POLLS

Ah, the ubiquitous polls. What would a cable television news program be without the latest polling data from Gallup or Zogby or USA Today? Politicians seem to live with the tick upward, the positive trending. They nearly die with the dipping, the sagging. All of them are poll conscious. Republicans and Democrats.

You might argue with me when I say that I believe that the Democrats seem more enamored of polls, more dependent on them than Republicans do. While there maybe some exceptions, Republicans don't set policy positions based on polling data. It's well known that Clinton and Gore did almost nothing without first taking a poll. Gore even polled to find out what color suits he should wear. President Bush doesn't give two craps about poll numbers. If he did, American troops would have gotten home from Iraq about 14 months ago.

The other morning I was getting ready for work and I was watching an interview on the Fox News Channel between Democratic strategist Elaine Kamarack and some Republican white guy I'd never seen before. I remember thinking 'how long is it gonna take Kamarack (a former Gore advisor) to mention some new poll numbers?'

It wasn't three damn seconds until she said, 'hey, I got this new poll here that says...'

The white Republican guy I'd never seen before never mentioned polling, or polling data, or new poll numbers. He made his point, articulated it clearly and succintly and he was done.

You cannot watch a Democratic consultant opine about anything without them referencing 'some new poll numbers.' It simply cannot be done. It is both amazing and annoying.

And predictable. Keep an eye out for it the next time you're watching Fox or CNN or MSNBC. Hell, they even do it on that stupid Bill Maher show on HBO.

Republicans don't have the same obsessive user-dependent relationship with polling quite the same way Democrats do. Of course, Republicans use polls, don't dilute yourself thinking they don't. They poll everything. And they focus group everything. But you don't see big swings in policy with the GOP like you see with the DNC. With the Left, everything can be made just flexible enough and just gray enough to change positions to line up favorably with the latest poll numbers.

Jonah Goldberg, linked above, has some amusing thoughts on governing by polls.

'Stay tuned because coming up next we have the latest poll numbers on...'