Style Over Substance

Here's an interesting survey result. Some 67,000 individuals were asked their opinions on a variety of topics, including the war in Iraq, health care, the environment, the Patriot Act, etc. They were not asked about potential candidates for the presidency.

Then those opinions were compared to the stated positions on these issues taken by the Democratic candidates.

Guess who came in first. By a wide margin.

Dennis Kucinich! By a HUGE margin, 53% of all respondents had opinions on the issues that were the closest to those of Kucinich.

In contrast, "front runners" Clinton, Obama and Edwards came in with dismal percentages, all of them below 4%.

But the conventional wisdom is that he is a "marginal" candidate who can't win the Big Kahuna. And sadly, in our media age where the depth of Clinton's cleavage and the cost of Edwards' haircuts are more newsworthy than the Iraq death toll, the CW is probably right.

It's been said that if Abraham Lincoln had to run today, he would be unelectable -- not telegenic enough for today's voter-audience. And sad to say, that is correct.

See the whole story, complete with links to the survey results.