MeanDean's Polling on Values

Dan Balz reports in today's WashPost about an extensive poll that DNC Chair Howard Dean commissioned in a handful of red states including North Carolina. While the new poll found that a significant percentage -- 47 percent of voters and 51 percent of white women in the target states -- said their voting decisions are influenced as much or more by their religious faith as by traditional political issues, they are also "movable" on economic issues.

"These so-called values or faith voters are some of the most economically anxious voters in the electorate," the pollster said. "They're tremendously cross-pressured between their pocketbook concerns and their moral values concerns."

"Dean believes that provides an opening for Democrats, but only if Democratic candidates learn to speak a different language. 'Democrats wonder why people vote against their own economic interest,' he said. 'The answer is that Democrats don't connect with people's fears about how to raise their children in a difficult social environment.' "

Most immediately causing potential excitement in N.C. is Dean's promise "to road-test a message" designed to make those red states turn purple, at the very least.

Do guinea pigs usually feel this tingling sensation, this delicious anticipation, this breathless expectation for Dr. Dean's Kibbles 'n' Bits?