hi Knucklehead

I’ve sucked in virtually all of my “knowledge” of polls from Samuel, who I think was posting here before you joined (yes?) He’s amazing.

I used the phrase “internal polling data” earlier, which I picked up only this morning from Mickey Kaus.

I think it means the “smaller” items, like “who do you trust to lead the country”—those things. But I could be wrong.

Samuel always said that the two key items in presidential election polls are:

Leadership

Right track/wrong track

Bush wins in a landslide on leadership (that’s probably an exaggeration) but he’s in big trouble on right track/wrong track. Huge numbers of Americans say we’re on the wrong track, and the figure doesn’t seem to budge (actually, I think it improved a bit in July, maybe).

Samuel says people vote on leadership.

I believe him, partly because he knows what he’s talking about, but partly also because I’ve noticed polling shifts & campaign strategies that confirm this view.

As far as I can tell, a lot of the campaign so far has been fought over the issue of leadership. That’s what the “flip-flop” campaign against Kerry was about, as well as Bush’s campaign theme of “steady leadership in a time of challenge.” The folks over at NRO (some of them) hated “steady leadership,” from which I conclude that the Bushies didn’t pick that slogan because conservative pundits thought it was a great thing. They picked it because they understand that the American public votes on leadership.

For his part, Kerry is trying to present himself as a strong leader. So I think Samuel is right.

The other huge factor, apparently, is job approval. Everyone universally seems to say that all elections in which a sitting president is running for a second term are a “referendum on the president.”

If the incumbent’s job approval is above 50%, that’s it, end of story. He wins. Doesn’t matter how fantastic the challenger is or isn’t. (At least, that’s what I’ve read in literally every article I’ve ever seen on the subject.)

That’s another nailbiting area for Bush, because his approval ratings have been below 50% for quite some time now–although they inched back up to 50% in at least a couple of polls going into the convention.

A couple of other fascinating things.

Fred Barnes has a terrific piece in THE WEEKLY STANDARD saying the Bushies concluded long ago that they could not run a “four more years” campaign, as you would (probably) expect a sitting president to do.

Instead he is going to “pivot,” and come out with new programs & new directions.

That sounds great to me, and I’m guessing the White House is responding to the right track/wrong track data.

I’m guessing they’re planning to tell the American people that a second Bush administration will change the direction of the country. Pretty cool.

The other interesting thing, and I’ve read this in numerous places so I’m inclined to believe it’s true, is that the Democrats have concluded that the American public has decided not to re-elect George Bush. Thus their job with Kerry is simply to make him acceptable, not “sell” him or his policies, etc.

I can see how they came to this conclusion, given the job approval ratings & the right track/wrong track data. I tend to think they’re right: I think probably a majority of people do want a change.

David Brooks had a fantastic line about how he never imagined how much this election would be like George Bush running for a 3rd term, not a second. Brooks says Bush’s enemies hate him as much as if he’d been in office 8 years and his friends are as exhausted as if they’d just been through 8 years themselves. (I love it!)

Plus Peggy Noonan had her fabulous column about people wanting a “return to normalcy,” followed up by Kaus’s “time out” (I love Kaus, byw) . . . so I think the Democrats’ analysis, on the face of it, is correct (IMO).

Anyway, at this point the picture gets murky for me, except that I believe, and agree with, Samuel when he says leadership is the heart of the matter.

If the Dems had nominated a man who felt like a leader, I think we’d be looking at a Democratic victory in November.

But they nominated a man who is so tongue-tied and grim he almost feels like an “anti-leader.”

Then throw in a whole convention about Vietnam to boot—it’s incredible. No one likes losing, ever. Even Noam Chomsky doesn’t like to lose, not on his own behalf, though he seems happy enough to see his country lose a war or two or three.

So Kerry chooses to spend his entire convention vividly, indelibly, and exclusively associating himself with the one war America has lost in his lifetime.

That’s really gonna move those leadership numbers.