Democrats Rule By Opinion Poll: This is Worse Than Trying to Replace Something With Nothing

The Democrats appear to be heading in an unprecedented direction in their control of both houses of Congress. And many Republicans are following their example. And it's going to come around and bite them when they least expect it.

I speak of opinion polls. Many in Congress are bending like reeds in the wind when they hear what the latest opinion polls are. John Kerry was notorious for this during the 2004 Presidential election, refusing to say where he stood on issues until he saw which direction the wind was blowing first.

Many other Democrats did this too, refusing to say where they stood until they figured out which direction their voters were leaning, then all of a sudden coming up with all kinds of sound bites that their people wanted to hear.

Politicians are well aware of this, but the public needs to learn that opinion polls reflect the feelings of people based on the information that they've been made aware of. In other words, it's stuff on the surface. Imagine a lake:

Nice and calm on the surface. Just what we like to see.
But when it gets nasty, this is all that we see:

Waves, turbulence, and uncertainty.
Yet look at what's happening underneath the surface:

My point is that information coming out of Iraq is like a lake. We don't see everything except what is presented to us by the media (the surface information). We don't hear stories of what's happening in other parts of Iraq where there is no insurgency, or the situation is vastly different (the information underneath the surface) than Baghdad or the Anbar province, where most of our casualties have happened.

It's a vicious cycle. The Democrats came to power with help from the liberal-media complex that steered the conversation toward what was happening in four of eighteen Iraqi provinces. They don't dare go into any depth on the rest of Iraq that returning soldiers continue to tell stories about. Good news in Iraq is bad for the anti-war people in Congress.

Leaders should develop their platforms based on their beliefs, then lead the nation in that direction, not base their leadership decisions on opinion polls that are reflective of the surface situation that any idiot with a TV set can see. Leaders should LEAD.

And sooner or later, politicians who don't lead will be Kerry-ized, with the same result as the Bush-Kerry campaign. Based on that point, I don't think we've seen the end of tumultuous turnovers in Congressional power. I think power in Congress is going to change hands a lot in the future.