Expect the political fireworks to start. Soon.
A new poll indicates that Senator Barack Obama has now pulled even with Senator Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination sweepstakes so expect the remaining kid gloves to come off in the campaign…OR expect the candidates to scramble to raise their respective profiles higher than the other:
On the heels of a burst of successful fund-raising, Democratic 2008 presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) has pulled even with frontrunner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a new poll released on Monday found.
Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, has steadily gained on Clinton, a veteran on the national political scene, over the last month and each now polled 32 percent among likely Democratic voters, the survey by Rasmussen Reports found. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina was third in the poll with 17 percent.
In late March, New York’s Clinton held a 12-point lead over Illinois’ Obama in the Rasmussen poll.
The survey was the latest sign the former first lady, who now represents New York in the Senate, will have a tough fight ahead to win the Democratic nomination. Obama, who has served two years in the U.S. Senate, earlier this month revealed he raised $25.8 million in the first quarter of 2007, nearly matching the $26 million she raised.
This is a further sign that 2007 has been a notable bad year for Political Inevitability.
It was clear that Ms. Clinton wanted her nomination to be seen as inevitable…unstoppable. And it was also clear that Senator John McCain was at one point way ahead in the polls and some said he was the inevitable GOP establishment nominee, maverick or no maverick.
But, in fact, the front-runners who were are not longer necessary the front runners who are. And they will want to remain front-runners and they each have capable political staffs — who could soon be unleashed to take more aggressive paths.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.