Has Hillary Clinton all but locked up the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination? You’d think so from the gravity with which the media treats polls showing her well ahead of Barack Obama. The lead story on page one of the Washington Post on Wednesday was headlined: “Clinton Widens Lead in Poll”. In the Post-ABC News poll, Clinton had gained 12 points and now leads Obama by 53 percent to 20 percent. Be wary of that poll and all others at this stage of the presidential campaign, three months before actual voting begins, first in Iowa, then in New Hampshire. The numbers are soft. Voters are fickle in deciding how to vote in caucuses and primaries. They change their minds repeatedly. They take general elections more seriously. The unreliability of polls conducted months before the first contests was amply demonstrated four years ago. The Iowa Poll, conducted for the Des Moines Register in early November 2003, found Richard Gephardt in the lead at 27 percent, followed by Howard Dean at 20 percent and John Kerry at 15 percent. Meanwhile, a Gallup Poll conducted nationally for USA Today in early December 2003 had Dean in the lead with 22 percent, trailed by Wesley Clark (17), Gephardt (13), Joe Lieberman (10), and Kerry and Edwards (both 7). Now recall what happened in the Iowa caucuses in January: Kerry won in a romp with 38 percent. Then he went on to win the New Hampshire primary a week later and virtually lock up the nomination. The polls taken the prior fall were, to put it mildly, misleading. Fundraising numbers aren’t a foolproof indication of how candidates will do either. The subhead of the Post story noted that Clinton “also tops Obama in latest fundraising data.” But who was the fundraising leader at this time in 2003? Not Kerry. He’d been outraised $25.4 million to $20 million by Dean. And Dean had $12.4 million on hand to Kerry’s $7.8 million.
