A silver lining?

While it's hard to gloat about a 25 point deficit against Dean in the new American Research Group poll of New Hampshire, there's some significant good news in the numbers.

John Kerry's up 7 points, to 20%, from last month, while Wes Clark has slipped into single digits again, falling 3 points for a total of 8. Instead of threatening Kerry for second place, Clark's now battling Lieberman (at 6%) for what looks like a third place that may carry no delegates at all.

Dean's numbers are static, and it's hard to see him growing with his negatives surging to 19%, up from 7 in the last count.

But Kerry still needs that bump from the Iowa Surprise.