Inevitability of the front runners? Not..so…fast!
Stuart Rothenberg says that it’s all baloney
Unfortunately, too many of us who cover politics are treating the 2008 presidential race as if it were the National Football League — where virtually every game is critical in the hunt for the playoffs.
Sorry, but that’s not exactly the way the presidential race works, at least not now that the campaign starts more than a year before Iowa.
The presidential race more closely resembles the Major League Baseball season. It’s very long. And unless a candidate makes a major, macaca-like blunder, the daily ups and downs of a 12-month campaign won’t be all that important until late 2007, or even early ’08.
Remember 2003?
…The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll, conducted by Selzer & Co., showed Gephardt (27 percent) and Dean (20 percent) leading in a Nov. 2-5, 2003, survey of 501 likely caucus attendees.
A late November-early December 2003 Princeton Survey Research Associates poll of “likely Democratic caucus voters statewide” for the Pew Research Center found Dean surging ahead (29 percent), with Gephardt running second (21 percent), Kerry third (18 percent) and Edwards fourth, at 5 percent, a single point ahead of Dennis Kucinich…..
Those pesky polls aren’t worth the paper they’re written on….
..Similarly, these early national polls are an incredible waste of money and energy. They, too, tell us remarkably little about the nominees. The Republican and Democratic nominations aren’t determined by a national vote, yet media organizations and polling companies continue to take national surveys. It’s incredible….
In summation
It’s fun to talk about the race and to look for strengths and weaknesses of candidates. We can all chatter about fundraising totals, smile knowingly about the most recent confrontation that most likely will be soon forgotten and speculate about the future. But anyone who figures that the early developments that we’ve been watching, including the national polls, are really telling you who will win the two nominations for president is somebody with no sense of history and no understanding of politics.
So, those of us who have worrid that the window might be closing on a Wes Clark candidacy…..and I confess I’m one of them………we might need to chill.
For me, Mr. Rothenberg’s article is a reality check.
That said!
Run Wes Run!!
