Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Except for the intervention of the Jeb Bush-Katherine Harris deadly duo in Florida and the U.S. Supreme Court, is that Kerry and the Democrats did a pathetic job in responding to the Swift Boat attacks against Kerry's patriotism along with his ineptness as a campaigner, particularly regarding his failure to articulate a clear policy regarding the Iraq War.

While one can certainly make a convincing case that the Democrats could have run a stronger and better focused presidential campaign in 2004, such a failure does not preclude the possibility of more Republican cheating with the same result as that which occurred in 2000.  It should also be noted that, media fawning to the contrary, Karl Rove ran far from a flawless campaign in 2004.

As someone who studied the media aspect of the campaign and paid particularly close attention to the polling, especially prior to the election, and who spent Election Night on the Political Strategy site analyzing the results and attempting to forecast trends, I will use the same phrase employed by a writer on the Zogby Poll site the day after the election:

"I smell a rat!"

The result of Bush securing a reported 51% of the vote to 48% for John Kerry resulted in a 6-point difference from exit polls, which had the same percentages with the candidates reversed.  

In order to comprehend how staggering a differential this was it is necessary to analyze presidential election forecasts from the first Gallup Poll figures from the 1948 election to the present.  

Republican tricksters like to pull the 1948 election out of the hat to justify an erroneous result, as they claim 2004 to be, but closer reflection reveals the conclusion that one can never rely on national polls from this example draws a false conclusion.

As written in historical accounts of the period, including Truman biographies, the Gallup Poll did indeed favor Republican nominee, Governor Thomas Dewey of New York, by a sturdy double digit 43-31% margin over incumbent President Harry Truman.  

The additional element that is not normally disclosed, however, when pointing to that race and Gallup's conclusion is that, as of September 28, it was decided by America's most influential polling group that the 12-point margin said to be held by Republican candidate Dewey was insurmountable.

In that Harry Truman conducted a whirlwind, virtually non-stop campaign while complacency overtook the overconfident Dewey campaign, it might well be that the incumbent overcame a 12-point edge.  

In 1968 Hubert Humphrey overcame a large edge that Richard Nixon was ceded by all major pollsters in the beginning of the campaign to almost upset the overwhelming favorite after the disastrous Chicago convention, which put Humphrey in a then seemingly insurmountable position.

Poll critics like to cite 1952 as another example of unreliability.  While it is true that some reported that candidates Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson were coming down to the wire "neck and neck" it was revealed when polling statistics were studied that Republican Eisenhower was well ahead.

Due to what happened in 1948, however, the pollsters hedged their bets and were fearful of being proven wrong.  This was also the year that computer analysis made its debut and the result was an Eisenhower victory, as was revealed in other polling evidence as well, as the former general secured a 55-45% edge in the popular vote.

Four years later when the same two candidates were rematched pollsters were validated.  Stevenson had made inroads to cut to within 10 points of the incumbent, but Eisenhower benefited from the "rally round the flag" factor when the Suez War began in the closing phases of the race as the Republican won by a 57-43% margin.

In 1960 Senator John F. Kennedy had been perceived as holding a solid edge over Vice President Richard M. Nixon but his margin dissipated in the final two weeks and, while many predicted a Kennedy victory, it was a question of whether he could hold on long enough in the wake of fading momentum.

The result was one of the closest presidential races in history with Kennedy garnering a reported 49.7% of the vote to 49.6% for Nixon.  The pollsters were validated in predicting a cliffhanger with Kennedy having held an edge but Nixon closing fast.

The 1964 and 1968 elections both validated pollster predictions.  Many from the Republican right insisted that, with a true conservative in Senator Barry Goldwater running, scores of voters would turn out that traditionally did not vote because they felt they were not afforded a true choice.  

Goldwater commented on this anticipated phenomenon in the face of polling figures showing a huge drubbing for the senator from Arizona against President Lyndon Johnson.

The pollsters were proven accurate with Johnson securing a whopping 61-38% advantage while, four years later, Nixon and Humphrey locked horns in a cliffhanger.  

In 1968 the pollsters were validated in concluding that, while Humphrey had made up monumental ground in a race where, in the early stages he had been given leads in only Rhode Island and the District of Columbia, it appeared that his campaign had peaked too late and he would fall slightly short of victory.

When the votes were counted Nixon held an edge of roughly a half million votes over Humphrey, winning by less than a percentage point at 43.4-42.7% with third party candidate, Governor George Wallace of Alabama, securing 13.5% of the vote.

The 1972 race presented the flip side of 1964 since this time it was claimed by many liberal Democrats that with Senator George McGovern of South Dakota being shown losing in double digits to President Nixon that the pollsters were not registering the opinions of numerous Americans who had not bothered voting in earlier presidential elections because they believed that no major candidate reflected their values.

Certain pollsters actually hit the ultimate 61-38% winning margin for Nixon precisely, while none foresaw anything other than a double digit victory for the Republican candidate in his bid for re-election.  McGovern carried only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

The result of studying presidential elections between 1948 and 1972, with technology and methodology continually improving, was that with the exceptions of the first two races and disadvantaged by closing shop early in the first instance and timidity in the second, the net result of polling demonstrated consistent accuracy in the races measured.

Next time we will cover the races between 1976 and 2004, with the final installment examining the forces at work in the Bush-Kerry race and why the official result registered a 6-point disparity from exit polling figures.