Polls
Posted : September 17, 2004 at 9:11 pm [America/Los_Angeles]
[via NT Times]
…Americans continue to think that the nation is heading in the wrong direction, and are distressed about how Mr. Bush has handled the economy…
…Respondents said they were unhappy with Mr. Bush’s handling of the economy and of Iraq, and said his policies had increased the cost of prescription drugs and decreased the number of jobs…
…About 80 percent of respondents said that Mr. Bush was either “hiding something” or “mostly lying” in talking about the war in Iraq. A plurality of voters disapproved of how Mr. Bush had managed the war…
71 percent said that Mr. Bush was “hiding something” or “mostly lying” about his Vietnam era service in the National Guard, which has been the subject of questions about how he got a coveted out-of-combat assignment, and whether he fulfilled the required service…
…Over all, the Times/CBS Poll found that Mr. Bush had the support of 50 percent of registered voters..
With that said, who do you think would be ahead in the polls? Well, the title of the poll says it all:
Kerry Trails Bush by 8 Points in New Poll and Faces Obstacles
Here’s my favorite paragraph of this article:
By any measure, Mr. Bush is proving to be a resilient candidate who may defy some historical trends. He has gained an advantage over Mr. Kerry even as polls show people are unhappy with the direction the country is heading. Mr. Bush’s advisers have long argued that many Americans, in an election being held under the shadow of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, are less apt to blame the president for the nation’s heading in the wrong direction.
Read the underlined section a couple of times. Yup, you’re right. If Republicans would have their way : 9/11 is the “real” culprit for everything that went bad in the last four years!
So, what do you make of all this. How bad does Senator Kerry suck so as to not be able to capitalize on these negative sentiments? Or is this poll (like the recent Gallup poll) really just another example of polls gone awry. After all, this Times/CBS nationwide poll results are based on a telephone poll of only 1,088 registered voters!
Is it fair to extrapolate the results of 1000-odd voters to ascertain what approximately 130 million likely voters are thinking today. I don’t think so.
With that said, I will merrily go back to enjoying my weekend pledging to fight for Senator Kerry until the night before the D-Day (11/2/2004) 
As Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) in the movie Rocky V said to Tommy (Tommy Morrison) during their no-holds barred street fight, “Hey, yo Tommy, I didn’t hear no bell.”
- Anand
Category: United (or not) State of American Politics 2004