Is Evan Bayh positioning himself for the VP spot?

Craig Crawford seems to think he might be:

Craig Crawford’s Trail Mix: Bayh Boosts His Running-mate Odds

By Craig Crawford | 8:48 AM; Sep. 25, 2007

Sen. Evan Bayh’s timing in choosing yesterday to endorse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential bid produced speculation about his chances to be the New York Democrat’s running mate at the precise moment when she would want to see such things discussed.

The Clinton camp is now seeking to lock down an image of invincibility in the Democratic race, and provoking buzz about her potential running mates well serves that goal.

Clinton has many reasons to put Bayh at the top of her list. The Indiana Democrat is telegenic, but without the fiery charisma that might upstage her. And he is popular in a red state where he once served as governor. Bayh and Clinton are colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee and it was notable that she took him along on her trip to Iraq and Afghanistan in January, making sure to include him in the press conferences after that journey.

And it surely helps his chances with her that he opted out of his own run for the presidency.

Contributing Editor Craig Crawford is a news analyst for NBC, MSNBC and CNBC. He can be reached at ccrawford@cq.com.

Dobson says he won't support Thompson

This should certainly make the race more interesting.

Dobson says he won't support Thompson

By ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer Wed Sep 19, 8:55 PM ET

DENVER - James Dobson, one of the nation's most politically influential evangelical Christians, made it clear in a message to friends this week he will not support Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson.

In a private e-mail obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, Dobson accuses the former Tennessee senator and actor of being weak on the campaign trail and wrong on issues dear to social conservatives.

Despite what Senator Clinton says...

The other day Mayor Giuliani excoriated Senator Clinton for not publicly decrying the MoveOn.org “General Betray Us” ad. Clinton’s response was,

Rudy Giuliani is dropping in the polls and is unable to defend his own support for George Bush's failed war. Instead of distorting Senator Clinton's record in the campaign's first attack ad, the Mayor should tell voters why he thinks sticking with the Bush Iraq strategy makes sense. The country wants change and while Hillary Clinton is focused ending the war, Mayor Giuliani is playing politics (bolding mine, obviously.)

Well, I don’t really care about the ad or the various candidates’ responses to it. What I do care about is the Senator’s assertion that Mayor Nine-eleven is dropping in the polls. This doesn’t seem to be the case, and I wanted to use her quote as an opportunity to post a graph of the latest poll numbers, along with using it as a demonstration of how Rasmussen’s results are distorting the aggregate poll numbers for several candidates, including those of Mayor Giuliani and Senator Thompson. To wit, look at the following two graphs:






The first is my standard national polling graph which shows all the poll results for the top five Republican candidates, along with a LOWESS trend line for each. The second is the same graph, but with the poll results from Rasmussen removed. The two graphs tell slightly different tales. In the first, Giuliani is dropping in the polls, while Thompson is charging. In the second, Thompson is still charging, but Giuliani is actually gaining a bit of support since his nadir around the beginning of summer. We can clearly see that Rasmussen is skewing the results to slightly favor Senator Thompson.

The following graph excludes all the other candidates, and highlights the Rasmussen poll results for Giuliani and Thompson (the trend line still excludes the Rasmussen data) to show how each candidate has polled with that organization.



It’s clear that, for whatever reason, Giuliani has polled lower in Rasmussen’s surveys, while Thompson has polled higher. I don’t really have an explanation for it but I’ll continue to look for one.