[Sam Smith writing in his Undernews]
EMENDATION
TRY AS HE MAY to avoid it, your editor sometimes gets swept up in the popular presumptions of the time. For example, I recently referred to liberals meeting in Washington and Las Vegas as Clinton and Kerry supporters. Reader Alex Brown pointed out that in case of the latter - a conference of web bloggers organized by Daily Kos - it simply wasn't true. So I went back and checked on a couple of the straw polls that had been taken of liberal groups and the results were fascinating. For example, a Daily Kos poll of its readers some weeks ago came up with these findings:
68% Al Gore 15% Russ Feingold
4% Wesley Clark
Neither Kerry nor Clinton made the one percent mark.
A poll of Move On members found the following favorability ratings:
92% Al Gore 86% John Edwards 70% Russ Feingold 68% John Kerry 66% Wesley Clark 65% Joe Biden 65% Hillary Clinton 47% Bill Richardson 35% Mark Warner
The Daily Kos crowd are not typical of the Democratic Party and tend to be a bit full of themselves, witness this recent patronizing posting:
"We want the Green Party to not contest national elections in a way that can hurt Democrats (and civilization). We also want a forum for advancing our very progressive goals (we've all got a few) that are too outre for the politics of the day. In energy if not numbers, I think devoted Kossack users could probably stage a friendly, and possibly not unwelcome, takeover of the Greens. By which I mean not registering Green, or changing our support to Green in any races necessarily, but getting involved, hearing them out, organizing nationally for local races. Basically annexing the Greens and in return, in so doing, making it plain to the Democratic Party and the public (through Green activism) that the left is not going away."
On the other hand, these Democratic Party activists are bringing some of the spirit and technology of the Howard Dean almost-coup into the 2008 election and the poor showing of Clinton and Kerry among them is significant. It may even help to explain HRC's rush to the right.
UPDATE: Fair Vote took a straw instant runoff poll at the Take Back America conference and found Al Gore on top (both the first round and at the end) with Russ Feingold in second. Barack Obama was third. Clinton was 8th and Kerry was 9th.
http://www.dailykos.com/poll/1148396397_RcAkIUdC
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/15/12541/8345
http://www.fairvote.org/blog/?p=81