Dean leads Democrats for ’04 elections

For the first time, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is leading the Democratic field for the 2004 presidential elections, according to a new tracking poll taken by InsiderAdvantage in conjunction with MWI Research.

Of respondents who said they plan to vote next year for someone other than President Bush, 15.6 percent indicated they would vote for Dean. This nearly doubles his percentage of 8.6 from the previous month’s poll.

Rural populism plus Internet fundraising.

“This is an amazing change of circumstances,” said Matt Towery, a Creators Syndicate columnist and co-founder of InsiderAdvantage. “Since the inception of our cumulative polling on this race, Joe Lieberman had led the Democratic field of candidates, usually by a comfortable margin.

But Dean’s powerful Internet-based campaign, coupled with the sudden burst of publicity he has received from the national media, has catapulted him to the front of the pack.”

Towery, in a special column today in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, termed Dean’s populist style and use of the Internet as “electro-pop” politics.

"We've seen many an early political star burn brightly at first, only to fizzle before the first big primary election tests happen. At the start of the election 2004 campaign, candidates such as North Carolina Sen. John Edwards were seen as the fresh new faces that might dominate the battle for the Democratic nomination. And an early victory in Iowa for a more traditional Democrat, such as U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, could steal the thunder from Dean. But for now, the Dean campaign appears the leaner, faster and more in-touch campaign organization."