It's hard to imagine how he's going to fill a two hour show without it.

But former CBS anchor Dan Rather swears he's going to avoid the kind of poll-based prognostication which got anchors in trouble earlier this month in New Hampshire, when he brings his reporting on the Florida primary to Eckerd College in St. Petersburg on Tuesday.

"Polling is a crude art...more art than science," he told me in an interview last week, which I featured in a Floridian story today. "Time after time, polling proves unreliable. Those who do the polling say 'look at how many times we’re right.' But I turn it around and say 'look at how many time it was wrong.' Campaign coverage is too poll driven, and I do not exempt myself from that criticism. The herd and flock goes in that direction and once it gets moving, its hard to stop."

Rather's pitch is that his coverage, which will be featured from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on the HD Net cable channel, will take viewers inside the campaigns, focusing more on what strategies the campaigns may be employing and taking a look at where the donations are coming from -- and what people might expect for their money.

After watching Rather's New Hampshire coverage -- his reports are archived on HD Net's Web page -- it seems he's mostly replacing poll-based speculation with speculation from his political experts on campaign tactics. That is, after all, the bread and butter of election coverage -- load of speculation based on opinion polling and exit polls until the returns actually arrive.

Folks who would like a chance to see the old lion in action, can email Eckerd College for the chance to get a seat in Fox Hall, where they will simulcast Rather's report, which will take place in the much smaller Miller Auditorium. The college will provide light refreshments and Rather is expected to show for a Q&A session after his coverage has concluded.

He'll be trying to spread the word about his reports on HD Net, which get a fraction of the attention he once received as the top anchor at CBS News. In particular, he's proud about his story questioning the accuracy of touch screen voting in Florida, though the impact of his work may have been blunted by the decision to discard the machines in favor of optical scan devices last year.

"My own personal opinion is somebody somewhere in some governmental body needs to do a real  investigation in what’s going on in these voting machines," said Rather, who probably would have sparked such an investigation, had his report aired where he used to work, CBS' 60 Minutes. "There are real problems with them and no amount of denial will excuse the fact there are problems with these machines."

And don't bother asking him about the candidates debates, which he calls "forums" because of their lack of substance: "All too often, they descend into this trivia, or near trivia. Parsing words about small things. Where is the talk about what we’re going to do? What are you going to do about the exploding situation in Pakistan?...What are the candidates' plans to deal with China's exploding economic strength? Every time they deal with what I consider to be marginal or trivial subjects, it takes away from the time for ore substance. Seldom have so many talked for so long about so little.”

He pins most of these problems on the way candidates prepare for elections -- focus group-ed and poll-driven to the point where they're not articulating their own views, but a strategy designed for victory.

"The candidates, they market research, they go to focus groups, and they try to find out what they think people want to hear as opposed to what they think people need to hear," Rather said. "This game has gotten ever more expensive...They mold their sound bites, they mold their attacks and defenses rather than taking the view, 'this is what people should be caring about, and let’s call their attention to it.' That’s when they get into these small, trivial (fights)...they’re looking for a gotcha moment, but they don’t illuminate, inform or educate."