Landrieu battle cry: 'The only poll that matters is on Election Day'
鈥淭he only poll that matters is on Election Day.鈥� This is the standard spin move of candidates who trail in public-opinion surveys and seek to discount them.
Saying this 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 guarantee defeat in the upcoming election,鈥� the Rothenberg Political Report鈥檚 Nathan L. Gonzales , 鈥渂ut it means you are losing the race at the time and have no empirical evidence to the contrary.鈥�
The expression has been bandied about in the most prominent election left in the 2014 cycle: Saturday鈥檚 Louisiana Senate runoff race between incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu 鈥� the of her party to represent the Deep South in the chamber 鈥� and Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy. Senator Landrieu, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has in an attempt to refute numerous polls showing her Representative Cassidy.聽
But Landrieu is just one in an extremely long line of politicians to utter or tweet some variation of this last-ditch battle cry. They include Democratic Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley, who just before losing last month to Republican Charlie Baker. Last year, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford also after he was caught on video smoking crack cocaine and his approval ratings took a nose dive.
But winning candidates and their backers say it, too 鈥� just to ensure their supporters don鈥檛 get complacent and decide to stay home without voting.
Louisiana GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal, campaigning for Cassidy recently, Republicans against overconfidence by declaring: "The only poll that matters is on Election Day. Let's make sure Landslide Landrieu鈥� 鈥� a sarcastic reference to the senator鈥檚 history of nail-biting races 鈥� 鈥渉as seen her last election.鈥�
Chuck McCutcheon and David Mark write their "Speaking Politics" blog exclusively for Decoder Voices.
