Red State Rabble

Whatever else you want to say about intelligent design, it's the Tom Cruise -- or is that the Paris Hilton? -- of popularity polls. Seems like every time public opinion is surveyed, intelligent design or creationism comes out on top.

Evolution, much like hard work, has a more limited appeal.

"Ohioans want to know more about evolution, not less," crowed Robert Crowther in a post spinning the results of Zogby poll last February. "They don’t want the state dumbing down the teaching of evolution by not presenting all the evidence.”

“Surprisingly, Ohioans want to go further than their leaders with 75% favoring teaching intelligent design alongside of Darwinian evolution,” added Crowther. “Even after all the attacks on intelligent design by the dogmatic Darwin-only lobby, the public clearly wants to know more about the theory and make up their own minds.”

Of course, the boys at Discovery aren't above fudging the results when they don't come out the way they're supposed to.

All of this raises an interesting question: With all of their demonstrated power in public opinion surveys, why do creationists and intelligent design activists running for public office so often choose to run as stealth candidates?

Here in Kansas, we can think of a number of recent examples:

• Iris Van Meter, famously ran for school board in 2002 without ever leaving her kitchen. She never spoke publicly, never campaigned door to door, never issued a press release, never returned a reporter's call.
• Van Meter's son-in-law, Brad Patzer -- the drive by candidate who swooped in from the Republic of Idaho for the election and returned within days of losing -- also planned a quiet run for his mother-in-law's seat until he was outed.
• Jesse Hall, who ran against Janet Waugh in Kansas City, Kan., denies he was a stealth candidate. He was just campaigning door to door. Sipping coffee with the neighbors over the kitchen table. Except, almost none of his campaign contributions came from inside his district. He did better raising money from Texans, though. Strange for a man running a quiet little door to door campaign.
• Now we hear persistent rumors about Connie Morris out in western Kansas. She's said to be running a write in campaign -- she lost her board seat in the primary election to Sally Cauble -- on the QT. Just the other night, we were told Connie is making the rounds of various right wing churches in the western part of the state. It's said she plans to go public a week or two before the Nov. 7 election.

These, of course, are just Kansas examples, but out of state readers will be familiar with numerous like examples from their own area.

Could it be the ID activists don't trust their own polling? Do they know something they're not telling the rest of us?