Political Junkies for Truth
OPINION by Howard Megdal

After Thursday night's debate, Democrats permitted themselves to smile for the first time since Vietnam veterans begin their elusive search for truth through endless lies nearly two months ago.

Americans were treated to a rare display. Not only were they able to see their president answer questions fitfully, inadequately and often bizarrely, but right next to him was a man who had mastered the basics of question and answer, and even better, Americans have the opportunity to vote for him in less than a month.

Voters have short attention spans. They see Bush struggling to answer questions at a press conference, and many have trouble remembering the acuity with language from his predecessor, or even his predecessor's predecessor, at least relatively speaking.

But with what will likely be the largest audience of the three debates (if history is any judge), people were confronted with two indisputable truths: the facts are not on the president's side, and he just doesn't know how to spin this reality.

This set of circumstances led people to wonder: how can this president be doing so well? The answer? He never was.

Many people have been up in arms over the Gallup polling which showed the president, at his peak, ahead by 13 points two weeks ago. The major dispute covers the question of sampling. Simply put, Gallup over-samples Republicans, based on any viewing of recent presidential voting. Two weeks ago, the poll which showed Bush ahead 55-42 had 40% Republican makeup, 33% Democratic makeup, with the balance independents. Unfortunately for Gallup, in the past three elections, registered Democrats have outnumbered Republicans among presidential voters, in the past two elections by five points each.

If Gallup had sampled based on just an even split of R's and D's, the race would have been essentially tied. This is certainly buttressed by polling such as John Zogby's (the man closest to correct among polling in both 1996 and 2000) and American Research Group, the polling most accurate during the Democratic primaries this year.

There are conspiracy theorists who believe Gallup skews the results because their CEO is a big Republican donor. Others, such as Moveon.org, claim it is the evangelical Christian background of George Gallup, Jr., the polling group founder's son, though Gallup is not a part of the organization.

In interviews, members of the organization have claimed that prior to 1992, their numbers indicate a greater number of Republicans came to the polls in presidential years, and they are using 1908-1988 as a model.

Let us take Gallup at their word. Is it at all logical to assume that 1992, 1996 and 2000, the three presidential elections which by definition have had the American electorate with the most resemblance to 2004, are a mere historical hiccup? Are we to assume that September 11 scared all of those pretend Democrats for three consecutive elections straight? This hardly seems credible.

At any rate, Gallup then upped its Republican advantage in last week's sampling to 12 points, and yet, Bush's advantage fell to just eight points. In other words, by any reasonable measure of the Gallup polling, Kerry led Bush prior to smoking him in Thursday's debate.

Now, the latest Newsweek poll has Kerry ahead, following a poll just a few weeks ago showing the president ahead by 11 points. I was not able to verify their sampling as of press time, but that lead seems awfully suspect given that the polls that sampled based on recent data showed Kerry down by no more than 3-4 points at his worst standing following the Republican convention.

I believe there is a good chance that Senator Kerry now leads this race by a fairly substantial amount: probably between 6-8 points.

Now add to this the fact that voter registration drives have paid enormous dividends in Ohio and Florida, according to a September 26 article from the New York Times. This bodes even better for the Democrats than it would have, had the Republicans accomplished it. Republicans raise money better than we do; we've been exceptional at getting out the vote. Indeed, our standing in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida in the 2000 race exceeded last-minute polling data by about 4-6 percent. (Many Republicans grumbled about our success in Philadelphia, for instance, but don't appear to have done much with it.) With a greater pool of GOTV targets, that advantage might grow even larger.

Just how significant is that? Well, let's go back to reliable old Gallup, which we can use as a baseline for what we can expect in the event of historically fantastic Republican turnout and decades-low Democratic turnout.
In Florida, according to a September 30 Gallup poll, Bush leads Kerry, 52-43% in Florida. In Ohio, they have Bush ahead 50-48%. In Pennsylvania, it is 49-46%.

So before the disastrous debates, with the hope for a staggeringly large turnout for Republicans and a huge suppression of Democratic voters, ignoring completely the huge voter registration advantage the Democrats have and resulting advantage in GOTV: Bush leads in one state he desperately needs, and is statistically tied in two others. For all the discussion of Kerry's need to hold Gore's 2000 states and add somewhere, if Kerry takes Ohio and Pennsylvania, Bush can fix Florida all he wants: he'd still need a few other battleground states to go his way to have a chance at this election.

Now, a lot can happen in the next 29 days. This administration has never hesitated to use the fear they can instill as our elected representatives to push politics; indeed, their post-September 11 policies have been based on it. But try this on for size: if Senator Kerry stays on the offensive (and with message makers like former Clinton press secretaries Mike McCurry and Joe Lockhart, it's reasonable to assume that he will), the 6-8 point lead, combined with the 4-6 point advantage we enjoy in GOTV, and the extremely small number of undecided voters may make even producing Osama out of their hats an October surprise that can't turn the tide. That is something to make us all smile as we go door-to-door, make phone calls and convince the undecideds that do remain this fall. It is also a reason not to rest until we've done it.

(Late update: New Gallup poll has Bush, Kerry tied.)

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