Reply #72: Sure. 1) He didn't 2) It was mostly about Iowa...

[Tom Rinaldo]

I dug up some info showing the effect of the Iowa caucus on New Hampshire tarcking polls in 2004.
http://americanresearchgroup.com/nhpoll/demtrack/

On December 17th 2003 Clark was tracking at 8% of the NH vote with Dean at 45% and Kerry 20%. (Clark had dropped from 11% recorded December 3rd.) The January 2-4 numbers though put Clark at 12% in New Hampshire. For the 4th through 6th period Clark tracked at 16%. For that same period Kerry was down to 13%. For January 8-10th Clark was up to 20% in New Hampshire while Kerry went down to 10%, and Dean was at 35%.

During the January 12-14 period Clark hit 24% in New Hampshire, Kerry was rebounding to 15% and Dean was at 29%. Kerry wasn't rebounding because of his campaigning in New Hampshire, he was rebounding because of his campaigning in Iowa with all the National media attention that was receiving. You see the Iowa caucuses were about to be held on January 19th, less than a week away, and the National Media was finally paying attention to the Democratic Horse Race. I remember it well, every night the political news focused on the fight for Iowa and the Democrats who were campaigning there. Clark wasn't one of them of course.

For the January 16-18 NH tracking poll, taking it to the very eve of the Iowa Caucus, Clark had slipped to 20% while Kerry had risen to 18%. Edwards who had been stuck at 3% a week before had risen to 8% with Dean down to 28%. Then came the Iowa caucus with Kerry and Edwards finishing One and Two. The NH tracking period for January 20-22 showed Clark still hanging on to 20% but, surprise surprise, Kerry was starting to really surge, up to 31% while Edwards climbed to 11%. By the January 24-26 poll Clark had bottomed at 13%, Kerry was at 35% and Edwards was at 15%. Dean had rebounded to 25% after bottoming out in the mid teens right after the Iowa caucus. When New Hampshire actually voted on January 28th Edwards, even with all his new media attention, had slipped back to a shade over 12% of the vote and Clark edged him out for third place. Kerry won of course with over 38% and Dean got over 26%

It was all Iowa. Iowa and the non stop media coverage of Iowa, and the media focus on Kerry and Edwards and all the "momentum" they "developed" in Iowa. Without Iowa, Clark was poised to come in First or a very close Second in New Hampshire, in the first real vote of the year, against two neighboring New Englanders who had been stomping in New Hampshire for a year each. Clark got very little national media coverage starting the week before the Iowa caucus, until the day he withdrew after winning one Primary and coming in second in three. After Iowa it was all "John John" and "Dean Scream". Though he finished fourth in New Hampshire, the media decided that John Edwards should be considered with John Kerry for the Democrats who left New Hampshire with "momentum" coverage slot.

Unlike all the other Democratic Candidates, Clark had approximately a year less of campaigning. Everyone else had a year's head start on Clark to get their campaigns up and running and tuned up for the contests. The Democratic candidate debates had already started before Clark even declared as a candidate. That is the main reason he did not contest Iowa, he didn't have enough time to do virtual door to door campaigning in both New Hampshire and Iowa in the time allowed him.

Even on February the 6th, when Clark dropped out of the rest, he was still polling in second place in Wisconsin:

WISCONSIN POLL
Likely Democratic
primary voters Feb 6, 2004
Wesley Clark 15%
Howard Dean 9%
John Edwards 10%
John Kerry 41%
Dennis Kucinich 2%
Al Sharpton 2%
Undecided 21%

http://www.americanresearchgroup.com/wi /


WesDem, another DU poster, once made these observations about Clark's campaign in an old post:

"Clark entered the primary race a year or two after everybody else was running.

He was a novice candidate who ran in a field of ten that was 80% elected officials or former elected officials.

In a four-month long campaign, and before withdrawing on 2/11/04 and endorsing Kerry, Clark competed in 13 states.

He won Oklahoma over experienced campaigners.

He came in second in Arizona, New Mexico and North Dakota ahead of experienced campaigners.

Third in New Hampshire, Tennessee and Virginia ahead of experienced campaigners.

Fourth in Missouri and South Carolina ahead of experienced campaigners.

Fifth in Delaware, Maine, Michigan, and Washington ahead of experienced campaigners."

Clark decidely bested the former Minority Leader of the House of Representatives,Dick Gephardt. He trounced the Democrats former VP candiate Joe Lieberman, and also Senator Bob Graham, a very seasoned former Governor from Florida who was very popular in that Reddish State. Clark also arguably did better than Howard Dean overall but there is no point in having that argument. Nuetral media studies conclusively showed that Clark got far less free media exposure than either Kerry, Edwards, or Dean. I think Clark did very well against those odds considering that it was the first time that Clark ran for any political office and that he barely knew his own campaign staff when his campaign started.