Josh Marshall, blogging from New Hampshire, says, “What the veteran journalists often say is that in the last couple days, you watch the size and charge of the crowds more than the polls. That�s where the story is told.” If that’s true, then this is very good news for Lieberman:

Presidential hopeful Joe Lieberman drew what may have been his largest crowd yet, surprising campaign organizers who planned for 200 and got more than 600 people for their city hall meeting Saturday night.

Lieberman packed one room, and left hundreds of supporters spilling down the staircase and spreading over two landings in city hall.

On the other hand, the latest American Research Group poll is far less positive, showing Lieberman a weak fifth with 5% in New Hampshire — a far cry from his third-place 12% in the Gallup poll. And ARG polls in the Feb. 2 states say Joe’s not doing too well there, either: 10% in Oklahoma, 7% in Arizona, 5% in South Carolina. Well, whatever, maybe the ARG has an anti-Joe bias. You gotta believe… :)

Hmm… news flash: it may snow in New Hampshire on Tuesday. This is said to be potentially bad for Lieberman. C’mon G-d, hold off the snowstorm, this is one of your Chosen People we’re talking about here! :)

Back to Josh Marshall for a second. It seems he agrees with me about the potential for a second-place “victory” by Howard “the comeback doc” Dean:

Earlier today, I was wondering just where he’d have to place on Tuesday to win in the media’s expectations game. And it seemed to me that if Dean could manage a convincing second — that is, with real distance between him and the third place finisher — that he could play the comeback kid angle. He could argue, with some merit, that he took a huge hit, fell dramatically in the polls but was then able to fight back into contention by corralling a lot of doubting supporters back into the fold.

On the other hand:

The problem for Dean is that none of the February 3rd contests strike me as natural Dean states — with the possible exception of New Mexico. And a victory for Kerry in New Hamsphire would still mean that Dean had failed to win in two states which seem to play heavily to his strengths.

Dean is doing very poorly, according to ARG, in the big three Feb. 3 states: fourth (10%) in Arizona, where he once led; fifth (9%) in South Carolina — behind Sharpton! — and fifth (8%) in Oklahoma, behind our man Senator Joe. (He trails Kerry, Edwards, and Clark in all three states.)

One last piece of good news for the Lieberman camp, before I go to bed: a few minutes ago, I found my “Far Vos Nisht? Lieberman 2004″ button. So I’ll get a chance to do a bit of personal campaigning for Joe, here in crucial Arizona. :)

As you’ve probably already noticed, this afternoon I replaced the “Tolkien nerdiness” link in the right-hand column of my homepage with a bit of Liebermania. The “Joe Lieberman for President” text and the “Joe 2004″ button both link to Lieberman’s official site; underneath that, there’s a link to my “Election 2004″ blog category (newly separated from my more general “Elections & Politics” category).

I figured, hey, Lieberman suddenly seems to have a tiny bit of a chance — five or six snowballs in Hell, at least :) — so now is the time to give him the coveted BrendanLoy.com endorsement and free advertising.

So, there you have it, Senator Joe. Now go out there and finish third!!!

Joe Lieberman is suddenly in a battle for third place in New Hampshire, according to the latest polls. (Hat tip to my dad for alerting me to this story.)

It seems Senator Joe got a substantial boost from his fine performance in Tuesday’s debate. Looks like Ryan Lizza may have been right that “a late Lieberman surge is possible” and wrong to add, “Nah.”

What makes this really interesting is what happens when you couple it with this point by Josh Marshall:

The two candidates with the most wind at their back — Kerry and Edwards — are also the ones who have the fewest resources in place to contest the primaries which will come rapidly, week after week, after next Tuesday. …

The shorthand you hear from reporters is that Kerry has “nothing” on the ground in those states. And that can’t be quite true. But after Kerry’s town hall meeting in Manchester on Friday one of his top aides told us that he would probably not even compete in all seven of the states that vote on February 3rd. When asked which ones they’d contest, he told us they were “nowhere near figuring that out.”

Lieberman, on the other hand, has been focusing all along on the Feb. 3 primaries — South Carolina and Arizona, in particular — as his “must-win” states, and has been focusing a considerable amount of energy on them. (He’s been running a lot of TV ads here, for instance.) I don’t know how many “resources” he has, but it sounds like he may be in better shape than Kerry and Edwards in these next few states.

So let’s say the New Hampshire order of finish is:
1. Kerry
2. Dean
3. Lieberman
4. Edwards
5. Clark

Suddenly Clark — who, like Dean, has the resources to compete nationally — would look like a big loser, with no momentum. Kerry and, to a lesser extent, Edwards, would still be the front-running golden boys, but all politics is local, and they haven’t made the investment in the upcoming localities. (Well, except Edwards in South Carolina… but a second-place finish there would be a “victory” for anybody else…)

That leaves Dean (who, as I mentioned yesterday, might well be labeled a “comeback kid” if he can finish a strong second) and the suddenly resurgent Lieberman. Is it possible that Joe could emerge as Feb. 2’s “anti-Dean” after all?

Far vos nisht?

UPDATE: The Command Post has more details on the tightening New Hampshire race. And Lieberman is continuing to improve.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Meanwhile, over on the official Lieberman blog, they’re reporting that a Gallup poll (as opposed to the Zogby polls linked above) shows Senator Joe already in third place:

John Kerry � 38%
Howard Dean � 25%
Joe Lieberman � 12%
Wesley Clark � 10%
John Edwards � 9%

I question whether the numbers support the blog’s assurtion that Lieberman has climbed “firmly” into third :) … but still, good news.

David Bernstein is criticizing Joe Lieberman’s syntax over on the Volokh Conspiracy. Only problem is, Bernstein’s corrective syntax is equally problematic:

When Lieberman is asked how his faith would affect his politics, he paraphrases a now-famous Kennedy line, telling voters, “I am a presidential candidate who happens to be Jewish, not the other way around.”

So Lieberman is not “a Jewish who happens to be a presidential candidate?” The quote would work if Lieberman would say “a Jew” instead of “to be Jewish”…

Hmm… “a Jew” instead of saying “to be Jewish”… so Lieberman should have said, “I am a presidential candidate who happens a Jew, not the other way around”? Um, yeah, that makes more sense. :)

Obviously, what Bernstein should have said is, “The quote would work if Lieberman would say ‘a Jew’ instead of ‘Jewish.’” Or, alternatively, he could have said, “The quote would work if Lieberman would say ‘to be a Jew’ instead of ‘to be Jewish.’” Of course, this is an extremely nitpicky point. But so is Bernstein’s, so he asked for it.

UPDATE: On the other hand, Sasha Volokh’s Lieberman-related post is just funny: “my father asks whether, if Lieberman gets some pro-Jewish law passed that benefits his district, it’s correct to call it pork.” Heh heh.

I’ve just signed up for a free, four-week trial of The New Republic Online, so I can read their primary coverage. I don’t suppose it does any good to link to their articles, since it’s subscription-only fare… but I believe this one is available to the public. Anyway, it’s another commentary on the New Hampshire debate, and I particularly like the Joe Lieberman section:

Last night was the first time in a long, long time, that I even entertained the notion that Lieberman could catch on here. The trend-lines for Clark and Dean are suddenly very bad. Kerry and Edwards seem best positioned to take advantage of their decline, but everyone has been wrong about everything in this race. Who knows, maybe a late Lieberman surge is possible. … Nah.

Heh. Nah, indeed. It occurs to me that the deadliest statistic out of Iowa for Senator Joe is the fact that 75% of the voters there were anti-war. Anti-war Democrats may vote for Kerry, as Iowa’s did, but they’re never going to vote for Lieberman, not unless he is the only person in the field who seems remotely electable. Which, alas, he is not. Hence the best candidate in the field (Hi Sean) being pretty much doomed from the start.

Another thought: since these early primaries are all about perceptions and expectations (very few delegates are at stake, after all), I wonder what Howard Dean’s perceived decline does to the punditry’s expectations for his success — and thus his threshold for “victory” — in New Hampshire. If he finishes a respectable second behind Kerry, a week after his third-place finish and third-rate concession speech (and first-rate screech) in Iowa, does that qualify Dean for “comeback kid” status? Does beating Edwards and Clark make him seem strong again, heading into the next round? I think maybe it does. We’ll see on Tuesday.

Just one more link for y’all: Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo is providing some very good, on-the-scene reporting from New Hampshire. I guess his readers paid to send him there or something? That’s what Glenn Reynolds said, anyway. The blogosphere is evolving fast…

This Dean supporter says John Edwards is gaining momentum, and this blogger thinks it will continue. Interesting.

Meanwhile, here in Arizona, it’s a two-man race between Dean and Clark, according to the latest polls. That’s no surprise; both have been advertising on TV heavily. Of course, so has Lieberman, and it hasn’t helped him much. (sigh)

But I guess Lieberman’s TV campaign here has just started, whereas the other two have been fighting an “air war” for a while now. So, according to the article, Joe’s people hope his distant third-place standing will improve between now and Feb. 3. Well, like Aragorn says, “There is always hope.” (Note that he was saying this before the utterly hopeless battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers. The moral of the story? Joe Lieberman can win, provided he is rescued at the last minute by the unexpected arrivals of 1) a bunch of Elves, 2) a recently resurrected wizard, 3) an army of several hundred horsemen charging down a hill with a 70-degree incline, and 4) a forest of deadly talking trees. :)

Anyway, the key for Dean may be turnout among people my age. The under-35 age group is where Dean’s strongest support comes from, but it also happens to be the most fickle. Indeed, Dean leads Clark 29% to 26% among all Democrats in Arizona, but Clark leads 34% to 26% among likely voters.

Thanks to my dad for sending along this excellent New Republic article explaining convincingly why Joe Lieberman is the best Democratic candidate for president. I would excerpt it, but I’d end up quoting the entire article. Just read the whole thing, okay? :)

I like Lieberman; I have all along. Yes, I’m slightly uncomfortable with his censor-ish tendencies, but honestly, what’s he going to do if elected that’s so worrisome? Personally rip up the First Amendment and order all the studios to clean up their act or else? Joe and Hollywood don’t get along, that’s for sure, but really, I just don’t see him as some great threat to freedom. (Howard Dean is a much greater threat to freedom, in the sense that his nomination would virtually ensure four more years of Bush and Ashcroft.)

Anyway, Lieberman’s positive qualities are overwhelming, especially as compared to his competitors. TNR elucidates wonderfully. For me, the central question is simply whether Joe will survive as a credible candidate long enough to get my vote. If he’s still alive and kicking when Connecticut and 12 other states vote on March 2 (yes, I’m voting absentee in CT — I missed the deadline to register in AZ), then I will very likely vote for him. If not, I will probably vote for whatever “anti-Dean” has emerged by then (Wesley Clark is my tentative favorite after Lieberman).

I’m not making any endorsements yet. But the full text of Lieberman’s speech to the National Press Club is online here, and I recommend checking it out. A few excerpts:

The American dream is at risk. Because George W. Bush’s failed leadership has left our country dangerously unprepared to defend against and defeat the threat of terror. And it has clearly driven our economy right into a ditch.

Yet some in my party, fueled by understandable frustration, are grasping at failed solutions that will not meet our 21st Century needs — and will not save the nation from another four years of Republican misrule.

(more…)