15. Edwards won the Milwaukee suburbs 41-34

was close in the South 35-38 and NE 36-40. Lost the NW 32-43 and Milwaukee 32-40 by wider margins.

On a different measure, Edwards won the suburbs 39-35 and Kerry won the rural vote 33-44.

I think it's mainly your imagination and random chance (with regards to vote reporting)

[AP]

16. It's not my imagination that Edwards has been up early and then dropped.

In NH he was ahead of Clark until the end. Same in OK, and now WI vs Kerry.

I don't know if there's another candidate who has switched places as the night wore on.

[seventhson]

19. Yes - something smells

The observations about New Hampshire and the paper versus computer ballots results is very disturbing.

I do NOT want another Skull presidency.

[liberalnurse]

12. Edwards best bet would be to court

every Dean supporter he possibly could and that includes Howard Dean.

So far, from reading here at DU, the Edwards courting to Dean supporters has been in the "red column".

[Meldread]

14. I loved that opening remark.

I laughed out loud when he said "Things in the mirror are closer than they appear". It was priceless because I can only imagine John Kerry's face when he turned around and noticed that John Edwards was close enough to kick him. :p

[Nicholas_J]

17. Edwards Momentum

In Wisconsin came from him spending almost all of his financial resources there, and from spending all of the week after Virginia/Tennessee there. Kerry didnt make an appearance in Wisconsin until Sunday. Kerry did spend the first few days after Virginian/Tennessee shoring up his campaign machine in the Two largest super tueday states, New York and California, where polls have Edwards far, far lower than they did in Wisconsin two weeks before the primaries. In California Edwards is polling 50 percent lower than he was two weeks before Wisconsin, In New York, he is polling half that. Though die hard Dean supporters will not admint it, Kerry is the second choice of the majority of those who were leaning towards Dean, and not Edwards. What won Edwards Wisconsin was the fact that Edwards did well among Republicans in Wisconsins open primary, and none of the Super Tuesday Primaries allow that option.

[AP]

18. Edwards had ONE staff member in WI three weeks ago,

and she didn't arrive until the day after NM et al

Edwards closed 30 points on Kerry in the last week. If Kerry made a strategic error and let Edwards make this inroad by ignoring WI, maybe that says something about his judgment. What kind of president would he make? I mean, didn't this guy carry an M-16 in the jungles of Vietnam? Shouldn't he know better than to make a strategic error like that?

[jmoss]

25. except, he has also been campaigning in NY & CA, too!

......just to be accurate about it. Also, he's going to 2 & 3 States a day, for the next 5 days (NY, GA, MN, OH, etc.). He will be viable, and "noticed" source of competition for Mr. Kerry.

The tell-tale sign will be when John Edwards name pops up in the front-runner's rhetoric.

[GumboYaYa]

20. Congratulations AP, you called this one a long time ago.

Your guy definitely has a way with words. He may turn the whole concept of electability on its head.

There are a lot of people waking up this morning asking who this John Edwards guy is. That's a good thing for him. Now that the race is narrowing, there are a lot of votes out there looking for a candidate.

[eileen_d]

21. I agree Edwards has momentum

and he's an attractive candidate (I don't mean that superficially)

BUT - while "Objects in the mirror" was a clever sound bite, Kerry did eventually beat him by SIX percentage points in Wisconsin. Which makes me wonder if Edwards' isn't benefitting from the dreaded corporate media "hype" -- i.e. CNN and others initially declaring the race too close to call.

I am not saying this to be petty; just wondering what you think about this since in the end it was a clear victory for Kerry in WI.

[AP]

22. Nagourney, Russert said he should drop out. Saffire calls him the soak

the rich candidate. Nobody talks about his biography or his policies, which are his strong points.

I don't think the media is on his side at all.

I think he and Kerry did get extra coverage after IA because they did well.

I think the final vote spread was 5.4% -- that's an incredibly narrowing of the gap in one week in the first primary when people were clearly making a decision between Edwards and only one or two other candidates.

He's only going to get closer, and then he'll pass Kerry.

[eileen_d]

23. I don't think the media is on any Democrat's side, frankly

I think they play the candidates against each other. And I agree with your prediction that Edwards will continue to do well. (Whether he'll *pass* Kerry - I don't know!)

Since I have your attention, I think you have been a great advocate for Edwards here on DU, so here's a toast to you :toast:

[Kolesar]

26. Senator Edwards has a funding limitation, though

Since he accepted public financing, does not that mean that there is a cap on the amount of money he can raise? Dean and Kerry were the only ones who declined public financing. With Dean dropping out, that means that if we want a candidate who can legally raise a huge campaign warchest it has to be John Kerry? Has this been decided for us already?

I am not sure I understand the public financing situation Sen Edwards is in.