My dear friends (as our soon to be departing Sen. Lieberman is wont to begin his speechifying), I must protest the blogging of the 'polls', tracking or otherwise!
"What, not peer into the polls until our eyes bleed, hoping to see a bit of prognostication at work?", you may ask.
Here's my reasoning:
Polls take the measure of anonymous telephone 'voters', who may, or may not be responding truthfully. As was proved (beyond a reasonable doubt, a phrase that I'm sure Sen. Edwards is quite familiar with), and remarked on, and remarked on, and (well, you get the picture here)...during the past week (was it only last monday?????)....
My personal theory is, this is the year that polls will get it wrong - every time.
This is NOT your average election. We have a population, who, for the first time in over a generation, has been slapped upside the head with the reality that IT DOES TOO MATTER IF YOU VOTE, and they're (perhaps rightfully) a bit confused as to how the whole thing works.
I'm 42. I've always, repeat ALWAYS, cast a Presidential vote for an Indy candidate, due to a failure of either party to convince me that there was more than a smidgen of difference between the two clones on either side of the fence.
Boy, if George W. Bush does nothing else right in his 4 years in office, it will be that he woke the voting public in this country up for the first time since the cold war started back in the middle of the 20th century.
Now, to the voters. The Pundits are astounded that so many are waffling on choosing a candidate right up till the last moment. Well, I'm not. How can anyone (except those of us who have been websurfing, blogging and actively searching for a replacement for the aforementioned G.W. since March of 2003) be expected to be oblivious to the Twilight Zone (no copyright infringement intended) that is our campaign season.
Here's a condensed chunk of the mishmash that proports to be NEWS in the past two weeks:
Kerry is "JFKish".
Really. How do ya figure? He's not Irish. He's not handsome (ok, distinguished I'll give you, but not handsome, sorry Kerry groupies). He's not charismatic. OK, he's rich, but c'mon, that's not enough. My only complaint regarding Sen. Kerry is that he, as a column I read earlier today stated, seems to be concocting his speeches by splicing together those of his leading opponents. How can I, or any other voter decide whether he is worthy of my vote if he only espouses the ideas and ideals of others?
Lieberman is a Republican in disguise.
Upfront, I do not care for Sen. Lieberman's positions on almost anything. He is, sadly, one of those Senators from the last generation, who speak as those they have read Shakespeare's Henry V, way too many times. Do pedantic speeches make you Republican? No. But I strongly urge Sen. Lieberman to walk through some Democratic neighborhoods in his Conneticut home state and ask the voters who elected him to Congress how they feel about his strong support of the invasion of Iraq. I am certain that he will be baffled when they tell him they don't agree with him. Again, does this make him a Republican? No. But is sure as hell does not make him the Democratic candidate for President in 2004, either.
Sen. Edwards is not ready to be President.
OK, he only had a single term as a US Senator. But, should a short term in Washington DC politics preclude a man who is 50ish (hey, so he looks young, aren't we all a bit jealous about that one?), well versed in policy, and a quite acomplished public speaker from assuming the Office of President? No. But his hollywood smile is starting to grate on some (count me in), coupled with recent news that his campaign has apparently being doing some 'not quite so positive' campaigning (albeit without his knowledge -at least by the latest reports - re: Iowa caucus notebooks, for example), may cause his recent surge to stumble a bit. He's also got that funding problem, and the race to Boston is indeed a marathon. Can he go the distance? Only time will tell, but should he get the chance without the media proclaiming him 'too young' or 'unelectable', absolutely yes.
General Clark is not ready for, well, anything to do with campaigning.
So, I'm surprised that I haven't seen any media pieces proclaiming something like this: "The old war horse should drop out of the race, due to....". You get the picture. Did Clark enter the race as a Democrat before even registering as a Democrat? Yes. Does he read his stump speech every time he gives it, rather than speak from memory & the heart? According to those who've been there lately, yes he does. Did he forgo Iowa for some reason other than lack of funds? Perhaps, but none of us know, at least not yet. In defense of the General, I must say that he does indeed LOOK Presidential. But he does appear to have problems expressing his views without reading them from a page in front of him. Also, shouldn't his advisors have gotten him registered BEFORE he declared? Perhaps some of the issues facing him are real, but do they preclude him from winning in NH, SC or any of the Feb 3rd states? Again, time is the only factor here that we can count on.
Dean is a angry maniac, a far-left liberal, and his campaign is toast.
By what standards do we find these claims made? A 5 second soundbite from a speech (whether it was made to campaign volunteers following a dismaying finish in Iowa or last summer during a rally in Seattle, WA) and the political pundits on weekend talk shows. How about using the standards that voters and other reasonable people use to judge a person - do his family and co-workers find him to be particulary 'angry' or a 'maniac'? No. Does his five term record as Governor show him to be a liberal? Hardly, unless you count signing a piece of legislation directed by the Vermont courts on equal rights and gay unions. As for toast, I wouldn't count Dean out any time soon. He has the cash the people, and most importantly, the will to last all summer, if he has to.
All of these examples are to show that even someone who favors a particular candidate can see the obvious problem with the national media, and how they portray the candidates to the electorate. So why should we listen to the polls that they so solemnly base their 'predictions' upon?
I say, let's listen to the voters.
Where are they speaking, and willing to be identified? In the opinion pages of their local papers.
For my prediction, I'll be using a single newspaper opinion page as my basis, I'm a bit lazy, and chances are, no one but me will ever see this anyway:
In Dover, NH you'll find Foster's Daily Democrat, a family owned paper since June 18, 1873.
Their January 24th, 2004 Opinion page had 16 letters to the Editor, all on politics. Here's the breakdown:
Dean 8 - 7 positive, 1 negative
Clark 4 - 3 positive, 1 negative
Kerry 2 - 2 positive
Edwards 1 - 1 positive
January 26th, 2004 had 10 letters, all on the election. The breakdown:
Clark 5 - 5 positive
Dean 3 - 3 positive
Kerry 2 - 2 positive
for a tracking total of :
Dean 11 - 10 positive, 1 negative
Clark 9 - 8 positive, 1 negative
Kerry 4 - 4 positive
Edwards 1 - 1 positive
From this, my prediction is that the polls will, once again, be proved, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.