Today David Yepsen writes for the Des Moines Register about the dangers of too much reliance on polling data to predict the Iowa caucuses. Yepsen is to political reporting and conventional wisdom in Iowa what David Broder is to the Washington Beltway: He sets a standard. In his column today, he notes the challenges that pollsters are having as a result of changes in the telecommunications marketplace. In part he writes,
A couple observations about these polls, particularly ones of likely caucus-goers: Some may understate Dean's support. He's getting a ton of it from younger voters, and those people are big cell-phone users. It's difficult, if not impossible, for pollsters to contact the correct cell-phone numbers when they make random calls of likely voters.
It must be alarming for public officials to read this column and to see the rationale for monopoly-era regulation disappearing into thin air.