How strong is the Democratic presidential field?

Not as strong as you think. A devil's advocate probes for weaknesses among the front-runners.

By Thomas F. Schaller

Read more: Democratic Party, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Opinion, John Edwards, Barack Obama, 2008 election

REUTERS/Chris Keane

Democratic presidential candidates (from left) John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at the start of the July 23 debate in Charleston, S.C.

Aug. 9, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- Right now, the Republican primary field is a mess. Insufficient cash flows, fleeing staffers and consultants, outdated themes and proposals, legitimacy issues with the party's conservative base, expressed unease from the GOP's dying moderate wing and, of course, a variety of problems arising from proximity to a certain incumbent president -- each of the Republican candidates is suffering from at least one of those ailments. Sen. John McCain suffers from all of them simultaneously.

So it's high times across the aisle, right? The Democrats are apparently poised to retake the White House after eight long and painful years from a man many consider a usurper. Rank-and-file Democrats seem almost giddy about their field of substantive candidates. Three out of five Republicans said in a March poll that they were unhappy with their candidates, and in July "none of the above" was the Republican front-runner. Almost three out of five Democrats, on the other hand, say they are satisfied with their party's presidential contenders.

Not so fast. Though all the standard caveats apply about how much can change between now and next November, the Democrats are undoubtedly the favorites heading into 2008. But the truth is that the Democratic field has its own share of problems. It's not quite as popular as people think it is, or Al Gore wouldn't be registering double digits among registered Democrats, running a solid fourth -- and sometimes third, ahead of John Edwards. The field is also not as strong as people think it is, and some tense and potentially threatening moments await the candidates in the months leading up to Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses in January.

For the big three contenders -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Edwards -- money hasn't been much of a problem to this point: Edwards trails the other two, but his fading poll numbers have nothing to do with account ledgers. Nor is there much intraparty turmoil or conflict. As the New York Times recently reported, Big Labor is so tickled with the major candidates that many unions will simply opt not to endorse, and the abortion rights and gay rights crowds seem generally content with a field that's more supportive on those issues than any previous crop. Thursday night at 9 p.m. EDT, all the major Democratic candidates will debate gay issues on the TV network Logo. Even the Democratic aspirants' personal and familial backgrounds are largely uncontroversial. (Clinton's marital situation is always a source of national fascination, of course, but unlike most of the declared or undeclared Republican heavyweights, she, Obama and Edwards are all still on their first marriages.)

The debates and press release battles have been largely confined to nits picked and, aside from an embarrassing haircut and a recent teapot-tempest over whether the next president should or should not wait a year to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Hugo Chavez, there have been few stumbles and fewer fireworks. The worst critique of the Democratic primary so far is that it has been boring. That dismal fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar de la Hoya a few months ago packed more punch. Something's got to give, and the most logical disturbance is the eventual collapse of Edwards' campaign.

Good looking and emotively eloquent, the 54-year-old former North Carolina senator is compelling on television and even more compelling in small interpersonal settings. Because he basically never left the state after the 2004 cycle, Edwards has often topped polls in Iowa. But now his lead is either thin or nonexistent, and he has dropped into a statistical tie with Obama and Clinton. Nationally his poll numbers have already crested and, but for a slight bump after the announcement of his wife Elizabeth's cancer, begun to fall. Maybe the media's obsession with his appearance has had an effect, or maybe the death of his son and his wife's health have led to an unfair perception that the legendary trial lawyer is exploiting personal tragedies for the biggest jury payout of his political life.

But Edwards has another unfortunate, ironic problem: During the post-9/11 era in which the Democratic Party has at times been guilty (think 2002, 2003) of focusing too much on domestic policies as a way to de-emphasize foreign and defense issues, Edwards' highly developed domestic proposals to improve life for the poor and working classes reinforce nagging suspicions that he is not quite prepared to inherit the next president's twin burdens of a war in Iraq and a global counterterrorism effort.

More than a few Beltway analysts have noted that the early primary and caucus calendar favors Edwards. He's good in folksy, socially conservative Iowa. Nevada, next up, is a strong union state, and Edwards has aggressively played the economic populist card, as he did during Tuesday's AFL-CIO debate, to labor's delight. And although New Hampshire affords him little hope, if he can survive there and make it to South Carolina -- his birth state and the only one he carried in 2004 -- he could parlay his regional advantage to become the Big Mo candidate heading into the Feb. 5 mega-primary. But given the calendrical advantages, if Edwards doesn't win Iowa, he's finished. (And, interestingly, he has slipped to third in the Palmetto State.)

If and when Edwards fades, the big question is where his 10 to 15 percent of Democratic voters turn next. Are they anybody-but-Hillary Democrats who will gravitate toward Obama? Or are they suburban Democratic women who find Obama's liberalism discomfiting enough to become Clinton converts? Unless this bloc of Democrats simply believes that taking back the White House in 2008 is too important to risk the trailblazing nomination of a woman or an African-American, and they develop a sudden, unlikely interest in one of the second-tier Democrats, these voters could very well decide the nomination. If Clinton gets even half of them, she'll be almost impossible to beat. But if they break disproportionately toward Obama, Clinton is going to have to do something she would very much prefer to avoid -- emerge from her cocoon of control and composure to start mucking it up with the boys, and that could doom her candidacy.

Next page: The boilerplate refrains cause heads to nod the first time but wear thin with repetition