I'd be lying if I said I weren't looking forward to all the campaign craziness headed our way next year. While personally disgusted with what's happening, I'm fascinated by politics from a professional standpoint.
I watch both the Democratic and Republican Conventions end-to-end even though my vote is decided well ahead of these events. What I find interesting is how they message and strategize to garner more likability points, er, votes.
Platforms aside, it's amazing just how much "like" determines how we vote--or don't vote. Take last election, I didn't vote for Kerry because I liked him...I voted against Bush because I disliked him.
We buy on feelings all the time, makes sense that we also vote on them--and ergo, that we should be polling on them. But benchmarking emotions is precarious, which is why I'm intrigued by the "feeling thermometer" that Quinnipiac University Polling Institute is using.
That's right, they brand it a feeling thermometer because it ranks on emotions. Not the campaign issues. Not how well a job the candidate is doing (or not doing). Here's how the pollsters pose the question:
"I'd like to get your feelings toward some of our political leaders and other people who have been in the news. I'll read the name of a person and I'd like you to rate that person using something called the feeling thermometer. You can choose any number between 0 and 100. The higher the number, the warmer or more favorable you feel toward that person, the lower the number, the colder or less favorable."
Their most current poll ranged 20 politicos. How did the feelings play out? Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, ranked first with a mean score of 64.2, followed by Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, 58.8, and McCain, 57.7. Bush finished 15th with a 43.8 rating--behind Al gore who was 14th with a 44.9 rating. Senator John Kerry was dead last with a rating of 39.6.
Oh, and Hillary was 9th with a mean score of 49 to Bill's 5th with a mean score of 55.8. I'll be watching these polls throughout the election to see how well feelings predict results--stay tuned.



















