The only definite dead-weight candidate has dropped out :

Bob Graham, a political veteran whose low-key style failed to gain traction in the crowded senate presidential race, said Monday night he was ending his campaign.

“I’m leaving because I have made the judgment that I can not be elected president of the United States,” Graham said in announcing his exit from the race on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

He said he was not successful because he started his campaign too late and had trouble raising money. He said he delayed his entry in the race to lead the senate Intelligence Committee, recover from heart surgery and wait for the war in Iraq, which he opposed.

If he thinks that’s the reason he hasn’t done well, then he’s seriously deluding himself. The reason his campaign was stagnant was that his campaign lacked passion and he’s essentially a political one-hit wonder. His work on the 9/11 report was great, but wasn’t enough to keep voters interested. In the debates he came across as so lifeless, I doubt he’ll even be able to pick up a VP nod. He seems like a good enough guy though. Hopefully he’ll spend the next four years kicking some ass and he’ll make a better candidate in 2008.

Who should drop out next? That’s a tough one. Dean and Clark are the front runners, so they’re not going anywhere. Sharpton is so damn funny, he should stick around just to make the debates more entertaining.

Although they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the nomination, I think Lieberman, Kucinich, and Braun all have something different enough to offer the party that they should stay in the race just to keep their viewpoints heard. Realistically though, I wouldn’t be surprised to see at least one (if not all) of them dropping out due to weakening support and/or lack of money.

Gephardt and Kerry, on the other hand, seem to be competing for the predictable Washington-insider vote. Sure, they have their differences, but for the most part they’re from the “always a bridemaid…” wing of the party. They’ve been slapped around so much by the new kids, that their campaigns are surviving on old connections and name recognition. I’m not saying that they couldn’t get the nomination (Hell, they did nominate Al Gore), but I have a feeling that at least one of them will drop out before the end of the year, due to either Gephardt’s lost union endorsements or Clark stealing Kerry’s veteran shtick.

[Edit : Whoops. I completely forgot to mention Edwards. I guess that doesn't say much about the effectiveness of his campaign either.]