[kach22i]

Originally posted by techweenie
When was the last time the front runner a year before primary season actually became the candidate?

http://libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=179096

Still, with the nominating conventions more than 17 months away, what, if anything, do these early polls mean for would-be nominees? A look back at nearly 50 years of early primary polls suggests that Republican front-runners are often a good bet to capture the nomination, but the picture is more mixed for leading Democrats.

In seven open Republican contests since 1960, the early front-runners held on to win the party nod six times.1 By contrast, early Democratic poll leaders won four out of eight open contests between 1960 and 2004. In early 2003, Sen. John Kerry was tied with Sen. Joseph Lieberman, but fell behind Gen. Wesley Clark and Vermont Gov. Howard Dean at different times later in the year before eventually getting the final nod from Democrats.