Just a quick note on how much I hate polls. Early polls especially. And it’s not even the polls’s fault that I hate them so much; it’s the media’s fault, for overemphasizing what’s in the polls.

Take, for instance, this year’s U.S. Senate election here in California. Media outlets up and down the state, from the Associated Press right on down to the smallest blogs, reported on the recent Field Poll results showing that, among other things, incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer leads all three potential Republican challengers, and that among those challengers getting ready to square off in the June primary, Tom Campbell leads both Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore.

The poll actually asked about two separate elections: the June primary and the November general. For the primary, I think the media should have discarded the results entirely. Yes, Campbell technically is in the lead – with a whopping 30 percent, compared to Fiorina’s 25 percent and a meager 6 percent for Chuck DeVore, the preferred candidate of Teabaggers and birthers. The leading candidate in the race was “Undecided,” who also goes by the name “It’s Only January And I’m Much Too Busy Peeing My Pants Over Scott Brown’s Win In Massachusetts To Give A Hoot About The Damn California Election Yet.” That candidate was pulling down 39 percent.

That’s right; fully four out of ten likely Republican primary voters still have no opinion on this race. Among voters at large (i.e., not just Republicans), 64 percent have no opinion of Campbell, 66 percent don’t know enough about Carly Fiorina to make a judgment, and 85 percent haven’t heard of Chuck DeVore. (Either that, or based on his name they assume he’s a drag-queen stripper and therefore not a serious candidate.)

So is this an "Underdog Campbell unexpectedly in the lead" story or a "Multimillionaire Fiorina falling behind despite loaning millions to her own campaign" story? Neither! At best, this is a case of "Results inconclusive; check back when more people care." Shame on the Associated Press, the Mercury News, and other media outlets for over-reporting on this one. (For one thing, they’re getting poor Tom Campbell’s hopes up. The man supports same-sex marriage and proposed a temporary hike in the gas tax last year to pay down California’s budget deficit; mark my words, he is not winning a Republican primary.*)

On the other hand, the second half of the poll – asking all likely voters, regardless of party, how they might vote in the November general election – has a little more meaning. That’s because more California voters than not are familiar with Barbara Boxer, who’s represented us in Washington for 17 years, and because an election featuring an incumbent tends to become a referendum on that incumbent’s job performance. Overemphasized in the poll was the fact that Boxer’s favorability rating is “only” 48 percent, as if the other 52 percent automatically dislike her and plan to vote against her. In reality, her unfavorability is only at 39 percent, meaning that 13 percent of prospective voters have no opinion of Barbara Boxer.

For that matter, Boxer is ahead of all three potential challengers. She leads Campbell by a margin of 48-38%, Fiorina by 50-35%, and DeVore by 51-34%. Assuming I’m right that Campbell can’t win the Republican primary and that DeVore’s candidacy is DOA, that leaves Carly Fiorina and her millions as the most likely candidate to take a shot at Boxer in the fall. Fifteen points behind, with ten months to go, and a full 50 percent of voters already backing the incumbent, in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a full 13 points? That’s one poll that can’t be over-reported.

* A note on Tom Campbell – I like the guy, I really do. He’s thoughtful, very intelligent (Ph.D from the University of Chicago, former Stanford professor), and puts forward specific, detailed plans on what he’ll do if elected, rather than generic platitudes like “lower taxes” or “shrink government.” But I predict, with all my heart, that he will be massively outspent by the multimillionaire Fiorina and out-conservatived by both Fiorina and DeVore.

The only possible way Campbell could win the GOP primary is if Fiorina tacks hard enough to the right for her and DeVore to split the conservative vote, thus allowing moderate voters to dominate. But how many moderates are left in the California Republican Party? Consider these two statistics: First, the Field Poll breaks down likely GOP voters by ideology, and a full 43 percent call themselves “strongly conservative.” That leaves “moderate” and “moderately conservative” at 57 percent, combined. What percentage of those do you suppose identify simply as "moderate"? Forty percent? Less? I'm thinking probably less, more like 30 to 35 percent.

Second, in 1992, the last time Campbell faced a contested primary, there were a lot more moderates around, he won just 36 percent of the vote; he’ll need at least that much, probably four to six points more, to win in 2010. (Given his startlingly poor polling, DeVore’s probably either going to drop out or simply fade into obscurity by June, making the primary into more of a two-person contest between Campbell and Fiorina.) You tell me how well a pro-choice, pro-same-sex-marriage, former professor from the Bay Area who has supported tax increases in the past is going to fare among today's Republican voters.