Enthusiasm

This finding from Gallup provides an interesting look at the enthusiasm gap between the parties. Even with the Clinton-Obama race reaching a new level of heatedness in blog comment threads and email lists everywhere, it remains the case that each contender is seen as an unusually high-quality candidate over sixty percent of Democrats. By contrast, fewer than ten percent of Democrats see either contender as unusually weak. Consequently, you mostly have a primary in which two well-liked candidates are trying to secure the support of voters who like them both.

And even though I've got a clear preference in the race, I'd very much put myself in the category of people who's happy with both his options. Especially in domestic policy terms, the Clinton 2008 agenda is far, far better than Kerry 2004, Gore 2000, or Clinton 1996. In large part, of course, that reflects not the intrinsic attributes of Clinton and Obama, but the changing nature of our times and the leftward gravitational pull exercised by the Edwards campaign, but it's still the field we've got and it's a very strong one.