Well, if you had any doubts, put em' away. She's in.

[Mr. Morden]

See this.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/7/25/135340/322

I stopped reading when he said "Caucuses, unlike primaries, really are exercises in organization. Witness Kerry's victory in Iowa in 2004."  Um, actually, that shows the opposite.  As stated by every single news story written at the time, Dean and Gephardt were the ones with the most impressive Iowa organizations.  But they got buried by Kerry and Edwards because the unusually high turnout (high by the standards of the Iowa caucuses) led to the universe of caucus goers expanding to include folks who wouldn't normally attend caucuses.  By all accounts, Edwards had the *weakest* IA organization among the four major '04 candidates, and he still finished a strong second.

[Mr. Morden]

Why do so many of you seem to think that Hillary's a near shoe-in for the nomination?  Didn't we have a poll in this forum not long ago in which the question was asked who you thought was most likely to win the Dem nomination, and Hillary came in third place (with Warner first)?  Is it because of this "$100 million" figure?

I didnt follow the money #'s in 2004.  How much of an advantage will she have with $100 million for the primary?  (go easy on me )

Here's a news story from January '04 on the Dem. $ race:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/01/elec04.prez.dean.fundraising/index.html

It says that Dean raised $40 million in 2003, which put him ahead of all of his Democratic rivals, though of course he ended up losing.  However, at the time that Kerry started pulling even with Dean in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, several pundits suggested that the fact that Kerry's campaign was able to borrow $ from Kerry's own fortune allowed him to keep up with Dean in terms of cash on hand, and this contributed to his victory.

[Mr. Morden]

Nym90 is right, the Democratic primary contests don't become clear until at least March or April before the election, (2004 was a bit different), whereas Republicans seem to nominate their candidate the summer after the mid-terms, which provides for way less drama and way less excitement.

I don't understand what you mean.  The basic arc for both parties' nomination races seems to always play out in pretty much the same way:  A year before the primaries, there's a frontrunner, who everyone seems to think will be tough to beat, but then somewhere along the course of the campaign (either in the fall of the year before the election, or in the primaries themselves), that frontrunner starts to face a serious challenge, though *usually* not enough that they lose.

In 1992 cycle, wasn't Clinton widely considered to be the frontrunner for the Dem nomination, once it became clear that the big names like Cuomo and Gephardt wouldn't run?  Clinton stumbled badly over personal issues like Gennifer Flowers, and for a while it looked like Tsongas might win, but Clinton still won in the end.  In the 1996 cycle, Dole was the early frontrunner, but was then seriously challenged by the rising popularity of Forbes in late '95, and Buchanan's surprisingly strong showings in IA and NH, but Dole still won.  In '00, Gore was the early frontrunner for the Dems, but Bradley surged into the lead in NH polls in the fall of '99, though Gore ended up coming back and winning both IA and NH, at which point Bradley could never regain any momentum.  And on the GOP side in '00, Bush was the early frontrunner, and his mammoth war chest and lead in the polls led to half of the field dropping out of the race by the end of 1999, but then you had the rising tide of McCain, who stunned Bush with a 17 point victory in NH.  Bush still came back to win in the end.

The recent case where this pattern played out in a very strange way was in the '04 election cycle, where (once Gore announced that he wouldn't run), Kerry became the early frontrunner.  But he was eclipsed by Dean in the summer of '03, and suddenly Dean was the frontrunner.  But Dean had a spectacular meltdown *right before the Iowa caucus*, and Kerry ended up winning it after all.

I don't think the Republicans are somehow programmed to rally around the frontrunner early, and never give it a second though, while the Democrats are destined to always engage in a primary bloodbath.  I think it's just the case that in recent elections, the Republicans have more frequently happened to have a strong frontrunner early on.  This time around, I don't think either party has anyone who's nearly as well positioned as Bush and Gore were in late 1998.  Clinton and McCain may be their parties' respective frontrunners, but they are nowhere close to being as strong as Bush and Gore were back then.  They are both like Kerry was at the end of 2002--the nominal frontrunner, but weak enough that there's still a good chance that they'll lose their respective party nominations.

[Mr. Morden]

There's no way it'll be as late as mid-April '08 for either party, given how many states have been moving up their primaries to February in recent years.  I fully expect that we'll know who the nominees are by the end of February '08.  That doesn't mean that all the other candidates will have dropped out by then.  But we'll be able to say with at least 90% confidence who the nominees will be by then, and there will be a few candidates staying in the race, despite the fact that the outcome is pretty much a foregone conclusion.  (As in '04, when Edwards stayed in the race a couple of weeks beyond the point at which it was blazingly obvious that Kerry was going to win.)

Now, this is not to say that there won't be some periods of great uncertainty about who's going to win between now and then, perhaps extending as late as January or early Feb. '08.  But based on the experiences of both parties in '96, '00, and '04, there are now so many primaries being held in so many states in so few weeks in the early part of the year, that it's become inevitable that *someone* will build up enough momentum to put themselves on a path to the nomination very early.  The absolute latest I can see that happening is the first week of March.  I'd almost be willing to put money on that.

[Mr. Morden]

And we all know how incompetent McAuliffe is, not that it matters, but just food for thought.

Hillary could neutralize that by making sure that her principal opponent (whoever that turns out to be) hires Bob Shrum.