by Stephen of the Thinkery
Ezra is quite right that putting much weight on current polling for the 2008 Presidential election isn't very wise. Even the ridiculously early primaries are still six months away, and this primary season may actually feature a horserace between several candidates. The horserace polls between Democratic and Republican candidates are fun for political junkies, but when 43% of Republicans don't know that Rudy Giuliani has a pro-choice record we're not going to get good information from these things.
However, we can and should spend some time taking a look at the types of campaigns the candidates are waging; one of the common refrains among the foul-mouthed bloggers is that the Democrats need to either revise or dump entirely the campaign strategies they have been following the last few cycles. Drew Weston has an excerpt from his new book in the current issue of The American Prospect that deals with the way Democrats have approached various controversial issues. While the excerpt deals with the Democrats' approach to the gun issue specifically, it's a good description of why the recent Democratic approach to campaigning - especially in presidential campaigns - just hasn't been working.
