Captain Ed: [1]
Recall the pushback when we linked [2] to the Zogby poll that showed Hillary’s support eroding at the end of November? The numbers showed Hillary losing ground against all Republican contenders, and had some correlation with Rasmussen’s numbers [3] as well. Nonsense, came the response; Gallup’s polling in November — two weeks earlier — showed Hillary maintaining her momentum.
Oops [4]:
Though both candidates maintain their leads, Rudy Giuliani continues to lose support and Hillary Clinton drops nine points in Gallup’s latest poll.
Why, of course. this is exactly the phenomenon that I described when we discussed what was happening with Fred Thompson’s campaign. The one on the top of the hill is the easiest to shoot at. It now becomes incumbent on the second tier players the capitalize on all that. Says Ed:
It would be a free-fall, if the Democrats had a candidate who could take advantage of Hillary.
Limbaugh seems to think they do…. If Obama actually has the stones for it. [5]
But as if to reinforce the points I made earlier about peaking too soon in the polling, Huckabee, isremarkably uncomfortable with the label of “Front Runner”. [6] One gets the impression that Obama is keeping his powder dry, too.
Discussion, Memeorandum