As everybody is getting all chicken little about the narrowing generic ballots, I thought back to an article I read in September by one Charles Rothenberg. It's below the jump, and the whole thing can be found in the archive at
http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com/...
Excerpted from the column:
Thursday, September 21, 2006
What to Expect Over the Next Seven Weeks
By Stuart Rothenberg
.....
Second, beware of all national surges. And remember: Journalists always want a horse race, not a blowout.
I've been doing this long enough to know that in pretty much every election cycle, there is talk, invariably sometime in October, that one party or the other is "surging." In 1994, for example, the last time a truly significant partisan wave hit, there were reports in October of a Democratic surge.
...
The likeliest culprit for starting a premature, or totally incorrect, surge panic this year is a national poll that reports on a dramatic closing of the generic ballot or a spike in the president's job ratings. That's likely to lead the Republican National Committee and the two federal campaign committees to send out a flurry of buoyant e-mails.
...
I know this will be hard to believe, but some of the people who talk about politics or conduct polls want to grab as many headlines as they can, and they may create a surge frenzy, or jump on a surge bandwagon, merely to promote themselves and get quoted.
Third -- and this doesn't contradict my last warning -- don't be surprised if there is some normal "firming" of the GOP base in the next six weeks that helps GOP candidates in Republican-leaning districts. In fact, I'm expecting it.
....
No, I don't really expect most in the national media or the blogs to heed these warnings. Overreaction is a way of life for many of them. But now is exactly the time to be cautious about rumors and news. It's better to get it right than to get it first.
(The full article was in roll call back in September.)