Why the others run

Those of you obsessing about the current poll positions of the Hillary vs. Obama or Thompson vs. McCain should remember that in December 2003 ( just weeks before the first votes in the Democratic primaries) the front-running candidates were:

Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman and Wesley Clark.

John Kerry, polling in the single digits, could easily have been described as an "also ran".

(Dean had a 9 point lead on his closest rival)


Update: Looks like kos was thinking along the same lines. At this point 4 years ago the rankings were:

Joe Lieberman, Richard Gephardt and John Kerry

How many of you remembered that Gephardt was even in the race?