I like the Dean campaign, but the guy is running for election. So I'm used to the blog pointing out the good bits of things people are writing about Dean, and ignoring the others - that's fair game, and you'd expect to read the primary sources rather than blindly trust a partisan interpretation anyway.
But I'm not sure about "Bush Down, Dean Up". In the Zogby report in question, Dean did indeed poll more than any other Democratic candidate, with 16% (compared to Kerry on 13%, Lieberman on 12% and Gephardt on 8%). But according to the Daily Kos, the previous scores were 17, 9, 10 and 11 (so so Kerry is up, Lieberman and Gephardt are down, and Dean is down a bit).
Problem is, neither of the articles link to their sources (which in this case is laziness - the stuff is freely available online) so I can't check. The most recent national poll I can find on the Zogby site is the July poll that puts Gephart, Dean and Lieberman tied on 12%, with Kerry on 9, so it looks like the Dean folks are correct. In which case, where is Kos getting his figures from?
This isn't amazingly important at the moment - national polls don't matter months before the first primaries, especially as most people don't know about the candidates. Still, it's a useful dress rehearsal for the more serious stuff that will follow, and it would be nice to get this sort of thing right before then.
Right?
