Polls and Politics

If you want to get lost in the woods it's pretty simple: just look only a short distance in front of you and never look back. That makes it easy to go in circles while you think you are going in a straight line.

I wonder if our obsession with polls doesn't have the same result.

Would we draw the same conclusions about the Democratic race if we looked at it from the perspective of of July 2003 as do we do after looking at last weeks polls?

I doubt it.

From a longer perspective, one thing that stands out is the failure of the two moderate candidates, Gephardt and Lieberman, and the comparative success of two New England liberals. An angry insurgent did better than the champion of the UAW.

Edwards would be a surprise. Again, voters went for a new face, not one of the established leaders.

Is there any way that the results so far are not a set-back for the DLC. Doesn't that bode ill for the whole party in November?