About those polls - political polls show Michael Dukakis leading George Bush

National Review, July 8, 1988

About Those Polls

POLITICAL AMERICA has been looking at George Bush's polls, and lo, they are not good. The man who was leading Michael Dukakis by 12 points in the Gallup ratings in March Trailed him by 16 points in May. Ditto Harris. Ditto New York Times/CBS. Ditto the Field poll.

The first thing to note is that we are still very early in the game. Campaigns do not formally begin until Labor Day. (In his first Making of the President book, Teddy White recorded the rule of thumb of city machine pols, that campaigns do not truly start until the guys in bars stop arguing about the World Series.) When the election hits its ten-week home stretch, a lot can happen. Jimmy Carter, in 1976, and Richard Nixon, in 1968, blew huge leads, to win in squeakers. Tom Dewey blew his and lost.

There are circumstantial reasons why today's premature polls should break against Bush. Bush wrapped up his nomination early in March, after which he had nothing much to do. Michael Dukakis had a nice long workout on the punching bag of Jesse Jackson, lasting all the way until he wrapped up the nomination on June 7 in New Jersey and California. Under these circumstances, Bush would be in a trough if he were Alexander the Great.

So Bush's ratings are bound to come back up. Whether they come up enough to sweep him into the Oval Office depends on whether he takes the war to Michael Dukakis in earnest, and stakes out clear stands of his own. The materials are there. Bush, unlike his opponent, is not a mouthpiece for homsexual and pro-abortion lobbies, and his appointments to the Supreme Court (see "The Issue of '88," below) would take reasonable positions on crime, busing, reverse discrimination. Bush had a ringside seat for (and presumably understands the causes of) one of the longest economic booms in American history. Bush does know about some foreign countries other than Cyprus.

We hope to hear about it.