It's a sign of the times that people are getting so desperate to try and predict the upcoming election that they are turning to analogies from Israel and Britain.
The premise of a lot of discussions about the election seems to be that it must be close since Kerry's lead is within the margin of error in most polls, and Bush is leading in some.
But if you look at 10 polls and 8 of them show Kerry leading by 3-8 points then it's a good bet Kerry actually has a real lead of around 4 points.
Looking at the last month, Bush has been ahead in just 6 polls while Kerry has been ahead in nearly 30. That suggests to me that the Kerry lead is relatively small, but real.
Even allowing for the vagaries of the electoral college, a popular vote lead of 4% if repeated on election day would probably take Kerry over 300 electoral college votes. Although the 1948 election was difficult to call until ... well, until it was all over if you were the Chicago Tribune ... the actual outcome wasn't even close, with Truman getting 303 electoral votes and a 4.5% popular margin.
Short any dramatic events between now and the election, Bush has real ground to make up if he wants to clear 200 electoral votes, let alone 270.
Will that happen? There's two factors at work here. (1) Are people open to persuasion, and (2) Could events persuade them?
Here's National Journal's summary of recent polling about interest in politics and whether people could be persuaded to change their minds:
Thirty-two percent said they were following news about the candidates very closely, while 38 percent were following it "fairly closely," and 30 percent were following it "not too closely" or "not at all closely." In comparison, 52 percent said they were following news about high gasoline prices very closely, and 39 percent were following reports on Iraq with similar care.That lack of interest in political news does not translate into apathy for the race itself, however. Sixty-nine percent said they had given "quite a lot" of thought to the upcoming election, and most voters have made up their minds: Just 21 percent said there was a chance they might shift their support by election day.
So, clearly there's enough voters out there who could change their minds.
In descending order of their effect, events that could shift the presidential race towards Bush: a terrorist attack in the United States, the capture of Osama Bin Laden, and the Republican National Convention. Since only one of these events is under Bush's control, his chances of changing the way the race is going are not tiny, but not large either.
For all the talk of an October surprise, the wintery conditions in the mountains during October actually make the chances of catching anyone up there smaller.
But if 21% of the electorate are open to changing their minds, and Kerry's lead is around 4% ... there's still room for this race to turn around from where it is now, . An effective campaign, and the Bushies can campaign effectively as we saw in 2000, can make up a 4% deficit in the polls in two months.
Posted by robe0419 at August 16, 2004 5:21 PM