If the Iowa Caucus Day proved anything, it’s that these annoying polls are about as accurate as horoscopes in the National Enquirer.
Polls may gauge what is on prospective voters’ minds, but they rarely predict precisely who will actually go to vote and who they will vote for. That’s especially true of caucuses. For weeks leading up to the big day in Iowa, TV commentators showed a mania for polls. Hyper-gabby pundits expounded poll results ‘round the clock. It became a flurry of lunacy – polls as gospel.
Well, along came Iowa. Polls did not predict a virtual dead-on tie between Clinton and Sanders; they did not predict that Cruz would win so majorly, and they did not predict third-place Rubio would come so close to second-place Trump.
Not hard to fathom. Caucuses are not polling places. They are meetings that often turn into a tug-of-war that goes on between supporters of candidates, and some supporters decide, during give-and-take, to change their minds as to which candidate their caucus should favor. Add to that the fact many people who respond to polls do not go to caucuses or polling places, and poll pundits should be ashamed of the great stock they put in polls as if they’re accurate oracles, harbingers of truth.
Besides polling nonsense, another thing the caucuses proved is what a strange brew American politics has become. The mix is like a crazy kaleidoscope of shards of beliefs and attitudes. There are anti-establishment factions, a backlash against traditional politicians, a total mistrust of this or that political party, an anti-Washington anger, a preference for the “new” at any cost.
There are those who support Clinton as a known quantity with a lifetime of experience; but many others who spurn Clinton just because of her experience.
There are left-wing socialist Sanders fans fired up by income inequality and the wish for universal health care; there are right-wing evangelicals dedicated to strict moral values and opposed to modern social changes who support Cruz. There are people, including some evangelicals and left-of-center folks, ready to give politically incorrect Trump a chance at the presidency.
One thing is clear from this mish-mash of attitudes, mistrust, anger and frustration: the two-party system may be giving way to populism, typified by Sanders on the left, Cruz on the right, Trump somewhere in the middle.
It will be interesting to see what pattern this political kaleidoscope will present to us at election time. Usually, populist clamor-and-commotion gives way to sober reassessments by political operatives and voters of just who is electable and who is not. Sanders is almost certainly going to be left at the wayside as a nice old guy with some good ideas but who is ultimately unelectable. Soon, Trump’s feisty razzle-dazzle might also fade and fizzle as the bankruptcy of his sweeping solutions becomes apparent.
Thus, it will probably be Clinton and Rubio – both more or less moderates – who will face off in the presidential election. As the Big Election approaches, Republicans and Democrats, desperate to gain the White House, will overlook their dislikes for any candidate, as long as they think that candidate is – at least – electable. And that will be the key – electability.
Meantime, all the tiresome polling will be an exercise in futility, statistical navel-gazing, something to be ignored or taken with a grain of salt.
