Zogby Doubles Back

Posted on January 27, 2004

OK, now things are getting really confusing…

Remember yesterday, when Zogby was among those calling the New Hampshire race very close? Well, he’s changed his mind — today’s tracking poll puts Kerry at 37%, up from 31%, and drops Dean to 24% from 28%.

The pollster explains:

I know that my polling in the past two-days has shown a close race. I have no doubt that this was the case. Dean had bottomed out in the latter part of the week, was re-gaining some of his support among key voting groups, and had rehabilitated up to a point his unfavorable ratings. But in the final analysis, New Hampshire voters have decided to nominate a possible president instead of sending an angry message. New Hampshire voters are always volatile and its primaries are always fluid. I have never gotten a New Hampshire primary wrong. I stand by my close numbers of the last few days as much as I stand by these final numbers.

Kerry equals “a possible president”, while Dean is just “an angry message”? Um, OK. Whatever you say, John.

Sometimes I wonder if any of these people who have tagged Dean as a protest candidate have ever actually seen the man speak, or know anything about his candidacy. If they had, they’d realize there’s a lot more to the man than this Cliffs Notes version that people keep trying to push on us as the genuine article. I saw him speak last summer and didn’t come away angry — it was actually inspirational, for Pete’s sake. The man challenged us, ordinary people, to do something to get our country back on the right track. What the hell has “possible president” John Kerry done to connect with ordinary people, other than buy slick TV ads to tell them how Dean is “angry”?

People in America have been disconnected from their democracy for decades now. The result has been an abandonment of the system to a professional class of political operatives who seem to consider it their birthright now to play in it without interference. If a man actually gets half a million ordinary people to get out of their La-Z-Boys and participate in politics again — what gall! — he is attacked from all sides: if he speaks out in protest against obvious wrongs, he is “angry”; if he does not, he is “neutered”. The deck is stacked; and every time people like Zogby, who pay attention to these things for a living and presumably should know better, casually dismiss Dean as just an “angry message”, that situation gets reinforced.

I’ll tell you what, John Zogby. You motivated me to put my money where my mouth is. Do I think Howard Dean is just “an angry message”? Hell, no. I think he’s every inch as much a “possible president” as John Kerry is. So I just dropped $50 into the Comeback Bat to prove it. Win or lose in New Hampshire, I consider that money well spent.