Letting air out of the balloon

Last night on Hardball General Clark wasn't asked about his groundbreaking Tax Plan, of course, but about the Clinton Impeachment.

That's so 1998 Chris. I guess the point was to test Clark's Clinton loyalty because Mathews is a Clinton-Love-Hater and thinks this is Clark's only true weakness-- his reliance on Bubba. Sure enough, Clark sort of said Clinton should have been censured instead of impeached and raised the larger point of our allies saying this is bad for America and we lost a year that we could have focused on more important stuff-- like the African Embassy Bombings by Al Queda, our failed attempt to bomb his camps, or domestic issues like health care, taxes, social security, you name it.

While Mathews was rehashing 6 year old hits, his panel noted that not only is Clark emerging as Dean's number one opponnet, but that Dean is already trying to do something about it.

Dean-lover Howard Fineman, who knows so much about the West that in 2000 he got Las Vegas confused with Salt Lake City, said that Dean's folks told him their internal New Hampshire polling has Clark already in second place, even better than the ARG poll I talked about yesterday (Clark doesn't pay for polls because enough people are doing them for free).

Why did they give Newsweek columnist Fineman that tidbit? Why to lessen the media bounce that Clark will get when he "comes out of nowhere" to place a strong second and beats out Kerry.

Assuming Dean out organizes Gephardt (especially if there is a snow storm, Dick is in trouble since his folks aren't as diehard as Dean's) in Iowa and Clark gets 2nd in New Hampshire, we have a two man race. After January 27th there could be no Gephardt, no Kerry (and assuming Kerry gets 3rd in IA and NH, possibly no Edwards either). Soon, we have a race with the first tier of Dean and Clark, second tier of Edwards and Lieberman, 3rd of the rest (look for Carol to give it up soon, no money is left and her goal of respectability has been achieved).

I don't see how Edwards can win South Carolina with two 4th place finishes in the first two, nor do I see Lieberman doing well anywhere but Delaware on February 3rd. Again, Clark is already second in every state save Iowa. Once his ads and staff get in there, he could narrow the gap as more "Washington Democrats" drop out and the "stop-Dean" vote coalesces around Clark.

At most, Dean has about 30-40% of the Democratic party. With 9 people running, that's a landslide. But with two people (plus liberal tokens like Sharpton and Kucinich), 30 or 40% doesn't sound all that good.