Centerfield

Big frickin' deal! Straw polls are made up grass rooties nuttier than even those in the blogosphere. The mean zilcho in the long run. Just ask Presidentss Phil Gramm, Pat Buchanan, and Steve Forbes.

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www.fantasycongress.com

Straw polls are made up grass rooties nuttier than even those in the blogosphere.

I generally agree with the thought, but I gotta wonder how anything could possibly be nuttier than the wingnuts of blogosphere. Differently nutty, perhaps, but more?

Ok, since no one else has done it, I'll call shenanigans. Everyone run home and get their broom.

This AM's Boston Globe has a story on some local archonservative who did a "Romney report" identifying him as a RINO and not a real conservative. Sure his isn't. Not from the perrspective of an archconservative. For the rest of us, he's a conservative or moderate who leans conservative socially and on financial issues. Shenanigans on this guy too.

Here's what we can do as centrists. We can act as interpreters to tell folks how to translate the bloviations of the partisans. Serious presidential candidates are at the docks seeing if they can find enough crew for their ship, not to mention investors to help finance the journey. How many centrists are at those docks? Not enough. And there aren't enough crew for every ship to set sail. So the badmouthing and downcasting is well under way. GOP wannabees are promsing they'll sail starboard. the Democratic wannabees promise a journey towards the port. That's where the promising ports of call lie for the next year.

Here's hoping that during this period, the media polls not just likely primary voters of each side, but includes a constant check on who has broad-based appeal in the general election that follows the primaries. If you are a centrist, you have to hope that in each party's primaries, the voters who care more about winning than about ideology can out-yell and out-vote the true believers. That's what will lead to a final choice between moderate candidates ready to listen to and serve the nation as whole.

The thing we all need to remember about straw polls (and this is never reported, by the way) is that people who answer straw polls are self-selecting. Polls can only be used to predict anything if they have a randomly selected sample. So, quite simply, straw polls get the same level of confidence as polls on websites and news channel call-in polls. None are worth the paper they're printed on.

It sounds to me like someone got wind of the straw poll before it happened and sent the entire staff to participate.