Grass Roots Sleeping in the Breeze
By Remington Steele Posted in 2008 — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
One of the first nationally televised GOP straw polls was held in South Carolina Thursday evening (Mar 1). This poll only encompassed one county in South Carolina, but was tracked actively on Hannity & Colmes that night. The results were Giuliani had a commanding lead, then McCain, Duncan Hunter and Romney came in fourth. The most interesting thing to me was not that Giuliani had a commanding lead as he had lots of positive local press a few days before by visiting the local firefighters. Or, the fact that Romney came in fourth because Hunter had three times the amount of volunteers working this event verses the other top three and someone anonymously mailed a six page attack piece on Romney. The astounding fact was the low turnout. The county GOP Chairman had this pre-poll analysis:
County GOP Chairman Rick Beltram said at least five campaigns actively worked to get out the vote.
"If it's 12 hundred to 15 hundred, I think the grass roots are starting to pay attention," Beltram said. "If it's less than a thousand, I would say people are still sleeping on this and all the polls and everything we hear are probably meaningless."
Doing a quick tally of all the votes displayed on Fox News, the total came to 474! That’s right, less than half of the threshold Beltram wanted to see even participated. Many of us who participate and contribute to the blogosphere are constantly taking barometer readings of the 2008 race. Ironically, I feel we often get lost and excited over the breezes because of the lack of wind. Face it, with a year to go, no debates having happened yet and several of the top GOP candidates possibly bowing out of early debates, this race is like a mild calm uneventful day.
I think Beltram is right, people are stilling sleeping on this race and the polls are meaningless. Add to this the fact that national polls are just a referendum on name recognition, and at this point Giuliani and McCain are the only nationally known names in the GOP race. I think it will take several fully televised debates before we even start seeing the numbers of people caring about this race required to get a semi-accurate reading on candidate momentum. Make no mistake, neither Giuliani nor McCain want to rush into a debate and increase the exposure of the other candidates. With only a few debates scheduled and summers tending to be slow, I forecast the campaign winds won’t truly wake people up until the fall of this year.
What’s your forecast?
Nathan W.
Cross posted at Elect Romney In 2008