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Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Klobuchar v. Kennedy: The Poll
There's been a ton of mind reading about the latest Star Tribune poll that shows Klobuchar with a commanding lead of Kennedy. Here's Kennedy's campaign manager doing damage control:
We have a fundamental question facing us for the next three and a half months: Who is going to choose our next United States Senator, you or the Minneapolis Star Tribune?
Just when you think the Star Tribune can’t get any farther into the other camp. Then they go and serve up one of their famous Minnesota Polls.
You remember those. The poll that said Norm Coleman was down by 5 to Walter Mondale (he became Senator Coleman by 3). Or my personal favorite, the poll that said Rudy Boschwitz was losing to Wendy Anderson, only to have Rudy become Senator Boschwitz by 17 points.
The three most recent Kennedy-Klobuchar polls, two of them independent, one released by the Klobuchar campaign, all show this to be a close, single-digits race. That is very different than what the Star Tribune serves up today.
First, mind-reading is difficult. It's entirely appropriate to question to the results of any poll -- particularly given how inaccurate many polls proved in the 2004 election. Kennedy can't stop there, of course: he's got to blame it that favorite devil: liberal media bias. The Star Tribune, as an organization, you see, is committed to electing Democrats.
Back in 2002, the Minnesota Poll had Mondale ahead of Coleman on October 30. The election was November 5. The fallout (and manipulation) of the Wellstone memorial kicked in on October 30. There's no question in my mind that the memorial service influenced swing voters dramatically. The second most important event of the campaign occurred after the poll was completed. That's quite an explanation for the variance in results.
But the Kennedy campaign really loves that 1978 Minnesota Poll that showed Anderson beating Boschwitz. Kennedy's campaign doesn't say when that poll was released, but Time magazine reported a Minnesota poll giving Boschwitz a huge lead in August:
When the Minnesota poll gave Boschwitz a 23-point lead in August, a worried Anderson began to hit back hard, insisting that Kemp-Roth would require a 20% cut in federal spending and cause an "inflationary explosion." ... Anderson's tough tactics seem to have improved his prospects: the latest Minnesota poll [in August] shows him trailing Boschwitz by only four percentage points.
I guess, then, that the Star Tribune really, really wanted Boschwitz to win in 1978, by showing him with a commanding lead in August. Funny that would be the Kennedy campaign's favorite.
The Strib's polling might be good, might be bad, might be average. If you have a substantive criticism of the poll, make it. The Kennedy campaign must not have a substantive criticism, because all they can come up with is liberal bias.
