A nice dose of reality

Watching as many news shows as I do, a common meme among political pundits is that Rudolph Giuliani's lead in national Republican primary polls is so amazing because he's pro-choice. What they, of course, fail to realize is that the vast majority of the public doesn't pay attention to elections this early and these polls represent mostly name identification. Even most primary voters don't decide who they are going to vote for until the last couple of months, if not weeks.

Proof is in the latest Pew Forum survey on the candidates and religion, which showed that "public awareness of Giuliani's stance on abortion is not widespread. Overall, just 22 percent of the public and 31 percent of Republicans know Giuliani supports abortion rights." So less than a third of Republicans know that Giuliani is pro-choice. Thus, his lead in the polls is really a lot less amazing than the talking heads think. Likewise, Sen. Hillary Clinton's lead on the Democratic side probably still represents mostly name ID.

Sometimes political junkies really need to step back and realize there's a big disconnect between how we view the race and how the general public and even most other co-partisans do. I know it is difficult since many of us can't understand how people can know so little about the candidates at this point, but it's true. Since I'm getting my degree in political science, my background helps me do avoid this thinking, though I can still falter. But it is clear that many, especially the punditocracy on TV, still don't get it.

NOTE: Speaking of Giuliani, check out the latest video from Robert Greenwald.