Bayh Behind Iowa Presidential Surveys
The Washington Post
Apparently, it's never too early to start wooing those Iowa activists.
A couple
of weeks ago, Democrats in Linn County, which includes Cedar Rapids,
were recruited to participate in a focus group. The purpose, as the
participants learned later, was to sample opinions on whether they
preferred one of the big names as their 2008 nominee — Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton of New York, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, former
senator John Edwards of North Carolina — or whether they might be more
receptive to a lesser-known Democrat, someone like, say, Sen. Evan Bayh
of Indiana.
Bayh's
office has been cagey about the sponsorship of the session, organized
by pollster Paul Maslin and discovered by the political online
newsletter Hotline, but participants say there was no doubt that the
purpose was to gauge possible interest in a Bayh candidacy.
“I
thought it was something to do with Hillary Clinton,” Randy Nading, a
factory worker and party activist who was one of about a dozen
participants, said in a phone interview. “When I saw all guys (in the
group), I thought they were trying to figure out whether men would
support a woman candidate.”
But when
the participants were shown videotapes of Bayh (and the better-known
Democrats) and then asked questions about whether they would be
receptive to someone who had been — picking a few things at random that
just happened to come straight out of Bayh's biography — governor of a
medium-size midwestern state, had served in the Senate and had
supported the Iraq war, Nading said, “It didn't take long to figure it
out.”
The
session seemed to work as Bayh's advisers had hoped. By the end, a
majority said they were receptive to the candidacy of a lesser-known
Democrat. Well, it's a start.
(Source)
What
I'd like to know is why they were surveying only men? Sounds like
Bayh and his organization are a bit behind the times!
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