The Polls: The Crystal Ball That Sees The Past

The polls have been drifting in the direction of Senator Hillary Clinton, but she has another problem, the superdelegates have been drifting Senator Barack Obama’s way.

Just as the polls began to reflect the past few weeks of bad press that Sen. Obama seemed to be a magnet for, another perceived Clinton family ally, Former Democratic National Committee chairman Joe Andrew, publicly switched his support in Democratic primary from Sen. Clinton to Sen. Obama.

In looking at and listening to the various polls over the past few days, I began to wonder;  “What if the entire situation completely reverses and Sen. Clinton manages to pull of the popular vote and Sen. Obama overturns the popular vote with the votes of the ever so mysterious “superdelegates?  Is there the potential for as much of a collapse of the Democratic Party?” 

In looking at the passion (often communicated as anger or rudeness) of the more vocal of Sen. Clinton’s supporters, I would have to say at least as much potential. 

The truth is that such a landslide of a turn in the popular vote is not as likely as the current polls suggest as they reflect the shift that took place with all of the bad press Se. Obama picked up during the Pennsylvania primary but none of the events surrounding the reemergence of a certain friend of his named Mr. Wright.

The problem with these polls is that in most cases it takes time to collect and compile the data and by the time this data is presented to the public it is a week or two behind.  In a race where things are happening so fast and the public opinion is shifting so fast the polls have rarely reflected what was going on in the week we are seeing the results.   That is why the results have been so surprising every time we have heard them.    These polls are sort of a crystal ball that can see into the past, but cannot see the present and in reality have little bearing on the future.

I suspect that Sen. Obama’s speech this week, completely distancing and in reality divorcing himself from a certain Mr. Wright (I refuse to honor this man with the title “reverend”) probably helped him in the public view particularly with his rare showing of emotion, but with this election year, who knows. 

The truth is however, that if Sen. Obama keeps eroding Sen. Clinton’s superdelegate support, her miraculous resurgence will be reduced to a blip on the radar screen of history. 

I have found it intriguing that right about the time Sen. Clinton started to make a comeback some of her seemingly guaranteed superdelegate supporters suddenly began shifting their support to Sen. Obama.  What is going on behind the scenes with the Washington insiders that we are not hearing about?  I am left wondering with many questions:

Is there something about Sen. Obama’s electability that the insiders can see that the rest of us cannot? 

Is Sen. Obama’s camp making some sort of deal behind the scenes that we are not hearing about? 

Is Sen. Obama more clearly the better choice for some reason that is not yet clear to the general population? 

Is there some terrible problem with Sen. Clinton that the general public does not yet know about? 

Are the scare tactics and public attacks on those who have defected or threatened to defect to the Obama camp starting to “turn off” her supporters?

The next two or three primaries probably really are the big ones.  I know that every primary for the past two or three months has been billed as “the big one,” but Sen. Obama could put away Sen. Clinton’s chances by simply winning those states and getting some major superdelegate supporters.  Sen. Clinton, on the other hand, could build a huge case for her statements that Sen. Obama is not electable by winning several states in a row as soon as some bad press came out about him. 

By next Tuesday, when we will be watching the next primaries, the effects of Sen. Obama’s speech on Monday will have settled in.  Was it strong enough and soon enough to stop his eroding popularity, or did it have little effect.  That is the biggest indicator that we will all see next week.

If you want to know where we really stand as a country on the candidates today just wait a week or two and look at the polling results.  Of course, by then, those results may not matter much, but at least your will know.