With their segmented grasp of America, pollsters have made a national political campaign nearly impossible or irrelevant. This year's presidential race seems to be taking us back to the country before the jet airplane, when most presidential campaigns took place in several states east of the Mississippi. PNS editor Richard Rodriguez is an author and essayist. This year's presidential election has already been stolen by the pollsters. The pollsters pulling Al Gore's and George Bush's campaigns are the true advance team, always one step ahead of either candidate's speechwriters, several days ahead of their candidate's position paper, a week ahead of a candidate's formulation of his most deeply held conviction.
Pollsters keep politicians in touch with America.
With their segmented grasp of America, pollsters have made a national political campaign nearly impossible or irrelevant. Rather, they go. Maybe there is no need for a national conversation because we can all be dissected into niche market groups. The archaic electoral college system becomes strangely post-modern. Running for president is no different than looking for one of those segmented audience or market groups, that retailers and magazine publishers and television networks want to find.