Behind in the polls, Edwards continues to press ahead

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/7357030.htm

SAPULPA, Okla. - After a daylong swing through southeastern Oklahoma, a region known as "Little Dixie," a shirt-sleeved Sen. John Edwards takes the stage in a suburban Tulsa restaurant.


"One of the things that's encouraging is people (here) talk a lot like I do," the North Carolina senator and Democratic presidential candidate tells the crowd in his Southern twang.


Cultural ties come easy in places such as Oklahoma. But Edwards is trying to connect with voters across the country, hoping to sway them just as he did juries on his way to becoming a multimillionaire trial lawyer.


His efforts have yet to lift him from the pack of nine Democratic presidential candidates. In polls, he lags in low single digits in the key early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, and he clings to a tenuous lead in his native South Carolina.


In Sapulpa, state Sen. Ted Fisher introduces him as "one of the brightest stars in our nation." But his star, like others, has been eclipsed by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.


Still, Edwards campaigns with the confidence of a man who all his life has confounded people who underestimated him. Though little known outside of North Carolina legal circles in 1998, he beat more prominent Democrats and an incumbent Republican on his way to the Senate.


Today, just five years into his political career, he flashes raw appeal and energy that few candidates match.
<snip>

(Does he remind anyone else of Bobby Sherman here?)

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. New Headline: Edwards back on top in new South Carolina presidential poll

http://www.wcnc.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D7V2ICM82.html

By JIM DAVENPORT / Associated Press


A new South Carolina Democratic presidential primary poll shows North Carolina Sen. John Edwards leading the race with the Rev. Al Sharpton not far behind.

The Feldman Group Inc.'s poll of 400 likely voters in the Feb. 3 South Carolina presidential primary showed Edwards with 17 percent and Sharpton with 12 percent. Twenty-two percent of those polled were undecided.

"It's always good to see more evidence of what you've known to be true," said Jenni Engebretsen, Edwards' South Carolina campaign spokeswoman.

The telephone poll was conducted Nov. 20-23 for Greenville Magazine and has a sampling margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The Washington, D.C., company typically polls for Democrats in political campaigns.

The new poll comes four weeks after an American Research Group poll showed retired Gen. Wesley Clark leading with 17 percent to Edwards' 10 percent. More than a third of that poll's respondents were undecided.

Those percentages were reversed in the Feldman Group Poll, in which 49 percent of the respondents were black, Feldman Group President Diane Feldman said. Democrats here expect blacks to account for about half of the primary voters.

Sharpton, who is black, led among black voters; Edwards, who is white, was second with that group, Feldman said.

"I've said all along I thought the American Research Group poll was wrong," Sharpton said of the earlier poll, which showed him at 5 percent.

The longtime activist has focused on South Carolina and will spend Thanksgiving at a Charleston shelter and with the family of a soldier who died in Iraq. "I think we're going to surprise a lot of people with how strong we come out in the final result," he said
<snip>

[0007]

2. I like John Edwards, he's honest and sincere. At this point...

I like Dean a little, but there is a long way to go.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

3. Of the candidates today, the only one I would absolutely cringe

at voting for would be Lieberman.

I just can't stand that whiny voice.

[0007]

7. I feel the same way about Lieberman.

[RowWellandLive]

5. I like Edwards too

but I'm confused as to why he didn't stay in the Senate for another term. He's young and it just doesn't seem like his time yet. Now we lose a great Senator and have to fight hard to keep the seat. As much as I like Edwards, I'm confused at his decision to run for Prez. Is this all about VP maybe?

[AP]

8. Because if he's the only person who can beat Bush...

...there won't be much of an America left in 2008 if he doesn't run now.

[RowWellandLive]

9. I hope he's not the only person who can beat Bush

because if so we are screwed. There's barely a slim hope he can win the nomination. Perhaps that's what he believes, but if so he has a hugely inflated image of himself. Then again, they probably ALL believe they are the only one that can beat Bush. The problem, as always, is that the most likely to be nominated by the faithful is often not the most likely to be elected over Bush by tha mass populous.

[Jerseycoa]

6. I like Edwards

But I was looking at it earlier. That is kind of a strange poll.


Feldman Group Nov. 20-23 MOE 4%



This poll first asks if the election were held today who would you vote for?

Undecided 32
Edwards 15
Clark 10
Sharpton 10
Dean 9

Then it asks, if the election were held today and you had to decide right now who would you lean toward?

Undecided 22
Edwards 17
Sharpton 12
Dean 11
Clark 10

Next it asks, if that candidate were not running who would you support?

Undecided 23
Lieberman 14
Dean 12
Edwards 12
Gephardt 10


Hard to know what it all means.

[newyawker99]

10. Billy_Pilgrim

Per DU copyright rules
please post only 4 paragraphs
from the news source.

Thank you.

NYer99
DU Moderator

[seventhson]

4. I Like Dean/Edwards and Edwards for Prez in 2012!!!

Works for me