[Intolerant in NJ]

...ah yes, Rasmussen - the guy who told us Bush was going to beat Gore by five percentage points the weekend before the election.....

[Common Tator]

Pollsters were under a handicap in 2000. The 1992 and 1996 elections had the Ross Perot votes. Pollsters can tell you how the Democrats, Repubicans, and independents will vote. What they have trouble telling us is how many of each are going to vote. They guessed the Demcratic turn out too low in 2000. Many in 2000 were using the last two man race of 1988... It was 15 million votes too low. They will guess democratic turn out too high in 2004.

Remember that when the Democratic base (mostly working class people) are happy they tend not to vote. The fact that the unions could not get out the vote for Gephardt in Iowa speaks volumes. Remember all the talk of Unions getting out the vote in Iowa? They failed to get out the vote. The Demcorats were not motivated to vote.

When the economy is good fewer Democrats turn out to vote.

In every state except New Hampshire the Democratic primary turn out has been quite low. If the Democratic general Election turn out is much the same, Kerry will be toast.

The media is making much about how mad the Demoratic primary voters are at Bush. But only a bit over a third of the Democrats are voting in most states. The remainder are not motivated enough to vote. That is not good for Democrats. That says a majority of Democrats are not motivated against bush enough to come out and vote.

I would bet Rasmussen and others are using the 2000 turn out numbers to gauge 2004. The Democrat turn out will be a lot lower.

For example in 1992 over 105 million people voted. In 1996 only 95 million people voted. The Democratic turn out is going to be down this year.. just as the Republican turn out in 1996 was down.

No matter how much you hate to hear it, moderate Republicans were not all that unhappy with Clinton in 1996. In 2004 moderate Democrats are not all that unhappy with Bush.

The unhappy Democrats are voting in the primaries and the media is reporting them as typical of all Democrats. But a huge number of Democrats are not voting in the primaries. The mad ones are mostly the ones that are voting. They are not typical.