The election almost totally polarized by now

On Sunday, when all the votes are counted, it appears the vote will boild down to just two parties running. The Reformists(PRSC) are just about dead on the gate. Out of money, out of hopes and overwhelmed by the two powers(PRD and PLD) the PRSC is ready to throw in the towel. From what I hear, their closing rally in Santo Domingo is all but dead for lack of funds and lack of media exposure. The PLD and PRD have just about leased or taken over all the airwaves for their closing rallies for the final round.

Just looking at what is seen on the streets, it will be a knockout by the PLD in the first round. But even if it goes two rounds, Leonel will be the first president. If it doesn't happen this way, we may never see another polling agency in this country. Gallup, Penn & Schoen, and Hamilton, Beattie Staff world reputable organization would have committed their biggest blunder in their existence. It will be worse than Truman's upset. Errors of this kind have never happened before. In other words, three major pollsters have never been wrong together, specially considering their accurate projections of the Panama elections.

I encourage everyone to vote for Leonel, the least of the two evils. Then we will star working on toppling Leonel next time around. My suggestion is that you vote the Blue Box for Fuerza Nacional Progresista(FNP) The vote counts for Leonel, but you won't feel guilty that you voted directly for his "Comesolos" the PLD. The FNP has the best Deputy, Pelegrin Castillo and they defend the environment, corruption and are the leaders in the Haitian issue. It is important to keep this group alive with votes so they can continue being an offsetting force. So vote #21 for Leonel.

TW

Latest poll

Tomorrow(thursday) will be the last offering of the Gallup Poll for the 2004 elections in DR.

The word is out that it will show a constant 54% for Leonel Fernandez, which shows that the anti-Hipolito vote has hardened at that point of no return, but may not grow that much more, because it was hardened pretty early on, and it has been decided. Nothing will change it, even the latest TV spots showing the famous Leonel' Baninter checks showing he took $60,000,000 prior to his closing days in office for his Global Foundation. This is by now an old story and will have little effect.

On the other hand, the poll will show that Hipolito's vote has now increased to 29%, all at the expense of Eduardo Estrella(PRSC), who will show a collapse to 9%, down from 11-12% in the most recent polls. What this shows is that some of the PRSC Estrella followers left in that 9% seem to be more comfortable with Hipolito or are very shakily making their final decision. But even if the entire block goes to Hippo, the combined vote will not top the 40% mark. That leaves a huge gap of the vote when you add Leonel and Hippo votes. In other words, the other 8 to 9% left could go anywhere, but most likely for Leonel, since the smaller parties would be lucky to add up to that much.

Hipolito's negative vote has not been reduced and that is why Leonel's continues to hold on. Rather than softening his image, Hippo has become more aggressive and that has irritated even more the hardened vote against him. If Hippo finally loses the real election, he will have nobody to blame, but his own foolish strategy. Leonel has battled this aggresiveness with an intelligent tactic. In his latest rally he said "I am a peaceful man. I am not here to pick any fights. And I have always followed the principle that I should never abuse of smaller men. I am taller than Hipolito, I have a longer arm reach and I am younger. I should not abuse the weak." Leonel scored a knockout with this comment without ever throwing a punch, because he said what was obvious. Hipolito should have never challenged Leonel to a man to man fight like he did the day before "to solve this thing once and for all". Nobody believes the fat, short, out-of shape Hippo would stand a chance with a slim, young opponent in great shape for his age.

So tomorrow the poll will read: Leonel 54%--Hipolito 29%--Estrella 9%

TW

Bochinche

The reason the Gallup Poll did not come out yesterday as I predicted was the fact that they did not want their poll to come out on the same day with several other publications and rehashes of local polls that were intentionally published by the PPH yesterday. The PPH wanted to throw in as much confusion as possible, but the Gallup people knew of the trick in advance.

The results, however, came in just as I predicted, except that I gave round numbers and Hippo's numbers were slighty higher.

One thing to note is that polls like CEDEMERS, Maria Acevedo's and anything done by Cabrera and Associates use a very high percentage of Cibao voters as opposed to a higher number of Distrito Nacional voters. That fact alone gives you the high numbers Hipolito gets(42%) against Leonel(45%).

But the three major pollsters who use a higher percentage of Distrito Nacional voters, in my opinion have a better base. Is it possible that the population of El Cibao, which is smaller than Distrito Nacional is going to have a larger % of voters? Impossible!!! Even so, Leonel still leads Cibao and at worst is close to a tie. But Distrito Nacional is overwhelmingly Leonel territory, as is the East.

Another factor is the negative vote for Hipolito amongst women. Women exceed men in the population and registered voters by 22,500 votes and are more prone to vote in huge numbers. Leonel traditionally has the women in his pocket and has even increased his positive ratings among them. Women are going to vote at the same time as men, which makes it even better for women to get to the polls with their husbands and family together.

I believe that one thing going for Hipolito is the heavy rains. If it rains heavily on Sunday, softer voters, usually the PLD sympathizers may be reluctant to get wet to vote, whereas diehard PRD members vote rain or shine. Yet, the PRD hardline vote is not as high as people think. It has never topped 35%. The PRD, when it has won elections, has added votes from other parties, but their hardline members do not exceed Leonel's numbers now, regardless of all factors. Leonel's allies are better quality.

One factor now increasing Leonel's hardcore vote and new ones, is the disastrous performance by Hipolito Mejia last night during the Dialogo Nacional, where he looked like a fool and could not answer any questions. He spent the entire time spilling out bad jokes and even asking other people to answer for him, including Monsignor Agripino Nunez. He even asked the U.S. ambassador, the OAS representative, the British Ambassador, the Canadian Ambassador, cabinet members and the master of ceremonies to answer for him. If one were to pick the worst performance by any candidate in any forum, any country in the world in any debate or discussion, this was it. The man looked like an insane idiot. He was so lost, that almost every answer would go like..."I will not do it like Leonel says", in other words he had no ideas of his own, except to rebutt Leonel.

Compare that to the masterful Leonel performance and even the acceptable performance by Eduardo Estrella, who was often ambiguous, and Hippo looked like a clown. A performance this bad was not expected. He was nervous and got a case of amnesia on the wrong day. More bad news...The FMI turns its back on Hippo again..Banco central will not explain until after the elections...foreign financial reporting agencies are ganging up against Hipolito..and the dollar continues to worry people.

TW