Wish I had your optimism. Unfortunately the polls do not yet show the effects of May being a good month. This is understandable given that the media consistently buries good news here and abroad. Fortunately, news of job growth passes anecdotally.

I think W loses unless he improves his communications team and strategy (it's been bad since Ari and Hughes left) and provides a more optimistic, forward looking vision, which he has done only sporadically lately. The Reagan eulogy would be a good place to start.

Since the SOU, he's been too defensive on Iraq. If he's going to be the democratic militarist he needs to provide a vision for the future to justify the call to arms. Kerry has recently evolved his position to one that we should de-emphasize democracy in exchange for stability and other national interests. He's playing into W's hands if only W's team would see the opportunity and run with it.

Say "cheese."

Nothing matters but the economic numbers.

It is common political consultant "wisdom" that "voters vote the economy six months out". However, what they have never clarified to my satisfaction is this: do they vote based on what their opinion of the economy was six months out, or rather on what the actual economic stats at that point in time were eventually revealed/confirmed to be?

The latter would seem to be a more rational interpretation, given that it allows for the normal lag between reality and perception, but the Democratic consultants screaming that "Bush is gone, GONE!" on TV these days aren't providing that level of analysis (and frankly, the Republican consultants aren't doing a very good job of clarifying this, either).

I have been sckeptical of the pools ever since I was a grad student and did a summer program in statistics and polling run by the Poli Sci department at U Michigan. It was clear to me then that the polls asked questions that most voters struggled to decode and answered in ways that they thought would please the pollsters or get them off their backs.

Things have only gotten worse. Folks are not home, do not answer door bells, do not answer the phone, use their anwering machines and caller id's to screen calls. Many people have dropped land lines for cell phones.

Furthermore pollsters are players. There are no neutrals. Most of the Polls are payed for by the liberal media whose sole ambition is to destroy George Bush. It would be a poor pollster who could not knock Bush down down a few points with a little care in the way questions were designed and asked.

I discount the polls very heavily.

"counter the political drag of ... economic conditions, such as rising gas prices. "

In the last 10 days, the signs at the Phillips 66 and Marathon stations on my corner have gone from 2.08 to 2.03 to 2.01 to 1.99 to 1.98.

The Democrats are getting to know how the Vietnamese on the embassy roof felt, as the last chopper lifted off without them.

When Joe Sixpack turns on the TV or picks up the local newspaper it's all doom-and-gloom. Unless he specifically seeks out Fox or picks up the WSJ he won't see it.

OJ

"Nothing matters but the economic numbers"

Lyndon Johnson saw that he was a goner and yet the "economic numbers" were not that bad when he left office. (or were they? I think the DOW was at it's all time high in 1967 and sank until aproximately 1980. Today with IRA's etc. the economic numbers that are most important are the stock market and it's still mediocre.)

I think Bush will win, even if the primary issue is the War in Iraq, but I fail to see why you're so confident.

PS: I agree with JAB on more effort needed to market Bush and the Republican Congress.

h:

LBJ would have won--even Humphrey almost did.

h-man: Johnson's problem wasn't the election. His problem is that he thought that he wouldn't get the Democratic nomination.

realclearpolitics.com attempts to rack up the polls. They had Bush up a couple in Nov. 2000, but he lost the popular vote. Had it not been for the DUI revelation and irresponsible media reporting of results in FL, it's likely that their average would have been spot on so polls can work. W is down in their average now and typically incumbents lose when down this far out.

Now I think this year will be different because the press cannot hide good news forever, W's team seems to be holding its powder and Kerry is really not that likable. But if Bush does not run an energetic, optimistic campaign he will lose as he has little margin for error despite the economy. He needs the press secretary and communications team to beat up reporters when they file unfair stories. This no longer happens post-Ari.

realclearpolitics.com got the Iowa Democratic Caucuses completely wrong, so IMO they're just throwing darts, like everyone else.

They are averaging the work of dart throwers. They blew the LA gov race too, btw, but it was only by 1% or so.

Caucuses are very difficult to predict, but approval ratings and other polls taken regularly under static conditions (2 man race vs. last minute primary jockeying) are clearly more valuable.

Bush should have an ~8 point lead and high 40s/low 50s approval rating now. He doesn't and it's likely his staff is worried because they can use polls intelligently. I'd be more worried if I read W thinks everything is hunky dory.

Maybe we'll have to take down Syria or Iran and put Condi on the ticket. Gotta try something.

Tremblers: take a deep breath and remember that Bush does not need to blow his own horn, except for just a short time in the fall. He will have the convention in NYC, 5 months of good economic news, a "new" Iraq, and other opportunities.

July is vacation time, August is a wash (with the Olympics), and then it's off to the races. Forget the polls - they are skewed and play to bitterness and envy.

Actually, all the GOP needs to do is run an ad with the Dean scream, Gore's eruptions, Kennedy's red-faced blatherings, and then show a picture of Kerry.

Let's hope that August is a wash; If terrorists blow up the Olympics, it redounds to Bush's benefit.

jim:

Great idea !

Robert, there was a good book in the early '80s, "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics" I think it was called, which simply compared political polls before elections with electoral results.

In addition to all the reasons you cite,a big problem with Gallup and suchlike is/was that except right before the election, they don't do any purely political polling. You are getting opinions from that subset of the electorate that is willing to spent 90 minutes talking to a stranger about what brand of toilet paper they buy.

That said, an LA Times poll has Kerry 8 points up (7 with Nader in). Heaven knows what that means. People in Calif. dislike expensive gas, perhaps.