a review of recent
nationwide polls reveals a pattern that should raise some concern, but perhaps some comfort may be drawn from these results as well.
newsweek and time both push leaners, as do the ICR/International Communications Research poll, the Associated Press-Ipsos poll, the CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll and the ABC News/Washington Post Poll. when one compares the results of these recent polls with those done by organizations that do not push leaners, such as zogby, fox news, cbs news, investor's business daily and democracy corps, it is easy to see that, currently, pushing leaners has the effect of skewing the results in favor of bush. however, when one looks at nationwide polls that pushed leaners during the weeks following the DNC, one can see that the results of those polls clearly favored kerry. (to view the polls taken just after the DNC on polling report, click the link above, scroll down and click the link to go the next page.) thus, the leaners are fickle, but their current tendencies are not to be overlooked. it shows that, though they aren't solid bush supporters, they are leaning in his direction. that is a sign that we are not doing enough to persuade them to vote bush out of office and that the bush campaign is succeeding at rewriting the history of the last four years.
so what's the upshot? well, perhaps this is cynical, but if they haven't made up their minds already, how can we be certain these leaners, flip-floppers, if you will, are really "likely" voters? it's true that real life--jobs, kids, bills, reality TV, football, pick your distraction--often diverts undecided voters' attention away from the substantive issues of this election, except when major news events make truncated soundbytes nearly impossible to ignore--and even then the substantive issues have often been lost in debates over trivial 30 year old character issues, from swift boat shenanigans to the typewriters of the 70s.
still, does it not seem strange that, with less than two months to go in a highly divisive, highly partisan presidential election, somewhere between ten and twenty percent of those polled are still clearly persuadable? it is truly heartening to know that they have not closed their minds to the possibility of voting bush out of office, but it is also troubling that they can be so easily swayed by such devious underhandedness as the the swift boat sludge and the smear-a-thon otherwise known as the RNC, while showing little interest in bush's serious and well-documented credibility issues. it is troubling that these leaners somehow seem to feel they don't have all the evidence they need to oust bush and put their trust in kerry.
nevertheless, there is an opening for dems here, and the polls that don't push leaners, such as the recent polls by IBD and zogby, clearly show this race is a toss up. there is no reason to despair, but i remain flummoxed as to how these persuadables, these leaners, can even consider re-electing bush, whose failures are far and wide. what is it exactly that they need to hear from kerry that will convince them that he can do a better job than bush? are they even seriously planning to vote?
for my money, i think the kerry campaign is starting to deliver the right message, but i'm an unpersuadable partisan. it's good that the campaign is getting away from the talk about tying the cost of the war into domestic issues, which strikes me as a losing argument, and moving toward the newer message: bush blew it on several fronts and his only defense is to make excuses. bush creates more excuses than jobs--excellent. i think that will resonate, because americans don't want to hear politicians making excuses for the way that their policies have failed. americans want accountability, and bush has not once demonstrated he'll be accountable for any policy that does not make him look good.
i expect to see some leaners start leaning our way once again, once this new message sinks in, so i look to next week's numbers for some indication of movement in the right direction.