The New Republic’s &c offers a cautionary note to the “Dean is inevitable” school of thought: if Kerry collapses, as he appears to be doing in New Hampshire, Clark is the obvious beneficiary. It seems to me that the same is true of Edwards and Lieberman, the other two likely early casualties. All of those votes ought to be much more available to Clark than to Dean (or Gephardt). Given the media limelight that’s been on Dean for a couple of months now and his resulting high voter ID, his failure to pull away from the pack in national polls suggests to me he that may be better at assembling a army and raising money than at attracting votes.
And speaking of raising money, TNR suggests something I hadn’t heard before: that Clark may actually out-raise Dean in the fourth quarter. Now that would be an impressive performance.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
AF&Opourri
Lots of worthy reads from around the blogospheriverse.
The Inevitable Winner(s)
In one of those wonderful blog-induced feedback nets, my buddy Natalie read my recent post about Molly Ivins' endorsement of Howard Dean, and she happened to also read Mark Kleiman's take on the same event, which in turn is based