Enthusiasm Gap

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this observation from MSNBC's first read, but it sure is interesting: "Yesterday, we spent some time with the so-called second tier on the Dem side. The most striking thing: the crowd sizes. Biden and Richardson seem to get similar crowds as the GOP front-runners." Along the same lines, it seems to me that undecided progressives tend to be undecided because they see merit to more than one candidate (often including some affection for at least one out of the Biden/Dodd/Richardson tier) whereas undecided conservatives tend to be lamenting their poor options.

Again, I don't know exactly what the upshot of this dynamic is, but it seems like a noteworthy turn of events. Along the same lines, what you see on the Democratic side is basically people with similar ideas arguing about who's best situated to put those ideas into practice. On the Republican side, you have people arguing over their ideological bona fides. It's as if Democrats are trying to pick a leader who'll get things done, while conservatives just want to find a sacrificial lamb who doesn't call the orthodoxy into question.