Candidate X is Finished (great point!)

The Jawa Report ^ | January 7, 2008 09:26 AM | Ragnar Danneskjold

[ECM]

Just about every day for about two months now, we've all been reading columns from the talking heads telling us that "Candidate X is finished." Of course, the identity of "Candidate X" has varied depending on which of the heads is doing the talking and at which point in time. (The one constant has been Fred Thompson, whose political demise has been predicted by the partisans of Rudy and Mitt since around April of last year.)

As of late, the "dead" candidates have generally Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and (of course) Fred Thompson. Before that, it was Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson. Before that, it was John McCain and Fred Thompson. When you look at the history of the race, however, every candidate has had his high and low points. I made this graph of Rasmussen national data (rolling averaged) to illustrate the point:

Over the period shown, the candidate who started in first is now third. The candidate who started in third is now tied for first. The candidate who started in fourth is back at fourth, but spent time as high as second in the meantime. This race has been all over the map.

You may notice I left off the time frame, which begs the question as to how many weeks (or months) of this crazy campaign I've included in this graph. These are the numbers for the last seven days.

You may also notice I left off the scale. You may or may not be surprised to learn that the latest delta between the lowest candidate and the highest candidate on this graph is six percentage points.

[ECM]

Great post and pretty much of interest to anyone's chosen candidate at this point (especially in light of the media/polls shifting seemingly every second)--illustrations after the jump.

[-=SoylentSquirrel=-]

Hey, candidate X was once the greatest Punk Band Ever. Can't complain!

[-=SoylentSquirrel=-]

Frankly, I think candidate X is so hot he/she/it is on fire.