What polls mean

[Capn Sunshine]

Kos lends his perspective to polling '07

...is Hillary running away with this thing? Let's look back to 2004 Gallup polling for some perspective.

6/12-18/2003

Lieberman 21
Gephardt 17
Kerry 13
Graham 7
Dean 7
Edwards 6
Sharpton 6
Moseley Braun 5

And get this -- Lieberman was actually slightly up from May, and up from 15 percent in March.

Let's fast forward all the way to August:

8/4-6/2003

Lieberman 23
Gephardt 13
Dean 12
Kerry 10
Edwards 5
Moseley Braun 5
Sharpton 4

Wow. But then Labor Day happened, and people started "paying attention". Then look at what happened:

9/8-10/2003

Gephardt 16
Dean 14
Lieberman 13
Kerry 12
Edwards 5
Moseley Braun 4
Sharpton 2

The whole field was shuffled around. Lieberman never recovered.

Now you want to be blown away? Look at the numbers before, then after Iowa (January 19) and New Hampshire (January 27):

1/9-11 1/29-2/1

Dean 26 14
Clark 20 9
Kerry 9 49
Lieberman 9 5
Edwards 7 13
Gephardt 7 n/a

Being a blogger has been on-the-job training for me. I was obsessive about the presidential polls in 2003. Then, as you see above, they meant squat. Kerry had 9 percent heading into Iowa. He won the thing easily. I learned my lesson.

[Deep13]

1. The difference this time is the front-loaded primary,...

...HRC's universal name recognition, Obama's almost as well known name and both of their ability to rake in cash. I agree there is some volitility here, but no where near what it was in '04.

[rinsd]

2. I also think there will be some movement as the season wears on but 2008 is very different from 2004

[Capn Sunshine]

3. That's what they were saying about '04

during the "why is Kerry even bothering to run?" phase

[PATRICK]

4. The polls, but

other experience can be brought to bear. Kerry won due to hard, steady campaigning and a great machine effort, some inefficiencies among the new Dean enthusiasts, incredibly dumb, ignorant news reporting(as usual). Kerry did not have strong negatives going in really. Dean was under constant assault from media and from within the party with Gore jumping in too late with his fierce endorsement. Decision day had people abandoning perceived losing candidates for significant ones. The nature of Iowa and then New Hampshire and politics and efficiency in the small. Changing of plans such as abandoning the Gephardt calculation of favorite sonning the earlies and denying "weak" or divided adversaries momentum.

So the dangers of prognostication at this point are extreme. edwards is seasoned and successful. Hillary hasn't moved too much in, nor does she absolutely need to with the big states quickly following. I am assuming they have learned from the Kerry methodology with the better resources. Their phone polling is elaborately finding very committed and specifically well informed caucus debaters. Might be overdoing that but I doubt it. The battle will not be won in these two states but it can finish off any of her rivals. That is where I think things stand and that's about all I can guess, But the polls are worthless even if they show Hillary slipping or someone else tanking or someone else surging. You still have to play the caucus system.