THE REAL MONDALE
According to a longtime Washington political insider, word from
Minnesota is that Walter Mondale last spring
commissioned private polls to determine how well he’d do in a
primary against Sen. Paul Wellstone.
POLLSTER GEIST
When everything is said and done on election Tuesday later today,
one thing the media will be mulling over for some time is how badly
out of whack the poll numbers appeared to be in many of the races
across the country. It isn’t just an undecided public, of which
there was much this election cycle: some Senate polls showed an
undecided category of almost 25 percent, surprising numbers with
incumbents running.
Take the pivotal Minnesota race. Over the weekend, the
Minneapolis Star Tribune poll had Walter
Mondale holding a 46 percent to 41 percent over
Norm Coleman, with a margin of error of +/- 3%.
Meanwhile the Pioneer Press/Minnesota Public Radio poll
had Coleman with 47 percent to 41 percent for Mondale, with a
margin of error of 4%. Yet neither poll can be considered terribly
accurate, given the small sample of the survey — neither poll had
the generally accepted minimum of 1,000 respondents to bring the
poll within the acceptable 3 point margin of error, although the
Star Tribune came close with about 960 respondents.
“You can’t toss a poll out there with sample pool of 400 and
call it accurate, or even close to accurate,” says a Republican
pollster. “You have the media touting numbers that just aren’t
realistic. Forget the soft money ban. Ban lousy polling.”
BACKYARD CHAINS
While President Bush has been able to hop across the country
campaigning for seemingly everyone — he hit ten states in three
days leading into today’s vote — Democrats have had to stay at
home due to pressing campaigns. John Kerry had
been invited to appear on behalf of prospective Senate candidates
in at least four states on Monday and Tuesday. He had to take a
pass. Instead he will campaign with Massachusetts gubernatorial
candidate Shannon O’Brien. John
Edwards was by far the most in-demand around the country,
from Iowa to Florida, Texas to New Hampshire. Instead, he’s been
called into service in North Carolina, where Democrats hope he can
pull enough African American votes for Erskine
Bowles. Meanwhile Tom Daschle is stuck in
South Dakota trying to save Tim Johnson’s job.
“It certainly wasn’t a plan, but all the close races have kind
of forced the Democrats to focus on their local races instead of
having the freedom to move around,” says an RNC staffer.
“Terry McAuliffe likes to brag about how great the
Democrats will be in 2004 with all those governors controlling
statehouses, but having the presidency is the best campaign tool
you can have. Especially when you have a president everyone can be
pictured with, unlike past presidents and vice presidents.”
A LID ON LIDDY’S LEAD
If Elizabeth Dole loses her North Carolina Senate
race against Erskine Bowles, as some suspect she
might, she’ll have only herself to blame.
Dole, who two months ago had a 20 point lead over her closest
Democratic opponent, found herself in a neck and neck race going
into the last weekend of the election season. Some polls showed
Bowles had cut her lead to to a mere 5 percent.
Bowles spent the final weekend traveling across the state,
speaking at black churches and trying to rally his base. Meanwhile
Dole had a light campaign schedule on Saturday and on Sunday did no
campaigning whatsoever. Instead, she attended church in her home
town and ran errands.
