Those are questions for another poll.
Meanwhile, I'll be publishing more reports on findings of the poll on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Later today I'm travelling east to west coast to run my meetings on Story, Optimal Functioning and Brain Biofeedback.
PS Markos Moulitsas, known as Kos on Daily Kos, has criticized the poll, saying,
"This poll is questionable"
First of all, the "vulnerabilities" side of things, where people are read a statement about each campaign -- those types of polls are useless. Every cycle I get campaigns sending me this type of poll, and I've learned over the past two cycles that they mean nothing.Why? Because campaigns don't work like this. You need money to get out your message while the other side is working to define you negatively.
Second of all, this was one of those internet polls with self-selected political junkies who signed up to be polled. That's not a representative sample of real voters. These Zogby polls were an absolute mess in 2004. They are not reliable."
Here's my reply, with one slight edit, deleting a biased remark that was appropriate in a blog comment but not in an article.
Sorry, but I have to respectfully disagree.
First, here's the link to the poll info on voting and election reform. It's hard to understand how you can question the usefullness and value of this info. I will address your critism of the methodology at the end of my response. It has already been used to help presuade a US congressman to introduce a bill into congress regarding allowing municipalities to hold off on complying with HAVA. This is awesome news for voting integrity people.
Regarding the 2006 PA Senate Horserace-- the most closely watched 2006 Election
I think that it is useful for the Democratic party to know that Santorum can only pull 41.2% against ANY democrat, no matter how unknown. It's useful to know that Santorum has a solid, a very solid 39% base. Because this wasn't a poll for a candidate. It was a poll for the people, well the progressive people. It's goal was to provide progressives and liberals and real Democrats with straight information they could use to make decisions.
You say campaigns don't work like "this." Well, it depends on your meaning of this. Like I've said, if you have the money to get out the message that the poll presented, your argument is neutralized. And if you find out weaknesses of your opponent, like Casey's weakness among African Americans on the Alito and Iraq war issue, for example, then Casey's opponents-- both Pennacchio and Sandals, can certainly use this for attack ads in the African American Communities. And it doesn't take that much money to send the poll results to leaders of the black community in Philadelphia, or to BlackCommentator.com, or the local African American newspapers. They may want to let their readers know about the poll, about the different candidates' stances on the issues. The Casey opponents may even find some deep pocket contributors among the African American community that they neglected not knowing the strength of the animosity towards Casey's positions.
How can you argue that This kind of polling information can be used by strong grassroots campaigns to hit the other side's weak spots and to strengthen previously unidentified, or not initially obvious strong demographic groups?
I wonder how Rendell feels, knowing that his candidate Casey, is reviled by African Americans who will be going to the polls, pissed off at Casey, and seeing a fellow African American, Swan, on the ticket. Having Casey AND Swan on the ballot could be the kiss of death for Rendell. Isn't that interesting? But you say polls like this are "meaningless?" Sorry, but I disagree.
Do you support campaigns that depend upon PAC money?
Your argument seems to suggest that we should only suppport candidates who start out with the money to use polling results. That's been the biggest negative that Kossites have used to attack the real progressive in this campaign who's been working to build a real grassroots base-- Chuck Pennacchio. Well I don't buy that argument. And neither do the 87% of PA democrats who responded to the poll that they don't want elections that allow the most money to influence candidates.
I will agree with you that this poll won't help a candidate win an election by itself. But it might help wake up Democrats who have been fooling themselves. It will make them aware of the real vulnerabilities of the candidate slate. I'll be sending the results to the leaders of the state democratic party. As I mentioned, the Coalition for voting integrity already used the stunning support for paper ballots the poll uncovered to persuade a congressman to submit a bill to congress. What's that, chopped liver?
To be frank, I am finding that I fooled myself, thinking there would be a huge response to the findings of this poll. The media are falling over themselves to fall asleep, almost avoiding it. It will take netroots to get the word out on it, like Kos making a diary like this front-page. That's the power of the blogoverse... or not.
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