Michael Barone On The Polls

Michael Barone has an interesting piece that tries to extrapolate where the polls are going this year. He also comes up with this very astute observation:

My tentative explanation is this. Bush’s most effective opposition this year has come not from Kerry and the Democrats but from Old Media, the New York Times and the news pages of the Washington Post, along with the broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC. Old Media gave very heavy coverage to stories that tended to hurt Bush—violence in Iraq, Abu Ghraib, the false charges of Richard Clarke and Joseph Wilson, etc. And during the first eight months of the year Bush did a poor job of making his case.

Then, suddenly, that case was made with maximum effectiveness at the Republican National Convention in New York—by John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani, by Zell Miller and Arnold Schwarzenegger, by Laura Bush and Dick Cheney and George W. Bush himself. Bush was able to get his message out unmediated by Old Media. (Fox News Channel had more viewers during the Republican National Convention than any of the old-line broadcast networks.) The message was simple: We need this president to protect the nation. Bush muffed the chance to deliver that message effectively in the first debate. But he made up for it in the second and third debates.

Kerry helped confirm the Bush message in the debates—by saying American action had to pass a global test, by saying that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq both was and was not a threat, by arguing that Saddam would “not necessarily” have remained in power if Kerry’s course had been taken. He remains the man who volunteered the words “I did actually vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” So in all the polls Bush continues to score better than Kerry on handling the war on terrorism and on handling Iraq.

I think Barone is right on with this analysis. This is a security election. So far Kerry is talking about Social Security and flu shots. The polls are showing momentum for Bush – and the only poll that shows otherwise is the AP/Ipsos poll which is so methodologically flawed to be worthless. Even in the horribly biased Zogby poll Bush has opened up a 2 point lead this week, which means that in polls that use an accurate partisan balance Bush is ahead by much more than that.

Kerry’s policy on Iraq has been muddled at best and Kerry’s “global test” rhetoric only cemented his weakness on the issue. You can’t simultaneously claim that you would never give foreign powers a veto over our national security then say that we have to pass some kind of global test to take action anywhere. What Kerry fails to understand is that our worries about Iraq won’t be ameliorated by a promise that some foreign power will bail us out. We know they won’t. For all the mistakes that were made in the occupation of Iraq, the only one with any kind of concrete plan is the President, and that plan is to hold our ground and start eliminating the terrorists in Iraq ahead of the elections in January.

Because terrorism and Iraq are the defining issues in this race, President Bush will win. Senator Kerry has utterly failed to present a clear and cogent strategy on the war, and his history of weakness before totalitarian regimes makes him unfit for leadership in a time of war. There are a lot of Democrats who don’t like President Bush on domestic policy or even personally, but trust him to keep us safe. When President Bush is reelected in a little over a week, it will be that factor that explains why.

5 thoughts on “Michael Barone On The Polls

  1. The ironic thing is that this appears to be a “security election” only in the states where either Kerry or Bush is comfortably ahead. Recent polls have shown it’s an “economy election” in the battleground states, which favors Kerry. We’re seeing Kerry pull ahead in virtually every poll in Ohio, by margins as high as six points in Gallup’s registered voter model. Even unreliable Mason-Dixon and Survey USA states can’t camouflage a Kerry advantage in Pennsylvania and Michigan. I continue to be nervous about Minnesota and Iowa, but am waiting for more reliable data than what Mason-Dixon and Survey USA can produce before going into cardiac arrest.

    The daily tracking polls have trended Bush in the last couple days, however slightly. I’m interested in seeing if TIPP and Rasmussen confirm Zogby’s shift today. Perhaps they will, but there is nothing happening that would seem to be helping Bush and hurting Kerry at this point, other than Teresa’s moronic statement about Laura Bush never having a real job.

    As long as Bush’s re-elect numbers are below 50%, and everybody but ABC/Washington Post says they are, Bush’s re-election prospects are murky. It’s unfortunate that Kerry won’t get a major public forum to make his closing arguments because he may need it, but I still suspect the concern about economic health in the battleground states and booming Democratic registration numbers will put Kerry in the White House.

  2. I agree that Survey USA isn’t an accurate pollster, but Mason-Dixon was the closest in 2000 and was very close in 2002. I’d trust their results long before I’d trust Zogby or ARG, the other two major state-by-state pollsters.

  3. The daily tracking polls have trended Bush in the last couple days, however slightly. I’m interested in seeing if TIPP and Rasmussen confirm Zogby’s shift today. Perhaps they will, but there is nothing happening that would seem to be helping Bush and hurting Kerry at this point, other than Teresa’s moronic statement about Laura Bush never having a real job.

    TIPP has Bush up by 47-46, and Rassmussen has Bush up 49-46. With “leaners” Rassmussen shows Bush leading 50-47.

    The fat lady ain’t singing, but she’s smearing her bustier with Crisco so she can fit in it on Election Day…

  4. You can’t be serious. 11 days until the election and you’re declaring poll advantages within the margins of error as evidence of the “fat lady singing”? It strikes me that it was this same brash overconfidence that came within 537 votes of stunning you guys four years ago.

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