The handicappers

Grubi, over at American Dissent (I finally updated the link on the right, by the way) has an interesting system for handicapping the Democratic race called the DemPoll.

In essence, it's a meta-ranking, combining rankings from Daily Kos's Cattle Call, the Interesting Times Google News method, T. Rex's rankings, and Grubi's own rankings; Grubi assigns points based on where the candidates rank (15 points for first place, 10 for second, etc.). His results this week are exactly in line with Kos's, which says something about the reliablity of Kos's rankings. This week, both Kos an Grubi rank the players thusly: Kerry, Dean, Gephardt, Edwards, Lieberman, Graham, Kucinich, Sharpton, and Moseley-Braun.

But I played with the numbers a little. I found that taking out Grubi's own rankings (which seem like a good way to tilt the results in favor of your favorite candidate--not that I'm complaining, as Grubi supports Dean!), the order doesn't change except Lieberman and Graham tie there in the middle. I also played with it taking out T. Rex's rankings, as his haven't been updated since June 6, long before the Dean announcement, Kucinich's rise (based a lot on MoveOn publicity, I think), and Edwards's good Georgetown speech (see my posts below). The order still doesn't change, including the Lieberman-Graham tie.

Then I put in my own rankings*, and you know what? Still no change in the order! The only change comes when I substitute my rankings for Grubi's (Dean and Kerry switch to first and second, respectively). When I add mine to all four--including Grubi's--though, we get real movement: The new, Folkbum-added DemPoll stands thusly:
1. Dean (60 points)
2. Kerry (54 points)
3. Gephardt (46 points)
4. TIE--Edwards and Graham (29 points)
6. Lieberman (28 points)
7. Kucinich (14 points)
8. Sharpton (11 points)
9. Moseley-Braun (6 points)

But in all, it's interesting that there is so much consistency among the handicappers and handicapping methods in this race so far, especially among the top three candidates. What it means, I don't know. But, as Richard Dreyfuss said to his plate of mashed potatoes, "This means something."

*My rankings, as seen in the open comments thread on Kos's Cattle Call this week: Dean, Gephardt, Lieberman, Kerry, Edwards, Graham, Kucinich, Sharpton, CMB.

UPDATE: T Rex has a new ranking here.