Susan Estrich: It Should Be a Democratic Year
July polls don't tell you who's going to win in November. Just ask President Dukakis or President Gore, both of whom were well ahead in July and went on to lose in the fall (although Mr. Gore still doesn't quite see it that way). Or ask President Clinton, who was running third in some polls after clinching his party's nomination, and won comfortably in the fall. Polls are, at best, snapshots of the present, not predictors of the future.
But that doesn't mean they're meaningless. There's a reason that news organizations, and campaigns themselves, spend time and money to try to get the picture right, even if that's all it is. Polls give you an insight into the dynamic of the race ahead; they highlight the problems, or the challenges, facing the candidates, their strengths and weaknesses.
So here's the bottom line. The polls make me nervous. Not desperate, not hopeless, not resigned, but nervous. Barack Obama should be ahead right now. Way ahead. Not even close is how it should look, even though I wouldn't for a minute tell you that if it were that would seal the deal. But the fact that my old candidate Mike Dukakis was running better 20 years ago against George Bush than Obama is today against John McCain makes me nervous. It should be a sign to some of the whiners on my side, still worried about whether Obama is liberal enough or whether he's doing enough to help Hillary, that it's time to stop whining and start working. Otherwise, it will be hello President McCain.
It's not that McCain is doing so well. He isn't. AT best, the race is even (if you believe Newsweek), or Obama is six (CBS News/NY Times) or even nine (Quinnipiac) points ahead. So why worry?
First, because the experience of the primaries, not to mention that of other African-American candidates, suggests that polls tend to overstate, not understate, support for black candidates. With the exception of Indiana, every pre-primary poll in a major state showed the race between Obama and Clinton to be closer than it turned out to be. It became a sort of running joke on election to see the DrudgeReport with the red siren on the top announcing that contests that Hillary would end up winning handily were, according to the exit polls that very day, too close to call....
Read entire article at Real Clear Politics
But that doesn't mean they're meaningless. There's a reason that news organizations, and campaigns themselves, spend time and money to try to get the picture right, even if that's all it is. Polls give you an insight into the dynamic of the race ahead; they highlight the problems, or the challenges, facing the candidates, their strengths and weaknesses.
So here's the bottom line. The polls make me nervous. Not desperate, not hopeless, not resigned, but nervous. Barack Obama should be ahead right now. Way ahead. Not even close is how it should look, even though I wouldn't for a minute tell you that if it were that would seal the deal. But the fact that my old candidate Mike Dukakis was running better 20 years ago against George Bush than Obama is today against John McCain makes me nervous. It should be a sign to some of the whiners on my side, still worried about whether Obama is liberal enough or whether he's doing enough to help Hillary, that it's time to stop whining and start working. Otherwise, it will be hello President McCain.
It's not that McCain is doing so well. He isn't. AT best, the race is even (if you believe Newsweek), or Obama is six (CBS News/NY Times) or even nine (Quinnipiac) points ahead. So why worry?
First, because the experience of the primaries, not to mention that of other African-American candidates, suggests that polls tend to overstate, not understate, support for black candidates. With the exception of Indiana, every pre-primary poll in a major state showed the race between Obama and Clinton to be closer than it turned out to be. It became a sort of running joke on election to see the DrudgeReport with the red siren on the top announcing that contests that Hillary would end up winning handily were, according to the exit polls that very day, too close to call....