WHAT ARE THE POLLS REALLY SAYING?
Leftists are proudly celebrating polls showing that an "unnamed Democrat" would beat George Bush in 2004. Well, guess what? There will be no "unnamed Democrat" on the ballot in 2004. The Democratic candidate will be named, and as soon as the name is known to the voters things don't look quite so good.
Examples: In the latest polls where Democratic candidates are actually named Bush beats Kerry and Dean by 15%, Gephardt and Gore by 12%, Lieberman by 11%, and Hitlary by 10%. The others, Brown, Sharpton and Kucinich aren't named because their candidacies are regarded as jokes and they don't have a chance in hell, as they say.
There will be much more news about various polls every single day before the election next November. Candidates are going to watch these polls and modify positions as they go along. Here's one thing you won't learn reading the New York Times or The Washington Post, or listening to CNN. It's a historical look at presidential polling.
First, every single incumbent president (Bush is the incumbent, for those of you who graduated from government schools) has been behind in the polling moving to reelection. This goes for Reagan, Clinton and for George Bush (41) when he was Reagan's vice president.
You are hearing much made of Bush's declining approval numbers. At the same point in his first term Ronald Reagan's approval ratings were lower than Bush's are now .. at 47%. Clinton's approval ratings were even lower, at 44%.
So ... while the joyous leftists in the media are trumpeting Bush's low poll numbers, it might give you some comfort to know that they're higher than either Reagan's or Clinton's at the same time in their presidency.
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