Blast from the past
By 
Dateline: May 25, 2007
Hillary Clinton has significantly widened her lead in the Democratic primary to 22 points, leading her nearest rival by a roughly 2-1 margin, according to a new CBS News/NY Times poll released today.
The poll, in the field through Wednesday, confirms the significant increases for Clinton also shown in a series of other recent polls.
Specifically, the new poll shows:
Hillary’s lead over her nearest Democratic rival has jumped to 22 points (46-24), from 15 last month (39-24).
Hillary’s share of the Democratic primary vote increased 7 points to 46 from 39 last month. . .“This continued widening of Hillary’s lead shows that Americans are increasingly ready for change and that they are confident Hillary is ready to lead,” said Clinton chief strategist and pollster Mark Penn.
One problem with being a political junkie is that it’s almost impossible to overstate how little attention the average person pays to politics in general, and presidential politics 18 months before an election in particular.
The conversations on LGM about the Democratic nomination — and I’m not excluding myself from this observation — are analogous to a bunch of sabermetric geeks trying to predict what people who barely know the rules of baseball are going to think about some complicated statistical question.
LGM: “When calculating true wins above replacement, it’s very important to take into account that variables like park factors and defensive range metrics are not nearly as reliable predictors as adjusted on base percentage plus slugging average when evaluating players against each other.”
Marginal voter: “How many points do you get for a home run?”
There’s a long way to go, is all I’m saying.
(Looks at current polls and tries to remember how much gin is in the freezer).