About Late August Polling ...

[Stuart G]

While some may say August polling may be significant, I do not agree. I am not sure that it even represents honest trends..In August and early September of 2006 it did not seem like we would take the House..but we did. Who could have predicted the very ugly scandal with the Congressman and the pages?.That was in early October if I recall. Our current scandals deal with money and how it is spent..sure they are bad, but this is August, not October. And those scandals are the usual ones..
There is so much more to happen, as always.
Let us support our candidates as best we can: Barbara Boxer, etc...It ain't over till the fat lady sings, and my goodness, this is only act II in a IV act opera.........

[KharmaTrain]

1. From My Experience...

...working the phones on more campaigns than I care to admit, there are a couple of types of voters. The smallest but most vocal are the political geeks (who I guess I rank among)...constantly watching the news and can get all bent out of shape if their agenda isn't served. Next are the tepidly interested...sorta know there's an election coming up, kinda familiar with the issues and the candidates but they haven't paid much attention and won't do so until the days before the election. All the hubbub from inside the beltway takes a backseat to day-to-day things like work or outright survival. They couldn't tell you Robert Gibbs from Robin Gibb. These are the folks who decide by their pocketbook...if they have a couple bucks in their pockets good chance the party in power will be rewarded. Lastly there are those who are oblivious to it all...rather watch ESPN and avoid politics. Of those that vote (and there are plenty who do)...they also only focus in the days before the election and are generally considered part of the "middle" that sometimes can make the difference in a close election. These are the ones a party identifies and targets to get to the polls...the part of the groundgame the pollsters never really cover.

Today we have a 24/7 corporate media culture that is always looking for the next controversy...the latest bright shiny thing to play with. Much of it is of little merit to a vast majority but it consumes hours of teevee time and hundreds and thousands of posts on message boards and blogs. The noise overshadows the fact that this is a small portion of the electorate and all the "controversies"...especially those of the Fauxrage variety create the greatest reactions from the partisans...it has very little affect on many races.

Lastly, this isn't a national election...it's 435 local ones and 33 state races. Each is different and has its own dynamic. Thus it's important to focus on what it takes to win in these areas and the issues that matter the most. It's ground game and organization that make the difference (and why I feel its important to volunteer time) to identify your likely votes and then make sure they get to the polls. The rest will take care of itself.

Cheers...