Presidential Power Rankings # 37

September 12, 2007

Democrats:

1. Hillary Clinton (1)
2. Barack Obama (2)
3. John Edwards (3)
4. Bill Richardson (4)
5. Chris Dodd (5)
6. Al Gore (6)
7. Joe Biden (7)
8. Dennis Kucinich (8)
9. Mike Gravel (9)

No changes this week, but now that Labor Day is over and there are only eight candidates and one that others pine for and whom occasionally wins straw polls, I am dumping Wes Clark and the wasteful # 10 hole.

It is very interesting that polls that come out of Iowa and New Hampshire show John Edwards either even with or ahead of Barack Obama in those two very important states. But then in South Carolina, the state in which John Edwards was born, he appears to be significantly behind both Obama and Hillary Clinton. If he has any prayer of the nomination, he would need to make a showing in South Carolina, but that appears very unlikely, and thus, the total picture remains with Obama more likely to be the nominee than Edwards, but Hillary still far and away more likely than either of them to capture it.

Republicans:

1. Mitt Romney (1)
2. Rudy Giuliani (2)
3. Fred Thompson (3)
4. John McCain (4)
5. Mike Huckabee (5)
6. Newt Gingrich (6)
7. Sam Brownback (7)
8. Ron Paul (8)
9. Tom Tancredo (9)
10. Duncan Hunter (10)

No changes this week, but certainly a far more fluid race than what is going on with the Democrats.

I was watching last week to see if Mike Huckabee could impress enough in the debates and in polls out of Iowa and New Hampshire to warrant moving up over John McCain. While Huckabee did well in the debate, and is indeed on par with McCain in Iowa, McCain was seen by many as the biggest winner of the most recent debate and his campaign is seeing a modest surge of support nationally, perhaps related in part to the surge of success on behalf of the military in Iraq, which some have dubbed the “McCain strategy.” Thus, McCain remains a spot ahead of Huckabee.

As for the rest, Fred Thompson indeed is appearing to get a bounce out of his candidacy announcement week, particularly in the national polls. That seems to be hurting Rudy Giuliani the most and Mitt Romney some also in national surveys. However, Romney remains ahead of the entire field in Iowa and New Hampshire, which makes it hard for him to drop out of the number one spot, and Giuliani appears to be at least in slightly better shape than Thompson in the earliest states as well. It will be worth watching over the next two weeks if the bounce for Thompson is real or was just some temporary buzz.