Polling the Possibility for Success

Books may have lined the walls of the Tattered Bookstore Tuesday morning, but it was polling data that was being pulled off the shelves. A panel of Ed Reilly, President of Financial Dynamic, Mark Blumenthal Editor of Pollster.com, and Geoffry Garin, President of Peter D. Hart Research Association analyzed a newly released poll. The Diageo/The Hotline poll found Obama to have a 4 point lead over rival John McCain. All three men agreed that this was a good lead historically, despite popular belief that it is insignificant. Garin also noted that many polls disprove another notion widely held as fact. "If there were some other news to cover, you wouldn't be hearing about disunity in the Democratic Party," he said. According to Garin, polling numbers don't seem to back claims of disunity. He also believes that the Republican Party has more issues due to the moderate and conservative factions of the party.

The speakers also commentated that data from the current election should not be compared against previous election years. This is due to unique factors in this year's race such as the late start of convention season and pollsters missing voters without a landline.