Mike Murphy and Mark Mellman invoke the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to describe the ridiculously long presidential primary process that has started an absurdly long way out from the elections. Heisenberg would not be amused.
It is reminiscent of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle we all heard about in high school physics class. Professor Werner Heisenberg postulated that "the more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known." Applied to the presidential race, this suggests that the more we measure how the candidates stand now, the less we may know about where things are going to end up — because the measurement itself can render the findings inaccurate.
The noisy onslaught of public opinion polling in the media so early in the process would amuse the good professor, because the numbers are really little more than a vain attempt to measure something that hasn't happened. Although the political and media elites may think the campaign is in full swing, with the fortunes of each candidate rising and falling with every new poll, the truth is that voters — the ones who are really going to decide this race — don't start the campaign until much later.
Because voters are not required to make a decision until election day, they remain open at this stage in the race to new information, alternative perspectives and late-breaking developments — all of which render today's poll results, to one degree or another, meaningless.
Consider this: More than two-thirds of the Democrats who voted in the 2004 Iowa caucuses didn't decide who to vote for until a month before the caucuses. Four in 10 decided in the last week. In 2004, 54% of New Hampshire Democrats decided within a week of the primary. It's no surprise, then, that in the 2004 election, John Kerry was lagging in third place until only a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses. Kerry then more than doubled his vote in Iowa and nearly quadrupled it in New Hampshire — all in less than 20 days.
They are right that the polling is virtually completely meaningless at this point. The polls are more about generating news than about any real measurements of the actual voters. But that doesn't mean it is harmless, either:
Meanwhile, the press ignores Heisenberg's principle — that the measurements themselves, printed in bold type on Page 1, create their own distorted results, inaccurately advantaging some while disadvantaging others. By creating a potentially illusory sense of momentum or of failure, these pseudo-measures affect the extent of media coverage, fundraising, endorsements and the willingness of volunteers to engage.
Murphy and Mellman are making a classic error – the Heisenberg principle actually has a very specific meaning and applies at the atomic and subatomic level. What they are actually describing is the "observer effect": the act of measuring something causes distortions in the phenomenon being observed. That distortion is quite real and it is exactly what is happening right now. The media declares winners and losers based on polling and one set of poll numbers drives the reporting and the next set of polls and reporting.
The oddest part of this whole thing is listening to Media Talking Heads state that candidates who have not entered the race already are too late. In fact, candidates like Fred Thampson and Al Gore may be the smarter people. Both are running campaigns which keep them in the public spot light without truly subjecting them to the media spotlight that creates teh Observer Effect.
And, yes, I do think Al Gore will enter the race.