December 31st
First of all, Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2008 is everything you want it to be for you and yours.
For a bunch of candidates who have been canvassing Iowa like crazy for what seems like eternity, it's obvious what they want the New Year to bring, and quickly.
Which brings me to the recent poll I saw, and the media coverage of it. The headlines said, Romney back on top, Huckabee's bubble bursts, or something very close to that. In the body of the story, it explained that Romney was now ahead in Iowa, 29% to 27%. Only in the small print, did it also mention that the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus five percent. Any decent pollster will tell you a poll with that big a margin of error is virtually worthless. It means the numbers for Romney and/or Huckabee could be off as much as ten points...which would dramatically change the whole story, wouldn't it? So why run the story at all?
Who's going to win in Iowa? I don't know, but I do know the poll didn't shed any light at all on what will happen there.