It's too early to take any head-to-head general election polls all that seriously, and this particular survey is too much of an outlier to take it all that seriously - but still, it seems at least worth taking note of any poll that finds Obama beating Mitt Romney by 56 to 26 percent.
« David Frum And His Critics | Main | Hating Rightey » Mitt Mondale?17 Jan 2008 08:29 am Comments (6)
Way too early to draw conclusions. I don't think any of these polls are reliable until we actively have two Presidential candidates campaigning and debating each other. Once that occurs we'll have a more accurate sense of what the split would be in November. I also think Romney can still claim that he is less known than McCain and Giuliani, and therefore suffers in the polls. 
But what if there is a brokered convention on the Republican side Andrew? That would cripple their ability to campaign against the democrats for the next 8 months. By that time, it would be too late to properly frame the democratic candidate in the way they'd want to for the general election.
Good point, but it looks like both parties will have chosen a candidate by Feb. 6. Thompson will probably be out within a week and if he loses by more than 10% in SC Huckabee may drop out prior to Super Tuesday- but after Florida- as a way of hurting Romney. But more likely, he'll be out on Feb. 6. Giuliani will also be gone by Feb. 6.,if not sooner. If he loses the tight race in Florida he'll lose support and his already cash strapped campaign will no choice but to go all in California- and lose both California and the rest of the Super Tuesday states. Only Romney and McCain might stick around after Feb. 5. But most likely it will be that after SC and Florida the Super Tuesday states won't split evenly and there'll be a clear frontrunner. Again, I think both parties will have plenty of time before November to coalesce around their candidates and sharpen their attacks against their opponents.
Why is it worth taking note if it is so obviously an outlier? Polls are both imprecise and highly influended by events. Electability is important, but for a variety of reasons basing your vote on this factor often leads to mistakes. Edwards would have been a stronger general election candidate than Kerry in 2004 (arguable, I suppose), McCain was stronger than Bush in 2000, the Repubicans thought Clinton would be an easy kill in 1992, and Democrats were delighted when the GOP nominated that sure-loser Ronald Reagan in 1980 (and didn't Dukakis lead Bush by 17% in 1988? You betcha.). Since everyone does such a poor job of handicapping the horserace, it would seem to make far more sense to just pick the candidate that you like the best and let the chips fall where they may.
Re: Democrats were delighted when the GOP nominated that sure-loser Ronald Reagan in 1980 If so, they were paying no attention to anything. How could any Democrat have thought the GOP would be road kill given the fine mess things were in in 1980?
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Hell, even Mondale broke 40%.
Posted by LaFollette Progressive | January 17, 2008 11:18 AM