Front Runners: “A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the White House”
Time Magazine points out the problem with calling the race 21 months out:
Sometimes it’s not who you like, it’s who you know. That’s the important axiom to remember at this stage of the presidential race, when polls say far more about name recognition than they do about actual likely victory. That’s why TIME has created the Election Index, a framework for looking not just at who’s the most popular but who has the most potential. Since through this prism, Hillary Clinton’s whopping lead over other candidates is less important than her near-100% name recognition: If 98% of the population has already made up their minds about her, how can she ever get voter support above its current level of about 50%?
Pundits and bloggers would do well to tape a copy of these poll results, from ABC-Washington Post in January of 2003, on their monitors/mirrors/most viewed flat surface in their office:
Joseph Lieberman 27 Richard Gephardt 14 John Edwards 11 John Kerry 10 Al Sharpton 7 Howard Dean 3 Don’t know 24
