Polls are False Hope?

I will be the first to admit that I have been on Cloud 9 for a few weeks now.  First there was Brownie, then Fitzmas, Harriet Miers, Delay got hammered, Frist’s trust wasn’t so blind, Cheney openly begging for torture to be allowed, Harry Reid grew a spine and may have even developed balls.  We also got ANWR off the table, the budget cuts were axed, and the additional tax cuts for the uber-rich couldn’t get out of committee.  Now, there is the investigation into the lies that got us into Iraq, and Falafel Head has finally gone off the deep end.

However, there is one thing that worries me…the polls.  I’ve been dancing for weeks because Bush’s numbers are in the toilet. But, then I got to thinking about the past.  There was one time in our history that proved polls couldn’t always be trusted.  

Let me take you back, back to the mid-term elections of 1994…All of the public opinion polls were swinging high for the Dems, they all appeared to say that we would keep both houses, though we may lose a few seats.  Losing some seats would be expected since historically the president’s party almost always lost seats in the midterms.  Even with everything looking rosy, Hillary and Bill felt that something just wasn’t right.  So they, to the dismay of many, hired Dick Morris (yes, that Dick Morris) to kinda ‘take the pulse’ of the electorate.  The Clintons had been all over the country and just didn’t feel that the polls were reflecting the true feelings of the voters.  The problem being that typical polls aren’t a good gauge of the intensity of the electorate.  Nor is it a good gauge of why people aren’t happy.  Well, Morris did his own polling and determined that the Clinton’s were right.  Their opposition’s intensity was much greater than their proponent’s intensity.  Since people who are more involved tend to take more action, this translated into the “Year of the Angry White Man”.  Morris, as much as I hate him, was right.  He said the GOP would take both houses, and they did.  The other polls weren’t wrong, they just weren’t asking the right questions.

This brings me to why I’m beginning to be worried about the polls.  Has anyone asked why they don’t approve of Bush?  Have they asked the question ‘Is Bush too Liberal for your taste?’, what about, ‘Do you disapprove of the way he is handling Iraq because he hasn’t dropped nukes on Baghdad?’  I think if these questions were asked, we might find that there is a significant minority who actually think this guy is too far to the left.  My guess is in the neighborhood of 10% believe this.

If this is the case, and I really hope I’m wrong on this, then that means that if he becomes even more of a stubborn hard-ass then he could very well be back in the 50% approval range.  This also means that the far right nutjobs in the House and Senate may very well be re-elected by large margins, and they may even pick up even more seats.

Sure, its all great to see that he’s not trusted, and that Iraq was a mistake, but do these people feel strongly enough about this stuff for it to change their minds?  

I don’t want to rain on everyone’s parade, but I just don’t know if we are in the clear yet.

Lemme know what you think.

Time is of the Essence

Wow, there has been so much going on lately and I haven’t had time to touch on any of it. I plan to get caught up on “The Great Republican Meltdown” this weekend.

I hate that I’ve been away from my blog for such a time, but I have been too damned busy to do much of anything. I also had quite a bit of reading to catch up on.

Anyways, I’ll rant away this weekend. I’ve got a few lengthy rants in the draft stage that need to be edited then I’ll post them.

See y’all soon!!!!