September 25, 2003 - Polling is an inexact science. Had the public opinion polls accurately taken the temperature of the body politic Dewey succeeded Truman as President of the United States in 1948. Thomas Dewey believed the polls; the Chicago Tribune believed the polls; Harry did not and just kept giving them hell. Polls two years before the poll that counts are imperfect predictors of an election.

Politics – not football or baseball – is America’s most popular spectator sport. We delight in bashing the politicians and touting our own horse in the perpetual political race. The polls tell us who is ahead and by how much. They are the only measure that we have between elections. We cheer the polls when we see our runner pulling ahead and we boo them as we do the blind umpire who calls the third strike in the 9th inning with the winning run on base.

This week polling indicates that President Bush and three Democratic challengers go into the 2004 campaign in a dead heat. More importantly for the first time less than a majority approve of the President’s performance. Democrats are grinning and I admit a certain satisfaction that the American people are opening their eyes and our side is pulling even. But on reflection the view of this phenomenon is more sobering.

What the polls tell us is that the President of the United States has lost the confidence of the people of the United States across the board. Whether the subject is foreign affairs or the domestic economy the American public is giving the President a vote of no confidence. The truth that the polls reveal is that the United States are divided and the division is both sharp and deep. That is not good news for any American, whether Republican of Democrat. It is more than just politics that is at stake.

We are embroiled in a seemingly endless war in the Middle East divided from our once faithful allies. At home we are faced with a joyless, jobless economy dividing the American people. Homeland Security programs have failed to make us feel more secure and shake the foundation of out most venerated political principles of individual freedom. It is not a time for us to be a divided people.

There are those that blame the messenger for the content of the message and deny the validity of the information that it contains. There are those who call American who question the President’s action “un-American” and label opposition to the President’s political programs as “treason”, Americans are not inclined to blind obedience. It is not in our character. The real question of character is whether the President is willing to alter his course when half the crew is pointing to the rocks ahead and shouting loudly for the President to turn the ship toward safety.