With Wes Clark or Mark Warner as VP, Obambi (Maureen Dowd's phrase) will be able to establish a responsible 20-year plan for "new Democrats." (Featuring Jim Webb in varied tasks.)

with Clinton doing the best, as well as Edwards. Now it's Obama's turn. Very interesting.

The MSM had a hysteria reaction to the Geffen endorcement of Obama. There were three stories. They should have been covered in this order of importance:

1. The Dreamworks Three, Spielberg, Katzenberg (who worked on John Lindsay's campaign in NY at 14 years old) and Geffen held a Hollywood fundraiser for Barack Obama. These are the most important people in Hollywood and perhaps the most important people in America and in the world (Bob Dole's comment at the premier of "Independence Day."). This is the equivalence of a Hollywood premier. The fact that this endorcement came before any fund raiser for Senator Clinton or anyone else is of great significance in the manners of this court. The Three Kings of Hollywood have made there first choice. There is no second choice.

2. In a secondary action, Geffen, as spokesman for the three, broke with the Clintons, citing a pardon given by Bill Clinton in his last day in office too Libby associate Marc Rich who had given one million dollars to the Clintons, which actor Warren Beatty called at the time "legalized bribery."

3. Hillary was pissed.

This was an important story and a turning point in the '08 Presidential Race. The only part reported by MSM was that Hillary was pissed. From my point of view this was a difinitive turning of events and the most important landmark in "new Democrat" politics since JIm Webb won his election. Obama has taken the lead. (And he already has Oprah.)

Let's see if this remarkable Zogby poll is replicated by other polling organizations in coming weeks. If it is, the suspicion of many political old pros  that Hillary Clinton may not be electable will be reinforced.

Pocketbooks and wallets would then stay closed rather than open up for Hillary. She would continue to do reasonably well by relying on her corporate million dollar "bundlers," but she may be surprised that many Democrats willing to write checks or offer their credit card numbers will conclude that Barack Obama is the more promising elective prospect.

It will be very interesting to look at the early fundraising numbers after the April 15th reporting deadline. Will Obama make a surprisingly strong showing against the Hillary money machine? Will John Edwards pick up some steam to become seriously competitive? Will Bill Richardson gain any traction among those who are reluctant to back Hillary because they doubt her electability?

They are already soliciting donations. Looks like the '08 presidentail campaign season has begun.

too early IMHO

How reliable is Zogby compared to other pollsters?  It seems during the last election cycle we were all driven nuts by almost daily polls, most of which were contradictory and confusing.

I remember feeling like I was living and dying by polls.  One day, Webb was up by a couple of points.  The next day he was down by a point or two.  The polls swung back and forth more times than a five year old on a swing. 

Also, it's still so early that it's possible that most people are basing their opinions on who has been most prominent in the news cycle.

What were the actual questions Zogby asked?  How many people were polled?  What was the demographic breakdowns?

It's an interesting poll but I'm not sure it proves anything yet.

take all polls with a grain of salt.  I am certainly not going to try and ascertain which polling company is the best, especially since some are better in particular states or regions, some better nationally, etc.  It's complicated.

for the accuracy of its "online polling".  However, I believe this Zogby poll was done by telephone.  Check out this post by Markos that analyzed the most accurate polls of 2006.

See here.

There are two things that Zogby has been known to do that I think make his polling methodology questionable.  One is that he has done in the past is to weight responses accorded to how he thinks they will turn up to vote.  Hence, if he thinks the Dem/Rep balance in the survey does not reflect how they will turn out, he will adjust the numbers.  That means that it is not a statistically random sample, and it depends on how right you think he is in predicting turnout.  Personally I think that assigning statistical weights to a survey is a tricky business, and that other ways of getting at "likely voters" are better.  (You identify "likely voters" by whether or not they are registered to vote or know there polling location, etc.)

The other controversial thing that Zogby has also been known to use is "interactive" polls.  These are based on online surveys.  The BIG problem, of course, is that if certain types of people are more likely to be on the Internet and responding to his interactive polls, it can be a very skewed sample.  Personally, I think the right-wing crazies are more likely to be listening to radio instead of surfing the Web.  Of course, if the way to "correct" this bias is by weighting the sample, you again run into the issue of how to assign the weights.  So it could be that interactive polls only compound two problems: sampling bias plus the potential for incorrectly assigned weights.  (I used to be a periodic responder to his online polls, then realized that I was only helping to perpetuate a bad methodology.)

Zogby's polling was mediocre to poor, according to Moulitsas' comparisons for the '06 election. And since they seem to put in as much effort promoting themselves as polling, I'm sceptical of their results. But it's a useful talking point that Obama shows up as the only Dem front-runner that beats the leading GOP candidates.

Sounds like a great name for a sitcom...