Reprinted by permission of Ray Abernathy. Ray's website is available at: http://www.rayabernathy.com
Don’t know whether the confusion or the conspiracy theory applies here, but the pollsters and the press are setting themselves up for another butt-kicking in South Carolina. The Wall Street Journal released the latest results of its joint polling with NBC this morning and the news is that John McCain beats Clinton in a head-to-head match up (46% to 42%) and ties Obama (42%-42%). All other GOP candidates are soundly thrashed by Clinton and Obama. So how does John Edwards fare against the redoubtable Mr. McCain? Can’t tell because WSJ/NBC didn’t DO a head-to-head between Edwards and McCain. They compared every other candidate in the race from both parties, but ignored Edwards, and just in time to influence the outcome of the South Carolina democratic primary. Won’t work because Edwards is going to move up in South Carolina and throw the Dem contest into a cocked hat. How so? The latest tracking polls show Edwards over 20% and still climbing, with Obama at 38% and Clinton at 30%. Apply the vaunted “Bradley effect” to Obama’s percentage and you have a dead heat. Edwards will nose them out because he’s the only one of the three whose been steadily delivering an economic message to voters in a state that never really climbed out of the Great Depression. In a companion piece, “For Edwards, a Role As a Possible Kingmaker,” WSJ reporter Chris Cooper writes one of the most absurd sentences recorded in the absurd media coverage of this race. “Mr. Edwards,” he writes, “is far behind in the delegate count with 18, compared to 38 for Mr. Obama and 36 for Mrs. Clinton.” Notice how the delegate count closely parallels the percentage figures in the tracking polls? It’s an harmonic convergence, with the media hitting the only discordant notes.