14 Days to Go

Fourteen days to go to election day. Where are we? Some quick random thoughts.



Horner, Star Tribune, and the Governor’s Race
Did Horner get a boost from Star Tribune and other newspaper endorsements? Not really.
There are several reasons for this. First, at least with the Star Tribune, everyone knew they were going to endorse him ever since the non-endorsement endorsement a few weeks ago. Thus, the impact of this new endorsement was muted. Second, readership of papers is down and their impact is less, especially in a multi-media environment. Third, swing voters, those who have not made up their minds, probably will not pay much attention to the endorsement. Liberals will not change their mind by the endorsement and the same is true of conservatives (DFL and GOP). Finally, the endorsement still does not overcome the spoiler issue. As I argued before, third party candidates such as Horner suffer from the “A Vote for Nader is for vote for my worst fear.” Horner still needs to show he can win and to do that he needs to show that one of the other two main candidates, most likely Emmer, cannot win. The endorsement failed to do that.

The biggest winner here of the Star Tribune endorsement is Dayton? Why? Polls already suggest that Dayton has a majority of the moderate or swing voters with Emmer capturing very few of them. Horner needs to pick them up to win (plus peel off partisans). Maybe the collective endorsements of all the papers pull some moderates from Dayton, but I think the real danger is that it pulls what few moderates are voting for Emmer away from him and to Horner. It may also pull more of the moderate GOP away from Emmer. Phrased differently, the endorsements do more to fragment the anti-Dayton vote.

As I see it now? Dayton still has a slight lead of about 5 points. However his base is less passionate about voting. His task is to motivate the base and swings to support him. Thus, Obama might make sense. Dayton has also shifted from talking taxes to jobs and education which plays well with swings and moderates.

Emmer has a smaller base and is behind. He has few swing or moderate voter support. His base is motivated to vote. He needs to deliver them (thus why Gingrich and Romney make sense) but he also needs to bring more moderates to his side. Bringing partisans such as Romney do little for that and thus the reason for new commercials seeking to moderate an image. It may be too late.

Finally, Horner needs to project the winner image and show another candidate cannot win. Paper endorsements and trotting out support from individuals such as Michael Ciresi help, but I do not know if they will be enough. Unfortunate for Horner is that we live in a poll-driven world. Unless he shows real growth or gain in the next poll numbers he may not get the momentum shift he needs for election day. Standing on your record or platform may not be enough to establish win-ability.

Bachmann and Clark: Shocked about Hypocrisy!
News has surfaced that Bachmann requested surplus money while denouncing it? News? Hardly. If hypocrisy were grounds to exclude people from public office the halls of Congress would be empty. No one should be shocked by Bachmann’s position, the voters of the district know her and her views. This is a $20 million race that Democrats could never win and which long ago ceased to be about issues. It is an ugly expense race where truth seems unimportant to who wins.

Change

Oh yea,
Mm,
Still don’t know what I am waiting for,
and my time was running wild,
a million dead-end streets and
Every time I’d thought I got it made
it seemed the taste was not so sweet
–Changes, David Bowie

Change. Four years ago voters demanded it and they ousted the Republicans from Congress. Two years ago they demanded it and pushed Obama into office along with huge congressional majorities. Now change may do Democrats in, producing a GOP House and perhaps, but less likely, a Senate.

What is certain is that whatever voters do this fall, change will not be the result. If Democrats retain control of both houses of Congress it will be by the narrowest of margins, guaranteeing gridlock for two more years. The same is true whether the GOP takes both houses or the parties split. The voters will get more of the status quo. The desire for change will produce its opposite. How Orwellian.

But what is change and what do voters want? These two questions have always perplexed me. When I teach my undergraduate Intro to American Politics class I often begin the class with a discourse on change. I point out first that there is a perennial demand for change among the American electorate along with an equally perennial frustration that change did not occur. I then point out that a defining characteristic of American politics was how the constitutional framers designed a political system that was meant to frustrate and slow down political change.

Checks and balances, separation of powers, federalism, bicameralism, and staggered elections were all designed to break up political power and slow down political change. As James Madison pointed out in Federalist 10, the main threat to popular government was the danger of majority faction–the tyranny of the majority for Alexis deTocqueville. The best thing about a popular government is rule by public opinion, the worst is the same. Madison and the framers sought a system to slow down political change to frustrate the ability of the majority to trample on the rights of the minority. For good or bad, change is meant to be slow or incremental. This is the reality of American politics by design. Americans who do not realize this are frustrated because of logic of our political process.

But institutional design has been compounded by other problems. For example, in the Senate the filibuster makes it impossible to get work done, allowing 41 senators who could represent less than 11% of the population to halt change. One of the biggest mistakes Democrats made in 2009 when they had 60 votes was not to abolish the filibuster rule. Instead, they let themselves be held hostage to Ben Nelson, Blanch Lincoln, and other Democrats who are barely in tune with their party. Thus, lack of party discipline also hampered the Democrats during the Obama years.

Additionally, Obama’s lack of leadership–a failure to take control of the agenda and cede it to Congress–was a major problem. Can anyone ever imagine a Lyndon Johnson letting a Ben Nelson toy with his party over whether to vote for health care reform? Conversely, what has really struck me about Obama is the timidity of change. He has done so little with so much promise. Yes a health care bill but mediocre. Yes financial reform, but mediocre. Yes a stimulus, but mediocre. He has delivered on major promises but the scale of change or reform was quite minor.

But finally, the problem of change resides with the voters. What do they really mean or want when they say change? Real change is what happened when in the early 1990s people walked out of their houses in Eastern Europe and brought down the Berlin Wall. Or in South Africa when they ended apartheid. I doubt that is what American voters want.

Change in the last few years might have been "out with George Bush." End the wars, end the squabble in Washington, or something else. I just do not know. Change seems more negative than positive–voters know they do not like the status quo but do not know what they want. They want something to change for the better but seem blind to what it is they want. Moreover, voters are not of one mind. For those who are angry and demand change this year, are they the same ones who wanted it two years ago? Maybe yes, but the American electorate is so fragmented that there is no real consensus on what change is supposed to be.

“Still don’t know what I am waiting for.”

Eyewitness to History: The Minnesota Gubernatorial Debate at Hamline

On Saturday, October 9, Hamline University hosted a gubernatorial debate on campus in conjunction with Fox 9 news. I attended and observed the debate, giving me an opportunity to assess the candidates up close.

The Context

Coming into the debate, my sense is that Dayton had a slight lead of 3-5 points over Emmer, with Horner a distant third at around 12-15% support. The three candidates had some shared goals–avoid gaffes and motivate their bases–but they also had divergent objectives. Dayton has a lead, but his base is less motivated to vote this November. He especially needs to motivate women and the swing voters to turn out. If they do, he wins.

Emmer is behind slightly but his base–angry white males–are highly motivated to vote. Emmer also needs to win some swing voters to his side since I do not believe he can win simply by motivating his base, even if Dayton’s does not fully mobilize to vote.

Horner needed a knockout punch. He may have plateaued by capturing his base and a few swings, but he cannot rise much further unless he can convince voters that one of the other two candidates cannot win in November. Most probably, this means he needs to convince other GOPers that Emmer cannot win, thereby leading to a rush of voters from Emmer to him in fear that Dayton will win.

My analysis assumes at this point several things. First it assumes both Dayton and Emmer are holding their bases and that Dayton is doing better at capturing the swings than Emmer and Horner. In making this argument I am at odds with Larry Jacobs and what his MPR poll states. On Almanac I made these claims and Larry said his poll suggests that there are large defections from the bases of both Dayton and Horner, that swings are more in play for Horner than I think, and that in general the GOP is worried about holding on to its voters. He cites as evidence of the latter the Horner press conference with over a dozen former GOP state legislators endorsing him and the reaction that Tony Sutton had to this press conference.

With all due respect to Larry, I have already made clear why his poll is really flawed. Steve Schier has made parallel claims. I am unpersuaded that the poll accurately captures what the electorate and party alignment is in Minnesota and that means that the lead of Dayton’s is inflated in his poll. Larry’s poll is at odds with almost every other poll and it comes in conflict with recent Rasmussen polls showing both Dayton and Emmer holding 80% of their bases.

Finally, in many ways I do not think that the current GOP cares about other former legislators endorsing Horner. They represent an older GOP party replaced by a new more conservative one. Yes, they do not want to see them vote for Horner, but that is no longer their base. Sutton criticized their actions, but that is not a sign of panic.

About the only thing I agree with Larry and his poll is that it is difficult to determine who the likely voter is. Stacy Hecht well stated this problem on Almanac, with the other three of us (Schier, Jacobs, and me) concurring.

The Debate

This was the 23rd debate. In too many ways the candidates looked like they were going through the motions. Each had predictable answers to predictable questions, and each responded to one another the way you expected.

Each campaign had its groupies there and they applauded on cue. Fox 9 wanted a more contentious debate and encouraged candidates to cut off one another. They wanted theater. The candidates did not oblige, again seeming to prefer the predictable to the novel.

Dayton:

He seemed flat. He did not answer the questions directly and his style was weak. He did little to excite his base. He could have done more to link Emmer to Pawlenty and Palin to excite his base, but he did not. He also did not criticize the others very much and he did not do much to reach out to female voters or swings. Dayton did discuss education which is important to his base but the passion was not there.

His finest moment? Discussing why we need bullying legislation, he spoke of equality and same sex marriage. He also quoted James Madison on why government is needed here–men are not angels.” The nerd in me liked this.

Emmer:

He seemed on autopilot. The answer to everything was cut taxes, less government, and create more jobs. A variation of this was his constant protest that he was the only candidate who has put forth a balanced budget. No one but his base believes this. His answer to a student question about what he planned to do about the high cost of going to school? Schools needs to restructure and if we had more and better jobs then student debt would not be a problem! Hmm, tell that to anyone with huge students debts. Even a high salary does little to address the burden of high debt load.

His defining moment? He came out against new legislation to crack down on bullying motivated by anti-gay bias. He said we had too much government already and that it was up to parents teaching respect and giving teachers more authority to do what they need to do but cannot because of fear of lawsuits. Clearly Emmer was speaking to the base.

Horner:

He was clear with answers and specifics. As a communications specialist he knows how to frame answers. He did a good job distinguishing himself and pointing out he was not a DFLer or GOPer.

His finest moments? Two stand out. First, he gave specifics to what he would cut to balance the budget. He noted JOBZ and ethanol subsidies as two cuts. Also, when responding to Emmer, who said no to new anti-bullying laws because it was a private issue, Horner said when others get hurt it is a public matter.

And the Winner Is?

On style and substance (that is how he looked and in answering the questions) Horner won. However, he did not knock anyone out. Emmer was second, Dayton third. Emmer managed to say what his angry base wanted to hear, Dayton did not do much to excite the passion of his supporters.

Horner’s clock is still ticking but he needs major movement soon. Dayton needs to refocus in the last few weeks and appeal to suburban females to vote for him. Pitch commercials to them. He also has started linking Emmer to Pawlenty and needs to do more of that.

Emmer has his base excited but needs to pick up some moderates. Also, everyone is expecting him to do a meltdown like Hatch did in 2006. Maybe Horner, Dayton, or a third party add will do that. Emmer also has a Pawlenty problem in another way. Pawlenty is unpopular and does nothing for him but as governor he could assist in policy or other ways. However, Pawlenty is off on his Don Quixote-esque pursuit of the presidency and seems uninterested either in Emmer or Minnesota. However, that is another story for another blog.

A Tale of Two People: Tom Emmer and John Yoo

Media depictions of personalities often contrast with reality. While in some cases the camera or microphone (or now YouTube) capture who we are, often there is a contrast between our real being and how we are presented. This dichotomy came home to me recently as I thought about two individuals who I know personally–Tom Emmer and now John Yoo.

I remember in 1992 while teaching in Texas Bill Clinton had won the primaries and would be the Democratic presidential candidate. He had yet to pick a VP. My university president called me one day and asked if I would mind opening up my class to a U.S. senator who was doing a book tour and he wanted to visit a couple of political science classes. I agreed and we combined two or three classes together to create a room of about 65 students.

For the next 90 minutes the senator captivated me and students. He was engaging, funny, witting, and demonstrated a brilliance and grasp of policy issues I seldom see among elected officials. I also shook his hand, had him autograph his book. Overall, he was one of the nicest and most compelling people I had ever met. I went home, told my wife about him and said Clinton should make him VP. Clinton did that. The senator was Al Gore.

But the Gore I saw in class that day was the not same Al Gore I saw on television and as vice-president. As VP, and then presidential candidate, he was wooden, stiff, and generally failed to demonstrate any of the charm I knew he had. I often wondered and asked: “Will the real Al Gore please stand up.” There were two Gores I saw–one up close and personal–the other through the eyes of the media, and reconciling them was difficult.

I tell the Gore story because it reminds me of my personal experiences with two other people in the news.

Tom Emmer
Tom Emmer is the Republican nominee for Minnesota Governor. I will skip all the media depictions of him. Instead me let describe how I know him.

When he first got elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives he called me. I had no idea who he was and he was just starting off his political career. He wanted to meet. He told me he was interested in campaign finance reform and concerned about money in politics. He told me a story. He said he had been at some event where the conservative pro-life Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) had said something to the effect that they had the votes of a whole bunch of legislators because of all of the money that had been raised or channeled to candidates. Emmer told me: “I may vote with the MCCL, but I do not like the idea that they think they can buy me with their money.” Tom was sincere, he wanted to do something about cutting off money in politics. He was told I was a past president for Common Cause and had consistently testified for Senator John Marty and others seeking to limit the role of money in politics.

Emmer asked me if I had any ideas for bills. I gave him my wish list. It included a state version of McCain-Feingold, limits on contributions to political parties, new disclosure laws, and more. Tom introduced all of the legislation. Against the wishes of the Republican majority that controlled the House and the MCCL he pushed for the bills. He fought DFL resistence too. The bills did not pass, but for at least two years he fought hard and I testified for him. His bills got farther on campaign finance than any others in Minnesota since 1994.

I have no idea where Emmer stands today on campaign finance. However, then I never doubted his sincerity on the issue.

Emmer and I stand opposite on other issues. He once supported a bill that would require the public positing of names of state judges who issue judicial bypasses for minors seeking abortions. I testified against the bill arguing that it would damage the judiciary. We also testify on opposite sides of voter photo identification bills. I mention all this because I have come to know Emmer as a person. In all the times we have worked together or opposite one another he has treated me with respect and I see something in him that does not come out in the media.

John Yoo
John Yoo is famous for being the Bush Administration attorney who penned the legal opinions for the War on Terror. He authored the critical opinions that supported presidential power detain prisoners at Gitmo without trial and to torture. In the media, he is attributed with drafting the “torture memos.”

In my own writings, including a paper at Oxford University and two scholarly articles, I criticized Yoo. He has been hammered in the media, subject to demands to prosecute for war crimes, and investigated for legal ethics violations. He is picketed where ever he speaks. He must be a monster!

I met Yoo this past Thursday at the University of St Thomas Law School. We were both invited along with others to speak and give papers at a University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy conference on presidential war powers. The journal and conference are student operated and they did a great job on Thursday. I was privileged to be on the panel with great names. The conference was loaded with conservatives and I was the token.

There were demonstrators present in and outside. Collen Rowley, a former FBI agent featured on the 2002 Time magazine, was there to protest. Security was tight.

John and I spoke a lot that day and had lunch together. We did disagree on topics, but we also shared observations. His talk on George Washington and presidential power was terrific even if I disagreed. Finally at the end of the day we talked baseball–he a Philly fan me a Yankee–and we discussed the prospects of a 2010 repeat of the 2009 World Series.

I walked away from the day thinking how nice Yoo as a person was. I cannot explain how or why he came to his conclusions in 2002 about presidential war powers, and I will not discuss why I think his arguments were flawed. I will simply say that for the day I met him I saw someone different than I had previously read about or saw from a distance.

Anger and Passion: The Emotions of Politics

Politics is an emotional sport. Discuss politics with others and surely emotions will flair. Because of that in Minnesota the quip is that one does not discuss politics with others in order to avoid controversy. Skip to safer subjects, such as the weather, family, or sports.

But for those of us who like politics, analyzing it without emotion is trying. My task with the media is to be enthusiastic about what I do (which I am) but not to let me emotions influence or affect my judgments. This is a tough call. Moreover, my work and attempt to be excited but not biased does not mean that I do not think there is no role for emotion in politics. There is, and the two emotions I wish to discuss are passion and anger.

This year anger seems to be the buzzword. Tea Party members claim to be angry, voters claim to be angry, and politicians, sensing voter anger, also want to say they are angry. Anger is important in politics. This year the angry voter–mostly middle class or above white guys–seem more motivated to vote than do others who are affected by a different emotion–disgust, alienation, or disaffection.

The beast evidence is that women fit into the latter category, perhaps, and they will not show up to vote this year. Today’s USA TODAY front page noted a Gallup survey and the impact that anger may have this year. With there being a huge gender gap between men and women and who they support, a strong male turnout coupled with a weak female turnout bodes badly for Democrats.

So yes, the angry voter will turnout. Anger is a big motive, but what good does anger do? When I think of anger this year I think of times when we get frustrated with our computers and we hit it. Hitting it and cursing at it makes us feel better in the short term but what then? The anger has not fixed the computer and perhaps hitting it has only made the problem worse. My point? Anger may be a good motivating force but it is hardly the basis for making good public policy.

After the shouting is done and the public votes for candidates in anger, what will happen? Voters may find the anger has produced even more problems than before. This is exactly where I see the Tea Party folks. They are angry but what will their anger yield? What are their public policies? I do not see anger producing anything of real significant policy value.

Passion is the other major political value. In my ten rules of politics I say Rod Stewart is correct–it is about passion. In my non-profit law class I discuss how non-profits, especially founders of organizations, are full of passion. My job in class is to channel passion into the skills to run a non-profit. In politics, passion is what moves people to engage. Passion about issues and causes and people leads to candidates running, people voting, and to other political activity. Passion excites but can be channeled, unlike anger which seems more a lashing out activity.

The Democrats had passion in 06 and 08 (maybe anger too) but seem devoid of it this year. The lack of passion is disappointment with Obama (criticized for not be angry and passionate but too cerebral or rational) and perhaps more so with the lack of a compelling narrative for 2010 (I blogged on this recently). Lacking passion, and a passionate narrative, Democrats face a tough time this year.

Of course there are other emotions in politics. Resentment seems to loom large anymore, as many anger or what others have received or earned, believing they too deserve their fair share. The Tea party movement seems to have this emotion, as well as a sense of victimization in their hearts. Wether such feelings are deserved or well-founded is another question entirely.

But while emotion is important to politics, I want to end with arguing that we do not have enough reason or rationality in politics. I have academically written about the need to have more social science or fact-based political discourse and policy making. I say to my students in class that unlike elected officials who can drool out any stupid idea or proposal they please without offering evidence to support its merit (emotion is the substitute for facts, I guess), in class you are expected to offer reasoned evidence to support your answers and propositions.

Over the years I have written about stupid public policies and other political myths. There are so many policies we keep adopting yet the evidence is that they fail to work. Why do we keep repeating dumb mistakes. Perhaps it is because we let too much emotion blind our ability to do what makes sense. David Hume, a famous philosopher, was correct when he said they were are more likely to be moved by our emotions than reason. Appeals to hearts are more effective than to minds, but then where are we?

Demonizing Teachers: Simplistic Solutions for Education Reform (or why most policies for reforming K-12 will not make Johnny read gooder)

Barack Obama did it in a recent speech as did Tom Emmer at the Humphrey Institute. Both of them along with scores of other politicians and think tanks heap all of the failures of American education on the backs of the American teacher.

For all of them, the reason why Johnny and Jane cannot learn and why some schools are failing is that there are too many bad teachers. Variations of this argument are that unions protect bad teachers, we do not hold them accountable enough, that we need pay for performance, or that we need other measures to improve the quality of teaching. If only teachers taught better, it seems, our educational problems would be solved. This is a large part of the logic of Bush’s No Child Left Behind, a policy that Obama has largely left in place, of Minnesota’s Governor Tim Pawlenty, and of Tom Emmer who is running for governor.

Were this the cause of our educational failings it would be nice and simplistic and perhaps the solutions would be obvious. Yet educational reform is far more complex than simply seeking to hold more teachers accountable. This approach really demonizes teachers, and it misses the complex reasons for understanding why American K-12 works and fails.

I write about K-12 today for several reasons, First, education reform is front and center in the Minnesota governor’s race. The three candidates offer contrasting views on education reform with Emmer mostly taking the demonizing approach. Second, instead of talking about the horse race and polls, education policy is something worth examining. Third, I am an educator who sees the product of K-12 in my classroom. I first walked in the classroom at age 20, giving me more than 30 years of experience teaching. Unlike most college professors who have never taken education classes, I have. I originally wanted to teach high school history but changed to college. Yet I regularly visit high schools and talk to students. I have some sense and knowledge about teaching and learning.

My first observation is that demonizing teachers solves nothing except to demoralize them and drive away the best. If the focus is on attacking them, nothing will change.

My second observation is one from one of the first education classes I ever took. My teacher drew a triangle on the board and on one corner wrote school, and then home and community on the other two corners. He then said that students are educated in all three places–school, home, and community–with teachers, parents, and others all working to educate. His point was to drive home that schools and teachers at best are responsible for one-third of all the learning that takes place with students. Teachers cannot teach unless parents and other reinforce what they do and what their children learn in school. Clinton may have caught the idea of this years ago when she wrote It Takes a Village.

How can teachers be so responsible for student learning when students go to school only a few hours a day and for barely 180 days? They are being asked to take full responsibility for the success or failure of their students when they see them so little. We are perhaps asking teachers to do the impossible–to do too much–often without parental support.

My third observation is that public K-12 has to take students as it gets them. Teachers receive students at age five, and in all states of preparedness for school. As Jonathan Kozel has demonstrated in Savage Inequalities (a book everyone in America should read), we have a dual educational system in the US. If you are white, middle class, and affluent, the system works well, if you are Black, Hispanic, Indian, another person of color, or poor, the system is a failure. Child poverty is huge, many students come to school ill-clothed, ill-fed, and ill-housed. The crisis of American education is that for too many students they cannot learn because of the poverty they endure.

When in the 60s school lunch programs and Head Start began, it was recognized that kids cannot learn on empty stomachs or when for the first five years of their lives they endured poverty. One cannot compete in an educational 100-yard dash if everyone else begins the race at the starting line and you are ten yards back initially. No one, including Obama, or the major gubernatorial candidates in Minnesota, seems to recognize the real crisis is the context of race and poverty that encompass K-12. Ken Pentel, one of the minor party gubernatorial candidates, talks about this but no one listens.

My fourth observation is that teachers need to teach. They need discretion to use their skills and work with students. Too much of K-12 is prescribed by accountability tests that lead to teaching to the test and hamper the ability of teachers to do what they know to do. I find it ironic that politicians, few who are teachers, are drooling out ideas about education and why students cannot learn when they have no experience or knowledge about teaching and schooling. Ludwig Wittgenstein, a famous philosophy, once said: “That of which you have no experience you should remain silent about.” Good advise.

Finally, over the years I tell my students that learning is a cooperative venture. I will work hard but they have to do the same. The same is true for K-12. Students have to do their share, requiring parents and the community to provide the resources and encouragement to motivate students.

Thus, where should we start with real education reform?

• Address the race and poverty issues enveloping schools. Fund quality preschool (as Art Rolnick urges) and quality day care. Fully fund Head Start and address the other social needs of students.
• Lengthen the school year by considering year round school.
• Free teachers up to teach.

Finally, get elected officials out of the business of writing curriculum and tests. I grew up in New York with a Board of Regents–experts who did education standards for the schools. I find it nutty that Minnesota legislators write standards. They know little about education and the product of their efforts is a political compromise. Turn education over to those who know something about it–the teachers who you want to demonize instead of wanting to support.

Poll Wars and Horse Races: Why We Need Less Polls and More Policy

(This is my second blog today so please look at this and the other one).
So what’s in a poll? Over the last two weeks four polls on the Minnesota governor’s race have been released, offering different interpretations of who is ahead or behind. The main news story has thus become the horse race, and the results of these polls may impact the fortunes of the different candidates.

As far as I am concerned the polls have become a distraction and we would be better off if we spent less time on them and more time on the substantive public policy proposals the different candidates have broached.

Ok, I will confess to have gotten sucked into the polling frenzy. Several weeks ago I criticized one MPR-Humphrey Poll and in the last week I have also commented on the Rasmussen Fox 9, Star Tribune, and now the most recent MPR poll. Some of my blogs address polling methodology issues and last Tuesday I discussed polling issues on Fox 9 at 6PM.

All of this polling is problematic on several scores. First from a geek point of view (of which I may be one), they may be giving inaccurate pictures of the race because of their basic methodological flaws, differences, or assumptions upon which they are based. My core criticism of the most recent MPR poll–and Steve Schier has said the same thing in a recent e-mail–is that it makes assumptions about what the electorate looks like that are wrong.

I agree that there is no way that the percentage of people who identify themselves as DFLers has grown in the last few weeks, and also would argue that there is no way that the percentage of individuals who identify themselves as DFL is equal to or greater than it was four years ago. Their numbers have shrunk, as have those who consider themselves Republicans.

To state again what I have been arguing for several months, here is my estimate of the partisan alignment in MN.
DFL 35%
GOP 30%
Independence Party 10%
Unaffiliated 25%

These numbers reflect a disenchantment and disaffiliation with the two major parties and an increase in those who are unaligned. Some unaligned are fringe right and left but most are centrists or moderates.

These percentages are my best guess based on previous elections and assumptions about trends this year. They should be treated as approximates. If the polls do not accurately capture these percentages the polls will over, under, or misrepresent candidate strength and support.

Moreover, to be accurate, polls also need to weigh other issues such as clarify who is likely to vote, balance among critical subpopulations such as Iron Rangers, suburbanites, and those in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and then give a better read on who the swings are. Minnpost pieces have done a good job recently discussing some of these issues.

However, beyond these geek issues, there are two other problems with the polls. First, they have come to replace substantive coverage of the three candidates. We no long hear of where candidates stand on jobs, education, or the deficit. This displacement of substantive policy with political strategy has a place, but it should be limited. Voters are not well served with this focus. Second, if voters are simply making their decisions based on polls this is not good. Should Tom Horner be judged as a contender based simply on how he is doing in the polls or should he be judged by the merits of his proposals? The same should be asked of Mark Dayton and Tom Emmer. The question that should be asked is not “Can you win based on the polls?” but “What do you plan to do if elected governor?”