Don't let yourselves become complacent by the poll findings!

[DaveofCali]

I'm not saying this to be negative, but only as a note. You guys here would like to dismiss all the Bush polls that give a significant advantage, however take into consideration this:

In the California recall election, Arnold Schwarzenegger was trailing Cruz Bustamante, the Democratic lieutenant governor that was running to keep Arnold from getting into the Governor seat, and recall favorability was at a dead heat. However, 2 weeks before the recall election, Arnold suddenly got a huge advantage in the polls, recall was widely supported by 64% in new polls, with Arnold getting a large lead over Cruz Bustamante (and many of us against Arnold dismissed the polls as biased.) Other polls came out showing it much closer (but then changing dramatically as the recall election neared.) While the margin did come down, Arnold still had a big advantage. And what happened? Recall passed by 55% to 45%, Arnold got 48.6% followed by Cruz Bustamante at 31.5%

This didn't happen gradually, it all happened at once (among the big name polls). I believe that polls were being too generous to Cruz Bustamante, but what really happened was that Arnold had a higher favorability than people thought (Republicans criticized the Bustamante favoring polls as being biased, saying that the lower key Arnold favoring polls that didnt get press coverage beforehand were then truly reflecting the reality)

Bush may very well be really neck and neck with Kerry (or Kerry may be leading significantly), but don't become complacent, assuming that the more positive polls are the more accurate and putting too much trust on them. As someone else said before, we should be fighting like Kerry is trailing 2-4%, even if Kerry gets a lead (because voter turnout will decide this election if it is or near a dead heat).

[Indiana_Dem]

1. Totally agree. We need to keep on plugging away on the ground n/t

[lapfog_1]

2. We shouldn't be complacent, BUT

The recall was quite of bit different than this, Grey didn't do
a very good job of defending himself, plus he had let the electric
trading companies really screw California and wasn't getting any
help at all from Washington (either shrubya or FERC). He signed
a bad deal and everybody knew it, not that there were a lot of
options. PLUS, there was a faction of Dems in the state that wanted
Grey gone, so when they thought they could get Bustamante in, they
decided to let Grey go without much of a fight. Not to mention that
Arrrnold seemed like a moderate Rethuglican... and Arrrnold was
going to "open the books" (uh, they WERE open) and he was going
to kick ass and really hold the line on spending and not borrow
7 Billion (he was RIGHT, he only borrowed $9 Billion instead) and
and and ... really, he didn't have any political record. So
Arrrrnold got the "Jesse Ventura" vote... people voting for a "strong"
person who seems to be less political than your typical candidate.

Anyway, this election isn't the circus that the recall was, the
polling is going to track things a little better, and we have
two opponents that both have political records and so on.
I was tired of hearing "Kerry in a landslide"... so I'm kinda glad
that RNC/not-so-swift happened and put some EDGE back into things.
I'm glad Kerry has retooled a bit and started attacking. And
finally I'm glad that either their dirty tricks guys have F*&^ed
up or our dirty tricks guys have found a cool way to put Bush's
TANG back into play (and even with all of the crap about forgeries
etc, the TANG stuff IS back in play).

[Mr_Spock]

3. I'm not going to let this affect me any more than before internet existed

We were pretty insulated then and each of us personally would believe whatever we wanted in spite of what the TV box said. It's no different now. I suppose some angst is a good thing though - we really need to keep forging ahead.