The internals of the new Gallup poll aren't looking so hot for Dean. Clark has eaten into his lead with both sexes. In mid-December, men chose Dean over Clark by a 33:16% margin. Now men are choosing Clark over Dean, 30:25%, that's a 14% gain for Clark and an 8% loss for Dean (which points to Clark taking support from other candidates as well). Also interesting is Clark has gained 6% among women, while Dean has dropped two percent, so now the gap lies at 24:13%. Dean's appeal to women is interesting and, to me, unexplainable. I would think that his rough persona would be better suited for men, but he's strongest among women. If anyone's got some ideas on that, I'd love to hear them.
Also important is Clark's net favorable rating among Democrats has reached +30%, 7% better than Dean's (and better than anyone else in the race). This makes Clark a likely choice for Democrats whose candidate drops out of the race (Gephardt if he doesn't win Iowa) and thus leads me to believe that his support is slightly understated now.
Lastly, Clark has net +11% favorability among all voters (we're now including Republicans and Independents) while Dean has a net -11%, a 22% difference and a worrying indicator of bipartisan appeal for Dean. While Bush stands at +30%, favorables for a President tend to be less of an indicator than they do for the challenger, as they can be much weaker and more closely tied to that day's stories and economic numbers. In essence, they tend to measure how people feel at that moment rather than whether or not they'd want to reelect the incumbent.
All in all, this is damn good news for the Clark campaign, and if they stay positive while Dean goes negative, the favorables should only increase and their likelihood of being everyone's second choice will skyrocket. Their new tax plan is forcing the Dean campaign to propose additional tax reforms and Dean is now limiting his media availability in order to not say things the other candidates can jump on. It's going to be interesting to see how the media reports Clark as an insurgent against Dean, but as things stand now, the General is looking damn good as we move into the primaries.
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