POLLIANA

SEPT 10 -- Although I’d rather be talking about specific issues important to all of us, I thought I’d just take a minute to discuss polling. I do believe that polls sway voters, though I don’t pretend to know which way they sway them. As you probably heard last week’s polls published by Newsweek and Time showed Bush with a roughly 10 point Lead over Kerry. As you may NOT have heard, both of these polls were absolutely terrible and inaccurate – the methods used to come up with these numbers were highly flawed: in a nutshell, both polls overcounted Republicans. Whether this was accidental or purposeful, your guess is as good as mine. But one thing’s for sure, they both gave an xtraordinarily inaccurate picture of where Americans stand on these two candidates.

Now, some of you may be thinking that I’m making a case for John Kerry here. I am not. In fact, I tend to think that it would help John Kerry if people believed he was down 10 points, by energizing Democrats to get to the polls. The criticism of the Time and Newsweek polls comes from the two most respected non-partisan pollsters in the world: Rasmussen and Zogby. Both of them explained the problems with these polls in detail on their websites:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/
http://www.zogby.com/

In the meantime, there are some very recent polls out which suggest that the race remains essentially a dead heat. It is relatively easy to poll Registered Voters and notoriously difficult to poll "Likely Voters" since no one knows exactly what a likely voter looks like. Below are some polls of both registered and likely voters. As you can see, none other than FOX News has Kerry up by 4 pts among registered voters. In every presidential election of the last 20 years, registered Democracts have gone to the polls in greater numbers than registered Republicans. Make of that what you will. Here are the recent polls:

FOX/Opinion Dynamics 9/8 Among Registered Voters:
Kerry 46 Bush 42

CNN/Gallup 9/5 Among Likely Voters
Bush 52 Kerry 45

ICR 9/5 Among Registered Voters
Kerry 45 Bush 43

Rasmussen 9/9 Among Likely Voters
Bush 48 Kerry 46

If you want two reasonably accurate projections (one Dem one Repub) of what the electoral college map looks like at this point (i.e. who will win what states) you can find them here:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/
http://www.electionprojection.com/

Most importantly, keep tuned in to the issues and vote!