Citizen Gore

By Michael Tomasky

The Assault on Reason

by Al Gore

Penguin, 308 pp., $25.95

Editor's note: Michael Tomasky will be answering questions from readers about his article "Citizen Gore," and his recent articles about Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the 2008 campaign for the presidency. Please send your question, stated as succinctly as possible, by September 15, 2007 to web@nybooks.com, with the subject line "Question for Michael Tomasky." Mr. Tomasky will reply to selected questions on nybooks.com later this month.

The race for the Democratic presidential nomination is more up in the air than it seems. Much has been made on cable news channels of Hillary Clinton's lead, which has grown since the spring to 22 points over Barack Obama, according to a recent USA Today poll.^[1] But national polls are meaningless because we choose nominees state by state, and in the crucial early primary states, such as New Hampshire, the picture is far different. The best snapshot we've been given to date of Iowa, for example, is to be found in a Washington Post–ABC News poll from the same week showing Obama with 27 percent, leading both Clinton and John Edwards by a (statistically insignificant) single point.^[2] In other early-voting states, surveys similarly show that the race is much closer than suggested by the national polls.^[3]