Are the polls wrong about Kucinich?

The same internet statistics that predicted within less than one
percentage point the percentage Howard Dean won the the Moveon.org
internet primary by shows Dennis Kucinich ahead of all the
candidates except Howard Dean, who holds a strong lead on Kucinich
as well. And in the California Democratic Council (CDC) Vote,
Howard Dean took a commanding first place with 56.11 percent of the
vote with Dennis Kucinich placing second with 17.19 percent and
Wesley Clark with 14.48 percent.

Kucinich is now, with a usual estimate of two percent support in
most polls, where Clinton Was in the Months before the Start of the
1991 Primaries. But the congressman’s very strong showing in web
activity is a very positive sign that suggests pollsters who poll
just a few hundred people may be wrong about Kucinich. The
Alexa.com stats used in this article that show Dean, then Kucinich
in the lead, ahead of the pack, are based on data from hundreds of
thousands of internet users. The CDC vote was based on votes from
delegates, representing 130 Democratic clubs and county central
committees.

David Swanson, Kucinich Campaign press secretary told
OpEdnews.com, ‘There are a number of examples of candidates who
were, during these early months, dismissed as fringe, no hope
candidates who were low in the early polls, who were either
nominated in the primaries or who had a big impact at the
convention and in the early primaries. This was completely
unexpected by the mainstream media. Those examples include Jerry
Brown, Jesse Jackson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

When asked what he thought of the mainstream media’s suggestions
that Al Gore was playing ‘king maker’ with his endorsement of
Howard Dean, that it might have clinched the nomination for him,
Swanson replied, ‘The polls that may be most significant, though
getting the least attention, are the ones showing that the majority
of the voters know nothing about any of the candidates, so it’s an
open field. There have been a number of polls that put
‘un-decided‘ in first or second second place. There are
two big problems with the pundits saying that it’s wrapped up this
early in the race. First, there’s no historical background for
this. Where people are in the polls does not predict how things
will turn out.’

‘Second, telling people things are already set discourages
people from voting and participating in the democratic process. The
winner of past elections has been ‘nobody’– more people have
chosen not to vote than to support anybody. President Bush was
elected by 17% of the public.

Here’s how the numbers look for the leading candidates:.

The stats represent the ‘reach per million’ people on the
internet. The June 25th numbers represent the day and week stats
the day before the Moveon.org primary.

Going by these statistics, interest in Kucinich has begun
strongly ramping up. Clark’s numbers remain static.

Why the jump in stats for Kucinich? Claudia Slate, virtual
outreach coordinator (a member of the Kucinich internet leadership
team) answered, ‘We’re working hard, Dennis is the only one with a
plan to fix the economy, and get the troops out of Iraq, and Dennis
has a plan for drug reform that does not fill jails with people who
have minor drug offenses and he’s got a plan to save American jobs,
starting with getting rid of NAFTA and the WTO.’

The tracking of the presidential primary candidate websites with
stats from Alexa.com was invented by this author in the spring of
2003. By December, Alexa.com had begun posting a link to its own
profile of candidate websites at the top of its home page. But the
alexa.com ranking system uses the less accurate web site rank
score. The moveon.org internet primary proved that reach per
million was more accurate in predicting the winner. But even with
the web site rank score, Dean is still in first and Kucinich is
still in second place. Media companies, with often obvious partisan
views, favoring Republican candidates, use polls with a few hundred
people. It’s clear that Alexa.com’s massively larger ‘poll sample’
base contradicts the conventional pollsters.

If you want to be able to easily check the website rankings of
the different candidates you can click on the names in the chart
above. If you want to be able to check any website you visit for
its website ranking and other sites that visitors to that site also
visit, you can download the
alexa.com toolbar. Alexa.com is
owned by Amazon and uses the same technology that Amazon uses to
tell visitors which books they might be interested in based on
other visitor responses. It is the toolbar which sends the message
to Alexa.com that a visit was made to a website.

Rob Kall
rob@opednews.com is editor of
OpEdNews.com and founder organizer of the
Futurehealth Winter
Brain, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology
Meeting. This article is
copyright Rob Kall and originally published by
opednews.com but permission
is granted for reprint in print, email, blog or web media so long
as this credit paragraph is attached.