The Right State

The Democrats are giddy.  They feel they can not only win the House but the Senate as well.  Poll after poll is showing dissatisfaction with the Republican Party and President Bush more specifically.  If I only had these polls to look at before voting, I would be discouraged too.

But there is a problem, it looks like the disaffection the electorate has towards Republicans is not as deep as first thought.  Take this quote gleamed from the pages of the New York Times as they discuss the vast networks each party has used to get out the vote for their candidates.

“These other groups are calling: stem cell research, labor unions,” said Charlene Zeni Connolly, 57, a retired teacher who was making calls near here recently on behalf of Claire McCaskill, the Democratic candidate for Senate. “People are getting really irritated. They are saying, ‘If you call again, I won’t vote for her.’ ”

AApparently this kind of thinking is fairly pronounced.  Research has found people who do not feel strongly for a candidate are not as likely to vote as someone who strongly supports their candidate.  If the Democratic Party is counting these ‘I guess so’ votes to win the House and Senate, they are in trouble.  If I were them, I wouldn’t pop out the Champaign bottles just yet.  A lot can happen in nine days.

I remember an old story whose moral was, ‘Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.  I would twist around that moral for the Democrats and might say something like, “Don’t count your candidates before the vote.”

Tags: Democrats, Politics //