On this morning’s David & Emmer show, they crossed an intellectual line for me, and exposed one of the major problems facing the Republican Party.
They decided to promote a poll from Public Policy Polling, about who, it says, Republicans prefer to take on Mark Dayton next year. The polling company appears to have been tasked with testing the waters on a host of issues to gauge support for liberal policies and officials in Minnesota. Favorability of Democrats, gun bans, gay marriage, you name it, Democrats had their poll show liberalism rules the day here in Minnesota. The press has been spewing it out religiously.
The poll also showed Norm Coleman as the leading Republican for the 2014 Governor’s race. Davis and Emmer railed on Coleman this morning and the notion of him being the Republican candidate. No solutions, no better alternatives, no suggestions on how maybe a rock solid conservative could beat Dayton (ahem). Instead, mashing of teeth, wailing, moaning, complaining, kicking and screaming, and threats of staying home…..
PPP polling is a Democrat influence poll. Sorry, but its an automated left leaning poll and if a Republican is citing it to tank a candidate they don’t like, they are as intellectually lazy as the biased media in Minnesota who is also using this poll to undermine all center right politicians and thought.
We are well over a year before we'll really know anything about what the 2014 political landscape will be like. We have no idea who will emerge on the Republican side of the aisle to run against Mark Dayton, or Al Franken for that matter. And Andy is correct -- while we might learn something from what PPP tells us, Bob Davis and Tom Emmer really aren't adding anything valuable to the discussion when they trumpet the polling results at this point. Personally, I'd ignore any polling until about this time in 2014.
As I mentioned, Andy's essay touches on a great deal many more topics. It's worth your time to read. While you might not agree with what Andy writes, there aren't many people who care more about the fate of the Republican Party than he does.
2 comments:
It's always amazing to me how politics seems to create its own form of amnesia. We go through this polling dilemma at the start of every election cycle.
Numbers this early indict only one thing - name ID. That history doesn't include Pres. Colin Powell, Gov. Skip Humphrey or Sen. Mark Kennedy might tell us that polls done two years out have less of a predictive value that the random flip of a coin. But of course, it's never too early for some people to prematurely declare victory or defeat.
Dayton's numbers look almost exactly like Pawlenty's. I remember even blogging about Pawlenty's strong polling position because his approval rating was just over 50% and most of his DFL competitors polled in the high 30s, low 40s at best. The end result of those numbers? A one-point victory in 2006.
What we know is this: Dayton is the likely nominee, the GOP will view him as beatable and thus stronger candidates are unlikely to pass on running, and the Independence Party will field a candidate that will take at least 5-7% of the vote. The rest is complete guesswork 22 months in advance.
What we know is this: Dayton is the likely nominee, the GOP will view him as beatable and thus stronger candidates are unlikely to pass on running, and the Independence Party will field a candidate that will take at least 5-7% of the vote. The rest is complete guesswork 22 months in advance.
Yep. That's pretty much it.
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