The Colbert Effect

Last week, Comdeian Stephan Colbert entered the presidential race jumping into both the Democratic and Republican primaries. The announcement gained further publicity following Colbert's appearence on the Sunday political standard, NBC's Meet The Press. Today the first poll with Colbert's name presented as an option was released.

"Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm, recently completed a national poll of 1,000 likely 2008 voters that included Colbert's name in both the GOP and Democratic primaries. (He has announced his plans to run in both the Democratic and Republican primaries.) In the field from Oct. 18-21, the survey has a 5 percent margin of error.

In the Democratic primary, Colbert takes 2.3 percent of the vote -- good for fifth place behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (40 percent), Sen. Barack Obama (19 percent), former Sen. John Edwards (12 percent) and Sen. Joe Biden (2.7 percent. Colbert finished ahead of Gov. Bill Richardson (2.1 percent), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (2.1 percent) and former Sen. Mike Gravel (less than 1 percent).

He was less lucky in the Republican field, where he took less than 1 percent of the vote behind even longshot candidates like Reps. Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani led the Republican field with 29 percent, followed by former Gov. Mitt Romney at 12 percent, former Sen. Fred Thompson (11 percent) and Sen. John McCain (10 percent)."

The Colbert effect seems to be marginal, and not at all original. The comedian for prestident role originated with Pat Paulsen who entered the race in 1968, and seemingly every race after. Colbert should next seek to be included in the Democratic debate based on these polls which put him above many of the Democratic candidates. Now that would be entertaining,