National vs. local trends

Dick Morris is one of my favorite political analysts, but I think he gets things wrong here when he argues that national trends will trump the "local" politics of Iowa and New Hampshire. Morris admits that this would make the 2008 sui generis. Morris's model for this election's primaries is that it will be decided by whoever becomes the front-runner first. When that happens, based on national polls and the fund-raising primary, then whoever is seen to be in the lead will inevitably cruise to the nomination. This interpretation however requires seeing Howard Dean in 2004 as a mere bump in the road to John Kerry's inevitable nomination, which is a little bit of a stretch. All in all I think this line of thought gives too much importance to the national media. It's the voters in the early primary states who determine real winners and loosers. I think it is simply way too early to give much importance to national polls, which as Morris admits are largely a matter of name-recognition. I think Bob Schrum is right when he says (6/4/07 on C-Span) that the polls to ignore right now are the national polls.