Food for thought: Article from Feb 2002 on primaries

[TayTay]

Early breakdown of nominee support (Reported in USA Today 2/4/02.)

Former vice president Al Gore 29%

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, N.Y. 14%

Former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley 9%

Sen. Joe Lieberman, Conn. 8%

Sen. Tom Daschle, Senate majority leader 7%

Rep. Richard Gephardt, House minority leader 6%

Sen. John Kerry, Mass. 5%

Sen. John Edwards, N.C. 4%

Sen. Joseph Biden, Del. 3%

The Rev. Al Sharpton 2%

Others / no opinion 13%

Source: USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll of 406 Democratic or Democratic-leaning adults Jan. 25-27. Margin of error: +/-- 5 percentage points

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Howard Dean didn't even register. Just to give you some info to consider when people tell you that the early polling or punditry actually means anything.

[whometense]

1. Thanks for posting this.

Those who don't remember history, etc, etc. I kinda feel like a broken record when I keep bringing up the period before the last primaries, but since a lot of people didn't discover Kerry (as your numbers show quite clearly) till after then, it bears repeating.

It should be our mantra for when we are tempted to be thrown by what we read in GD:

EARLY POLLS DON'T MEAN CRAP.

In fact, fairly late polls don't mean crap either, as I can attest with my November/December 2003 waking Groundhog Day nightmare news report: "Howard Dean leading John Kerry by 20/30/40%" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH. Every freaking morning.

[TayTay]

2. Absolutely! They don't mean anything.

It's just meaningless stuff at this point. There have been no debates, no testing out in the field and no baptism by fire in front of a tough press corp. It's just a beauty pageant right now.

[whometense]

3. hahaha

In that case, Kerry should be leading by a landslide. </snark>

What could be more beautiful than this?:

[WildEyedLiberal]

4. agrhrgrhgbblbblb - ARMS

*incoherent babbling*

*drool*

:loveya: :evilgrin:

[TayTay]

5. I see. It's an intellectual argument.

about arms control.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Ok, I'm obviously in a goofy mood today.