The State of the Race
By David Plouffe
"...Just as a refresher, below are some Democratic primary national polls going back to 1980. You’ll see how effective they have been as crystal balls.
* 2003: In August 2003, Joe Lieberman led the national polls, in September, Howard Dean led, in October, Wesley Clark led, and in December – one month before the Iowa Caucuses – a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll showed John Kerry, the eventual nominee, in fifth place trailing among others Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt. Yet after winning Iowa and New Hampshire, Kerry vaulted to 49% in national polls before the end of January, This has been true in nearly every previous Democratic nomination contest:
* 1992: According to a November 1991 Los Angeles Times poll, Bill Clinton was in 3rd place with less than half the support of the then-frontrunner, Jerry Brown.
* 1988: A January 1988 New York Times/CBS Poll showed Michael Dukakis in fourth place with 6 percent.
* 1980: An August 1979 poll showed President Carter trailing Senator Ted Kennedy by 36 points
Time is a friend to our campaign.
While voters have a distinctly positive feeling about Barack, they don’t have a great depth of knowledge about his life and history of leadership in Illinois and Washington. That history, which we have begun sharing in the early states, distinguishes Barack as someone who not only speaks about change, but who has spent a lifetime working to bring it about.
As we educate voters about Barack, we have strong reason to believe that our already impressive support in the early states will solidify and slowly build later in the year.
It is clear we have the most room to grow in the race, given that the majority of voters do not know much about Barack beyond what they have gleaned from news reports over the last few months..."
