Free Press – October 26, 2006

Terry Madonna

Dear Friends,

Good morning. “You got that?” Terry Madonna asked the Quakertown High School students.

The famous pollster spent an entire day last week with students, faculty, and the public thanks to a grant from the Quakertown Community Education Foundation and the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation’s Neusch Fund. Founded in 1992, Madonna’s Keystone Poll makes predictions about Pennsylvania’s political scene each year.

Madonna also writes columns for the state’s major daily and weekly newspapers. You often see him on television news programs as well. I’ve known him for more than ten years and can attest to his popularity when he appears in public.

October 16 was a very long day for the celebrity He spoke before two groups of students from 9:30 until noon; left for lunch with several students, faculty, and administrators; sparked a round table discussion with the faculty; and presented a peppery lecture to the public at 4 PM. Exhausted, his charming and attractive wife, Maribeth, finally pushed him from the QHS building just before 6.

“You got that?” he’d ask the kids after he made an important point.

I get a kick out of him when he drills a lesson home. There were many “You got that’s?”

“It’s about the direction of America,” Madonna began as he outlined the midterm elections next week. “It’s [this election] a referendum on the war in Iraq,” he continued. “The American public believes that the Bush Administration has made two huge mistakes in Iraq. We don’t have enough [American] troops and instead of using Saddam’s army, we dissolved it. Now they’re fighting us.

Madonna asked these questions as he addressed the students: (1) “What is the most important issue facing America today? (The vast majority answered the war in Iraq). (2) How many of you feel safe [because of the administration’s handling of the war on terror]? (No hands were raised)

“We’re in this war on terror for the next 20 to 30 years,” Madonna predicted. “It took 40 years to best the Soviet Union during the cold war. This enemy is very different today. Whom do we bomb if a terrorist sets off a nuclear bomb?

“The topic of a lifetime is this,” Madonna added. “Americans are of two minds about 9-11. Either it’s a war with Islamic fundamentalists who disagree with our way of life…a clash of civilizations so to speak. Or, it’s not a clash of civilizations and it’s about finding, capturing and trying the criminals. The president believes we should fight the enemy in Iraq, not here in America. The Democrats say that the war on terror is a distraction…a drain on America’s recourses.”

When it came to a show of hands, it was obvious that most of the students came from Republican households. But the vast majority of the kids disapprove of the President’s policies. That mirrored Madonna’s predictions about how the election will turn out next week.

“Forty percent of Pennsylvania’s voters live in the south east [Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, and Philadelphia counties],” Madonna observed. “Four years ago, Governor Rendell captured over 60 percent of those voters. And Rendell will do even better this year,” Madonna added.

His polls reveal that Pennsylvania voters believe that U.S. Senator Rick Santorum is “joined at the President’s hip.” Couple that with Santorum’s unpopularity, “It’s very possible that three Pennsylvania Republican congressmen will lose,” Madonna told us. “The Democrats only need 15 Republican losses [in the House of Representatives] to recapture the House.”

Turning to the eighth congressional district, Madonna advised, “If [Congressman Michael] Fitzpatrick loses, the House [of Representatives] goes down.” Most of the students raised their hands for Fitzpatrick’s opponent, Patrick Murphy, when asked for whom they’d vote [if they were old enough to vote].

Fortunately for Fitzpatrick, only a few of the students were 18. The rest of them were too young to vote. However their parents aren’t too young. How will they vote?

According to an October 15 poll, Madonna believes that the Fitzpatrick will defeat Murphy. Madonna thinks it will be closer now. He predicts that Rendell will win easily but Santorum will lose.

“This election is setting the stage for the Presidential in 2008,” Madonna told his audiences. “If the Republicans lose either one or both houses, you can count on the Democrats using their subpoena powers to call for hearings on the administration’s handling of the war in Iraq and the Katrina Hurricane disaster.

There were a few Madonna laugh lines.

“You need a plastic surgeon after you finish the Presidency,” Madonna quipped. “You age significantly after eight years in the job.” Speaking of the 2008 election, I thought about Rendell as a possibility for the Presidency and asked Madonna whether Rendell might be a dark horse in two years? Madonna doesn’t think so. But he added this about the Governor, “This man [Rendell] weighs 257 pounds, walks sideways and has no hair. How can he be so charismatic? But he is.

Before I close, I thought you’d like some of Madonna’s terms. Here are a few: “Politics is a contact sport,” he said. He calls political researchers, “snakes.” Because southeast Pennsylvanians are famous for splitting their ballots, Madonna calls us “Splitters.”

In this region, Madonna believes that Republicans are more liberal than Democrats. “People are less fervent about party loyalty,” Madonna said. “The key to a Democratic victory next week will be a low turn out of unhappy, dissatisfied Republicans at the polls and a Heavy turn out of Democrats.”

Madonna spoke about America beginning a 30 to 40 year period coinciding with the current World’s unhappiness with the current administration. “It’s not just the war in Iraq,” Madonna said. “It’s about what happens when you’re the new Roman Empire.”

And as Madonna had asked so often earlier with the students, he finished the day with a cheerful quip…”You got that?”

Sincerely,

Charles Meredith