skippy the bush kangaroo: caucus? he doesn't even know us!

Thursday, August 30, 2007

caucus? he doesn't even know us!

time is reporting that john edwards' work in iowa is beginning to pay off:

john edwards is betting that a strong showing in the iowa caucuses will catapult him into national contention, and so far his strategy in the state is on track. a new time poll of likely iowa caucus goers, taken a week after edwards' seven-day, 31-stop bus tour of the state, gives edwards 29% of the vote, five points ahead of hillary clinton and seven ahead of barack obama. this latest time poll of 519 likely iowa democratic caucus goers finds that, among the so-called "second-tier" candidates, bill richardson has 11%, with joe biden at 5%, dennis kucinich with 2%, and chris dodd at 1%. (the poll was conducted august 22 ? 25, 2007. the margin of error is approximately +/- 5 percentage points.)

with the field limited to the top four candidates, edwards's lead over clinton widens, to 32% to 24%. obama was at 22%, with bill richardson at 13%. iowa polls can be unreliable, since only 5% to 10% of voters go to the caucuses; some other recent surveys have edwards in a dead heat with clinton and obama. the race remains wide open, but edwards's position remains strong.

for edwards, the poll has some less welcome news as well. so far, at least, his attempts to portray himself as the real change agent in the race — the one who wants to slam the door on lobbyists and other "washington insiders" — isn't paying off. obama beats him by 35% to 25% on the question of who "will take on special interests in washington." (clinton trailed with 19%.) iowa democrats seem to like edwards more for who he is than for what he says; they call him the "most likable" and the one who best understands their concerns, but his toss-out-the-insiders message hasn't stuck.

the poll also finds some not-unexpected but still not-too-good news for mrs. clinton:

iowa caucus goers see strengths and weaknesses in each candidate. among the top four candidates:

* likeability: edwards (32%) and obama (30%) lead as "most likeable." clinton finishes last, at 12%, just below bill richardson (16%).

to be fair, mrs. clinton does top the list on things like handling terrorism, handling iraq, and outright corruption and cronyism.

ok, we made that last part up.

Labels: democrats, edwards, prez campaign

posted by skippy at 9:31 AM |

2 Comments:

Ah, the polls, the polls, the pols!

The Time Poll, with less than 600 people surveyed (less than the American Research Group), has a huge margin of error (5%). You'd think they had enough money to poll enough people for a statistic significant sample. Instead, we get a skewed poll by the MSM.

For example, using the margin of error, Obama could be at 16% and Richardson at 18% (more likely, Richardson is at 16%, and Obama is at 19%). Conversely, Obama could be at 27% and Edwards at 24% - unlikely but within their margin of error.

That's the problem with these less than significant polls. They mean absolutely nothing but to feed the 24 hour content folks at the Cable News Networks.

So here's the question: Who was leading in these same polls this time 4 years ago? (If you don't know, you make my point). It was Richard Gephardt! Followed by Joe Leiberman leading in November.

Too soon to poll, too early to tell, to fluid and volatile to be of any import.

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