I love the Economist more than I can say. You shoud really read it. They really tell it like it is, much more than the rest of the media. This week they had this to say on Joe Lieberman's chances in the campaign:
Mr Lieberman even has a strategy for turning his principles into votes. He knows he has no chance in Iowa and New Hampshire. But he hopes that his national name-recognition and moderate politics will rescue him thereafter. His campaign is particularly hopeful about what it calls “Tidal Wave Tuesday”—the seven primaries on February 3rd that bring large numbers of southerners and westerners to the polls. Mr Lieberman is holding his own in South Carolina, where four Democrats are just about even, and is ahead in the most recent poll in Arizona (admittedly taken back in July). The hope is that these voters will act as a firewall against the Dean insurgency, and persuade the Democratic Party to rally around its most electable candidate.To be a little more precise, Mr Lieberman is gambling on three things that may well happen. The first is that Mr Dean succeeds in crushing Mr Gephardt in Iowa and John Kerry in New Hampshire. The next is that the Democratic establishment decides that Mr Lieberman is a safer bet for the ABD (Anyone But Dean) vote than young John Edwards, an inexperienced southern senator. And third, that Mr Dean blows up. If he continues to run as well as he has so far, he will be unstoppable. But if he makes a terrible gaffe—Mr Dean has a temper on him—then he might just create an opening for a more conventional candidate.
That's really interesting insight.
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