New Poll Shows That Polls Are Nuts!

One of the big residual stories that will emerge from the 2004 election will be the ineffectiveness and mind-boggling lunacy of tracking polls and the higher than expected voter turnout.

Polls have always fluctuated and are meant just to gauge the political winds, but this election season has seen some roller coaster poll numbers. Quite literally, competing news organization tout headlines that read, "Bush up by 8 points," while the same day another reports a dead heat.

The poll methodologies are clearly flawed with the Gallup poll seemingly on another planet. So, what's the problem?

Polling organizations are failing to account for a very different political landscape and attitude while not including changes in the way people live.

We are a country divided like no other time since the early 1900s and polling services like Gallup and Zogby have not changed with the times.

These wild fluctuations are occuring because these polls do not include first time voters or registered voters with cellphone as their only telephone. Across the country states are reporting huge increases in voter registration. A recent Democracy Corp poll, which incidently is the only poll that includes new voters, gave John Kerry a 50-47 lead over George W. Bush.

Sidney Blumenthal reports in salon.com today that seven percent of the Democracy Corp sample included new voters and they indicated new voters would vote for Kerry 61-37.

Such a large difference in new voters voting for the challenger would be expected. 400,000 new voters in the battleground state of Ohio and 100,000 newly-minted voters in just Philadelphia alone are not filling out voting cards to keep the incumbent in office. Blumenthal concludes correctly that success for Kerry will depend on the old political science axiom: because there are more Democrats than Republicans; higher voter turnout always equals a victory for the left. So, in the big electoral college scheme of things, where does this leave us?

Pundits expect that the winner of two out of three states that include Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida will become president. With the onslaught of new voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania and the revelation in Sunday's New York Times Magazine that Bush will radically change social security if he wins a second term, may tip Florida's senior citizens to a sweep for Kerry.

Of course, all this could be moot when Bush rustles up Osama for a surprise photo op.