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Intensity
Rich Galen Monday August 9, 2004
From Lafayette, Louisiana
Louisiana State GOP Convention
Intensity is important in politics because it is intensity which causes supporters, on election day, to get to the polls, wait in line, figure out one of the many new and improved voting devices (which have long since replaced the horrible and error-prone paper-and-number-2-pencil method), cast their votes, and THEN get in their cars and fight traffic to get to work.
Intensity is difficult for pollsters to measure - even though they each have their own technique:
Are you certain to vote for your candidate? (Mark A)
Are you likely to vote for your candidate? (Mark B)
Are you more likely to wait until you hear the weather report until you decide whether to vote at all? (Mark C)
DO NOT ASK: If the respondent says something like "Honey! Hit the freeze on the TiVO! This is the "Yada-Yada" episode. I love this one!" mark "Don't Know/Refused."
Attempting to measure intensity via polling flawed because someone might be absolutely (and quite truthfully) committed to a candidate on Monday, then by Wednesday have decided some other candidate deserves his/her absolute (and truthful) commitment.
It is similar to the problem of finding some legitimate meaning to the question: "If the election were being held today �" three months out from the election. Anyone who is interested enough (or self-absorbed enough) to sit through a survey interview knows perfectly well that the election is NOT being held today.
The poster child for all this is the Democrats' most treasured head case, Howard Dean, who, last December, was their nominee. Period. Full stop. The end. Done.
Every poll in December had Dean in the lead. A big lead. "If the caucuses were being held today �"
Kerry was in such trouble during The Time O' Dean that he had found it necessary to retreat to one of Teresa's plantations and invent the Swiftboat Campaign to get back into the game.
By the end of January Dean's campaign had come to a screaming halt and reduced him to playing the role of Curly to Kerry's Moe and Edwards' Larry.
Iowans, when they went to their caucuses, ignored what they had been telling pollsters for the previous six months and left Dean stranded on the banks of the mighty Des Moines River as El-Tee Kerry motored by.
One way to measure intensity is to get out of Washington, DC and get into America. Davenport, Iowa counts. As does Lafayette, Louisiana.
In Davenport, last week, the Bush and Kerry campaigns ended up a couple of blocks apart. The Bush campaign prepared for a rally for which they had issued about 10,000 tickets. The Kerry campaign, unable and unwilling to compete on numbers, designed an event for about 250 people.
Some reports indicate the Kerry event actually got the 250 people they were expecting but some 13,000 people showed up, cheering for the President, at the Bush rally.
In Lafayette, the State GOP was hoping to get as many as 1,000 people to register for its convention here. About 1,150 showed up. At each of the two dinners - which were an additional cost item - extra tables had to be brought in to handle the at-the-door sales. On Friday night the attraction was Michael Reagan, so it was not a surprise there were additional requests.
On Saturday night the attraction was � me, so it was something of a shock that anyone at all chose coming to the dinner rather than stopping by the local Wendy's for a cup of Teresa Heinz Very Kerry Chili.
I am not invited to speak at that many Democratic events, so I don't how they are doing on the intensity front. But at least in Iowa and Louisiana, the swift current of intensity on the Mississippi River appears to be running strongly toward President Bush.
On the Secret Decoder Ring Page today: The actual script from the "Yada-Yada" episode of Seinfeld, a decription of the Des Moines River; the Three Stooges, and Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day.
--END --
Copyright © 2004 Richard A. Galen
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