Any polls now for the election in November are meaningless

[NewYorkerfromMass]

or close to it because they do not register opinions which have been biased and affected by an actual campaign. So I suggest we stop using them to show how "electable" one candidate is over another vs. Bush. They simply do not reflect actual voter sentiment on election day AFTER all the dirt and negative ads have come out in the campaign.

[beyurslf]

1. Agreed.

And most of the Dem candidates are within the MOE on those polls anyway. Does it matter it Clark is 42% and Dean is 39% and Kerry is 40% if the MOE is 4%? They all tie.

[Jerseycoa]

2. No, they don't

But they reflect current trends, movement, response to national events. I like reading them. Agree, they don't say anything about election day.

[slinkerwink]

3. ditto

[boxster]

4. I disagree somewhat.

While the polls certainly aren't indicative of what the outcome of 11/04 will be, I think it is important to take our candidates' relative strength against Bush into consideration. Obviously, the primary season is the only time where that is even possible.

The goal is to beat Bush. Nominating the person with the best chance to do so should be one of our goals.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

5. "the person with the best chance"

Yeah I've tried that. Makes for an interesting discussion though. :)

[Jerseycoa]

6. Good point (eom)

[cosmicdot]

7. were they meaningful before 'now'?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

8. Not really

it's a waste before the real campaign.