Donna Harvey's blog

This morning I decided to hold a mini-poll to see what the results would be. Now keep in mind that I work within a social service organization so we may not be totally representative of the general population but of the 12 individuals (11 females; 1 male) who participated in the selection of a candidate, 5 selected Dean; 4 selected Edwards; 2 for Kerry; 1 for Gephardt. The outcome seems pretty consistent with other polls being taken!

Be careful what you say��

Happy 2004 and welcome to the Iowa count-down with only 12 days remaining until the caucus! In case folks in New Hampshire have not heard, we are experiencing the coldest days of the season facing wind chill factors upwards of 30 degrees below zero BUT the heat is on!
This past Monday, agency co-hosted a caucus training event in conjunction with several other national organizations and the local county Democratic and Republican parties. While a small group turned out, it was a great event for all. I must admit I learned a lot about the caucus process and how it differs between the two parties. What was most interesting is that I had 2 persons tell me they will temporarily change their party affilliation to attend the Democratic caucus because it sounded a lot more interactive and exciting! It made me wonder if others will do the same.

I decided to send out an email asking opinions on whether or not the media impacts decision-making on candidates. Here are some of the comments I received:

�The news media does affect a choice in the Democratic candidates. �

�Media coverage does affect me. It makes me mad! How many times a day do we have to hear the same thing? But what really irritates me is all the lies that are told and so convincingly that many people believe them. Voting should be left to the people who are interested in issues, not who can slam the other guy the most. We push so hard to get people out to vote that many vote on hearsay and not on knowledge of issues.�

When chatting with an 81 year old about the capture of Saddam Husein yesterday and the affect of the campaigns, her response was "The world does not revolve around the campaigns. In fact, I am appalled at the media feeling a need to combine the two together! We have military personnel who are still risking their lives on our behalf and all we can think about is campaign strategy!" After shaking her head, she also shared that she preferred the good ol' days when information was not so readily available and that you had to READ in order to be informed.

So.....according to the media, Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean has a great impact to the other candidates' position in the caucus race, right? Wrong! An informal call-in poll through a local television station asked if Gore's support of Dean had any impact on your selection of a candidate. 85% of the respondents indicated that it had no impact.

I decided to conduct my own informal person-on-the-street poll with that same question thinking I might get a different perception. Surprisingly, I did not. I even asked a couple of folks wearing a Howard Dean button if they thought it would impact other's decision. They did not. They were excited, of course, that he had chosen Dean as "his" candidate but they felt it really would not sway others into Dean's camp solely because of the endorsement.