“The 2008 Democratic primary race illustrated how, first and foremost, America is a grand spectacle of democracy. … The primaries cost one dearly. They are reserved for highly-trained athletes capable of committing themselves to a quasi-permanent campaign. But they have served to give America some of its biggest stars, like Ronald Reagan who reinvented conservatism to Bill Clinton who introduced a “third way.” And tomorrow …”
January 31st, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Democratic Senator Barack Obama likes to say his campaign for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination is about change — and in January he got LOTS of it…some $32 million in donations.
According to one news report, it’s the largest amount of money ever raised by a Democratic candidate in January. And it will have an immediate impact in advertising on Super Tuesday.
The campaign of Barack Obama will report having raised at least $32 million in the month of January, a staggering amount for one month, campaign manager David Plouffe said this morning.
That included contributions from 170,000 new donors. That brings the campaign’s total number of contributors to 650,000, Plouffe said.
Plouffe said the money came in at a consistent pace throughout the month, but the campaign’s strongest day of fundraising came the day after the New Hampshire primary, which Obama narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton.
That suggests some voters felt that Obamamania and Big Mo were perhaps slipping away, and they wanted to take action ASAP. Read the rest of this entry »
January 15th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Democratic Senator New York Hillary Clinton has pulled way ahead of Barack Obama in national polling in the 2008 Democratic nomination race amid a “dramatic shift” of black voters towards Obama — and Clinton likely won her surprise in New Hampshire by her organization getting massive numbers of “old line” Democrats out to vote on voting day, Gallup Polls’ editor-in-chief said in a bloggers conference call today.
Meanwhile, Gallup Editor in Chief Frank Newport said in the telephone interview, polling shows the national atmosphere now is less hospitable for a third party run by someone such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg than it was for Ross Perot in 1992.
And on the subject of “change?” According to Newport, new polling shows people don’t want a systemic change in Washington but by “change” mean “solve our problems. Fix the Iraq war. Fix health care. Fix immigration.”
His key points:
(1) There was a massive actual turnout in New Hampshire with 70,000 additional voters going to the polls and Clinton apparently won the ground war. Gallup’s polling, which did not go all the way up to election eve, showed Obama’s voters fired up. Obama was ahead among likely voters. But more voters showed up at the polls, and it is believed that the Clinton camp got old-line Democrats who might not have been as fired-up about Clinton — but they got them to the polls.
Gallup is now re-interviewing all of the people interviewed to find out who they actually voted for and why.
Newport believes “real world events” such as the Saturday before the vote debate in which Clinton was pounced on by Obama and former Senator John Edwards and gave a tough response to questions, plus her famous crying video, likely played a key role.
(2) Present polling suggests this isn’t the best year for Bloomberg to run, since it shows voters are generally pleased with the menu of candidates from both parties. “It is not propitious for Bloomberg, really, as much as it was for Perot in 1992, he said.”
(3) Interest in this election is MUCH higher than normal. “There is a very strong level of interest. Eight percent of Americans could say without printing — no hints — that they knew Obama had won the Iowa primary. That is an extraordinary high level of knowledge,” he said.
(4) There has been a “dramatic shift” in black voters away from Clinton to Obama.
(5) In the New Hampshire polling, he said, Gallup didn’t poll up until election eve. Gallup may have to poll up to primary eve in the future because New Hampshire showed that. if there is a high turnout, it could greatly impact polls that were completed a day or a few days before.
(6) Voters ARE influenced by the results of the state primaries and caucuses. “If candidate wins, some of them will say ‘Oh, then maybe I’ll change my allegiance.”
(7) Gallup polling right now shows about a 14 percent advantage nationally for Clinton over Obama — a sudden change. After Iowa, Obama had surged in the polls — but trending has suddenly shifted again Clinton’s way.
TMV Editor’s Note: Part of this post had been up earlier, unfinished and not totally corrected and then there was a major technical glitch on TMV which could be seen in a massive design problem. Due to that glitch, this post was up on the site uncorrected for nearly 30 minutes. We regret the inconvenience to readers.
Are the U.S. primaries, ‘just vulgar mud fights with rules so complicated that they could have been invented by the NFL?’ Such is the verdict of the editorial board of The Netherlands’ leading business daily, the NRC Handelsblad …
EDITORIAL
Translated By Jan de Nijs
January 9, 2007
The Netherlands - NRC Handlesblad - Original Article (Dutch)
For most American primary voters, it’s advantageous that none of the candidates in either party have yet to wrap up their respective nominations. For both Democrats as well as Republicans, the results from the New Hampshire primary differed from the Iowa caucuses. The result is that these tiny states will not play a decisive role for the rest of the country and the majority of the electorate will now have an opportunity to choose. Read the rest of this entry »
Democrat Dennis Kucinich, who won less than 2 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, said Thursday he wants a recount to ensure that all ballots in his party’s contest were counted. The Ohio congressman cited “serious and credible reports, allegations and rumors” about the integrity of Tuesday results.
Did I miss something?
Where were the reports from Newsweek, the AP, the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News and MSNBC about these “serious and credible” allegations that New Hampshire’s votes were not fairly or correctly counted? MORE:
Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan said Kucinich is entitled to a statewide recount. But, under New Hampshire law, Kucinich will have to pay for it. Scanlan said he had “every confidence” the results are accurate.
In a letter dated Thursday, Kucinich said he does not expect significant changes in his vote total, but wants assurance that “100 percent of the voters had 100 percent of their votes counted.”
Oh.
Kucinich alluded to online reports alleging disparities around the state between hand-counted ballots, which tended to favor Sen. Barack Obama, and machine-counted ones that tended to favor Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. He also noted the difference between pre-election polls, which indicated Obama would win, and Clinton’s triumph by a 39 percent to 37 percent margin.
So Kucinich’s main source of information about how the entire news media, the state of New Hampshire, all the politicians (why haven’t THE OTHER CANDIDATES demanded a recount?) have been so blind comes from blogs? That’s where the main controversy has raged.
Or could his information have come from that flying saucer?
January 10th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
NOTE: The Moderate Voice from time to time runs Guest Voice posts by readers who don’t have their own websites or some people who who want to present their viewpoint or just another perspective to TMV’s highly diverse readership. Guest Voice columns do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TMV or its writers.
This Guest Voice column is by Bloomsburg University journalism professor Walter Brasch.
The Disconnected Media
by Walter Brasch
Add pundits, pollsters, and the press to the list of losers in the New Hampshire primary. They weren’t on the ballot. They didn’t vote. And they didn’t get it right.
For the Democrats, Sen. Barack Obama, fresh from victory in Iowa, was supposed to cruise into a double digit win in the Granite State. Sen. Hillary Clinton, at least if anyone believed the media, was going to be flattened by the Obama steamroller that was chugging to dominate all primaries.
In the Republican primary, Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucus, wasn’t expected to be at the front of the pack, but he and Mitt Romney were going to go head-to-head. Sen. John McCain, according to most of the media, would go down in flames, forced to give up what he hoped was a comeback.
The voters thought different, giving Clinton and McCain “surprising” wins. At least it was “surprising,” according to the media, which over and over proclaimed their wins as “surprising,” a desperate effort to give a plausible reason for having been wrong.
The TV media, with journalists an almost extinct minority among what passes as their news staffs, think the best way to cover the primaries is to display 15 seconds of a candidate’s visit to a doughnut shop, and then shove in another 45 seconds of public comments about the candidate who said the same thing at 10 different stops that day. Print media reporters spend as much as three minutes with a potential voter, condensing the comments to fewer than 20 words. For variety, the reporters quote not only each other but also the pride of pollsters who hover like trash-dump flies around political campaigns and the media circus.
Smugly, the corporate mainstream media believe they are telling the people what they need to know to defend and preserve democracy—and the millions in advertising revenue. When not watching, eating, or sleeping with the candidates, the media horde eruditely fill air time and newspaper and magazine columns with predictions and mindless discussion, trivializing the race to discuss one candidate’s hair, another candidate’s choice of pantsuits. They make it seem that without hourly ratings and political predictions, American democracy would fall to the terrorists. However, the media’s analyses and predictions may be about as good as those of local weather forecasters and sportswriters.
In her victory speech, Sen. Clinton said she listened to the people of New Hampshire and found her voice. Maybe the media need to spend less time with the candidates and more time with the people, and just listen to them, to try to understand them, their needs and problems, rather than see every carbon molecule as a potential seven-second sound bite or indistinguishable statistic.
Perhaps, then, we might accept the media as having some credibility.
Dr. Brasch is professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University, a former newspaper reporter and editor, and author of 17 books. His latest book is Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush. His website is www.walterbrasch.com
January 9th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Get ready to see an intensely fought contest for the Democratic party’s Presidential nomination between Illinois Senator Barack Obama and New York Senator Hillary Clinton. In fact, in the wake of his defeat in the New Hampshire primary, Obama is basically saying: “No more Mr. Nice Guy.”
And there are signs this is already happening. The “issue”: did Hillary Clinton REALLY cry or not? A big mistake? (We say “yes.”)
No matter. Keep watching the main event which will be Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton Hillary and Bill Clinton since it promises to be lively indeed.
Barack Obama talked of introducing some Chicago smackdown to his politics of hope Wednesday, seeking a rebound after Hillary Rodham Clinton grasped victory in the New Hampshire primary.
…..Obama responded not just to his Democratic rival’s New Hampshire primary win but to attacks on him by her husband, former President Clinton.
“I think that Senator Clinton, obviously, is a formidable and tough candidate, and we have to make sure that we take it to them just like they take it to us,” the Illinois senator said. “I come from Chicago politics. We’re accustomed to rough and tumble.”
Obama is bidding for resurgence in South Carolina and Nevada, which vote this month. On Wednesday, he received the endorsement of the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union local in Nevada in addition to the backing of the state’s chapter of the Service Employees International Union.
Bill Clinton complained in New Hampshire that Obama was getting a free pass from the scrutiny turned on Hillary Clinton and likened the Illinois senator’s campaign to a “fairy tale.” Obama shot back Wednesday that “the real fairy tale is, I think, Bill Clinton suggesting somehow that we’ve been just taking a cakewalk here.”
But there may be perils for Obama if he decides to wade into uncertain waters.
For instance, his campaign chairman has now created a mini-controversy that is about as reprehensible as the controversy involving surrogates going after Obama. File THIS one in the they-should-have-known-better department:
The Tears are now officially an issue in Campaign 2008.
Obama’s national campaign co-chair, Jesse Jackson, Jr., just went on MSNBC and appeared to question Hillary’s tears, which he called “tears that melted the Granite State,” adding that those tears “moved voters.”
He also suggested that Hillary was crying about “her appearance.”
There’s more (go to the link since we have a limit on silliness on THIS site) but the fact that Obama’s camp is now going to wade into the politics of pettiness, provincialism and apparently psychics (does Jesse Jackson, Jr. read minds?) suggests that “hope” and “change” and “experience” are all going to take a back seat to trying to paint another candidate as lying, manipulative or (in the case of Bill Clinton) trying to make press coverage of a candidate the new issue when things go bad for a given candidate.
My prediction perfection in Iowa ended in New Hampshire. It was nice while it lasted, comparable I assume (on a much smaller scale) to the sensation of being ranked #1 in the just-concluded college football season. On the bright side — if misery does, in fact, love company — I am blessed this morning with many confused and humbled “friends.”
I take some comfort in the fact that I was at or inside the standard 3-point margin of error on every pick except the “Comeback Gal,” Senator Clinton, who went from burnt toast to toast of the town overnight.
Since I’m not a woman, I’ll refrain from commenting on that aspect of the race and focus instead on the Independents.
Though I lean Republican, I am a decidedly moderate, independent-minded Republican (a.k.a., an IRV). And as a moderate IRV, I confess, Dr. Paul intrigued me once upon a time. But his borderline insanity on the Federal Reserve, his free-trade conspiracy theories, and those resurgent accusations of racism, finally convinced me that this Libertarian-in-Republican-clothes was simply the wrong pick, regardless of the hype surrounding him. That left McCain as the only viable choice, for me, on the R slate.
It seems a number of other I’s and IRV’s in N.H. felt the same way. In fact, they apparently felt so strongly about McCain, they boosted him to Obama’s disadvantage.
Problem: As an IRV, I’d love to have the choice, in the general election, between Obama and McCain, because I’m convinced they are the strongest, most-promising candidates in both parties — and it’d be nice, for once in my life, to have the opportunity to vote for the greater of two goods rather than the lesser of two evils.
January 8th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The political pundits, political operatives and political scientists will be analyzing the New Hampshire primary results for days but there is one thing that won’t be in dispute: the victories of Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton and Republican Senator John McCain are the tales of two comebacks.
SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON had been virtually counted-out by Election Day. Most (not all) polls showed her support going south faster than snowbirds traveling from New York to Florida in winter. Her candidacy’s historic nature — the first woman to be seriously in the running for President — was seemingly-overshadowed by Senator Barack Obama, who (until tonight) seemed on a fast-track to be the first black American to be the Democratic Party candidate…and perhaps hold the Oval Office.
Her husband, former Bill Clinton, seemed to be virtually working overtime to alienate the press. Nothing leaves editors colder than candidates who blame the press (particularly candidates who, for a while, seemingly got a pass from the press on some matters). She was charisma-challenged, at time when Obama showed a new generation the kind of charisma Baby Boomers experienced in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, JFK and RFK. Many perceived her as “damaged goods” because her image had been so carefully-shaped and lampooned by conservatives such as talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
Why did she win? Did voters agree with Bill Clinton’s angry diatribes at the end about the press and Obama? Was it the choking up? Or the piling on ABOUT the choking up — the exaggerations in the media and talk shows? (Clinton did not weep, break down, etc). Did women get upset seeing all the Democratic men ganging up on her at the last debate? Did John Edwards help her win, with his blunt attacks? Could Edward’s fading political star have benefited her? Or did Republican Senator John McCain continue to have such wide appeal to independents that he siphoned votes away from Obama?
No matter. Hillary Clinton WON in an upset. So her candidacy survives. And, now, the Democratic Party establishment types that had been close to jumping overboard can put their life preservers away (for now). It may be a brutal contest, but the New Hampshire vote evened the Democratic playing field. It’s really Obama Versus Bill and Hillary Clinton. May the best man –or man and woman –win…
SENATOR JOHN McCAIN apparently completed the extensive balancing act. In New Hampshire, at least. He made his way from one end of the political tightrope to the other. McCain’s political resurrection is about as incredible as any story in American politics — and it was by a BIG margin, leaving his closest rival, former Gov. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, in the dust. Among other things, McCain proved you don’t have to have great hair to win.
It must be an especially happy moment for McCain. In 2000 he was the flavor of the month on college campuses and was to that race what Obama is today. Then he lost to George W. Bush and decided to win-over all of the GOP groups that sandbagged him. Independent voters were watching and he lost them in droves due to his position changes. He became a super war hawk at a time when the nation turned against the war. He lost staff. Money. His presidential campaign was dead.
January 8th, 2008 By DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Assistant Editor, TMV Columnist
It’s not stunning that Hillary won New Hampshire. What is stunning is the gullibility of the press and pundits following corporate polls that were as off as Roseanne singing the Star Spangled Banner on the baseball diamond.
After Iowa too many pollsters leaned out of their windows like old Mrs. Goldberg gossiping, calling out that the funeral dirge was playing for Senator Clinton. But even if so, which it wasn’t, tonight it’s clear, the Senator’s first, middle and last name may well be Lazarus. And some of the most venerable of the newscasters were taken in by the ‘public polls,’ as they called them.
I used to have a fantasy about pollsters too. When I was a kid, I imagined pollsters chose ‘informants’ with fancy names at random, out of the phone book…. like, Mr. Heathcliff Cunningham… but suspected many informants may have looked, in reality… more like characters from Mad magazine: blobby strappy-Tshirt, sitting in chairs that looked like enormous decayed mushrooms, three-day beard stubble, a mountain of empty crushed beer cans … and that was just the women…
Whoever the informants were, they had lots of opinions. Informed or ill-informed didn’t matter, male, female nuances were not graded in polls. What mattered: The stats in aggregate and by gender, socio-economic status, education, religion were ‘the get’ for my imaginary pollster…. amassing numbers. For money.
But, we all have to wake up from favored, or even hand-me-down fantasies, if we are to know the best, but also the worst, of human nature.
Now, these many years later, throughout 38 years as a practicing psychoanalyst, I know polling is a science. Or ought to be. But is the modern corporate business called polling, always free of what in psychology is called, “researcher’s bias?”
… that is, whomsoever pays for, whomsoever has interest in one side or the other of outcome… and who without blind study design or control groups, or an ironclad design, will not only influence, but skew, the numbers toward the researcher’s known or unconscious personal agenda(s)?
So many corporate polls. And tonight in New Hampshire, so many of the polls off the mark… the pundits stating and repeating the poll ‘data’, were misled all the way from a bit, to a huge amount. “Barack’s going to slam-dunk Hillary in New Hampshire” being only one of quite a few “stats” that tanked. Utterly. Embarrassingly so. It’s not that mistakes were made; everyone makes errors. It’s that polling as a science depends on ‘near accuracy,’ not a miss as far as Texas is from China.
Since pollster corporations, invited or not, have become part of the electoral process, given ‘the corporate benediction’ by many broadcasters, … I notice quite a few newscasters freed from having to read from the boring teleprompter, but instead, now sometimes act as though they’re ‘in the box with Cosell,” crying out the plays as they see ‘em, and drawing most of all on the numbers from polls that are simply handed to them, and not questioned.
Unfortunately, then, the news becomes not issues, not candidates, not investigative reports, not face to face interviews of substance, but hours and hours of a quasi exciting game (for the pundits and broadcasters only) of down-on-knees, back alley craps… with one pundit tonight literally yelling as though at ringside, (not Seven-come-eleven-Baby-needs-new-shoes, haaaaa… but) …. “The Clinton Obama upset… It’s as big as Ali/ Foreman!!!”
Spin is better done with floss rather than facts. However, tonight, when pundits and newscasters found themselves ‘wrong’ because they took the polls’ skew to heart, many touted Senator Clinton’s win as ‘a STUNNING upset,’ an ENORMOUS stunner’ and other purple sports’ prosaia… when in fact, Senator Clinton’s win in NH is perhaps only stunning to some of them who relied on polls too deeply. For a minute there, as developed as I think Chris Matthews and Tim Russert (who I know from adult literacy events in NY) often are in insight rather than braggadoccio, I thought I was watching a Saturday Night Live skit as each one Read the rest of this entry »
Yes! What a night for AARP! Two of its members, seventy-one year old John McCain, who as late as a few weeks ago, was written off as (politically) dead, and sixty-year old Hillary Clinton, who just yesterday was believed to be crushed to death under Omnibus Obama… have both emerged to win their respective parties’ primary in New Hampshire.
On the Democratic side of the roster, Hillary edges out Obama around 39% to 37%, though CNN projects each will get 8 delegates, with Edwards out of the money at around 17%, and frankly, out of a particular reason to remain in this, other than, I suppose as a spoiler. [And so that he can show us all that he’s still a mean-spirited ambulance chaser whose first instinct is be a sexist jerk. Frankly, for that bit of gratuitous meanness and sexism, I hope he drops out of the race tomorrow; he’s only in it on the premise that somehow neither a Black man nor a woman can win. Well, they’ve just won in the first two contests… so there. The only PROVEN LOSER in this race is none other than John Edwards himself. Did I say that out loud?] Richardson, at 5%, should give up any day now. Dennis Kucinich got around 3000 votes– around 1000 more than Fred Thompson, who, I’m sorry, cannot be considered a viable candidate. As Kos said, Hillary’s huge comeback (polls showed her down by over a dozen points this morning) makes this a national race again, and all of us– at least in 22 states, including NY, CA and NJ, will get to count– on February 5th. THAT is huge– as now, tiny IA and NH are no longer “the deciders” for the rest of us. That’s a victory for all of us–not just Hillary.
The short answer is that the kind of crossover votes that helped Obama in IA stayed with the GOP tonight, to vote for McCain; worse for Obama, on net, some independents and Dems switched to McCain; in any event whatever Hillary’s organization did, they did right– or maybe it was her moment of inadvertently demonstrating that she was actually a human being? Who knows? Whatever it was… it worked! But it means that Obama– who to his credit, did not pretend that any of this would be easy– is no longer in the driver’s seat, and must slug it out in NV, SC and FL, ahead of super-duper Tuesday.
On the Republican side, it seems that the Establishment did its job for McCain, who won here in 2000 over Establishment fave Dubya. Well, they like him, even at 71. Romney, from neighboring MA, comes in second; many feel that his campaign strategy– of having to win IA and NH, and winning neither, means he’s toast. Well, yes, by rights… but he has a lot of money, and will probably fight on (and he’s at least finished second, tonight, a closer second than in IA). Huck comes in 3rd at 11%, Rudy improving to 4th with 10%, Paul at 9%, and Thompson at 1%. Let me say… he is just not a viable candidate. Get rid of him. He really should be considered a national joke… not even up to Wesley Clark’s late arrival… Just get out Fred… you’re taking up space on the stage. Rudy, who has made FL his firewall, is polling no better than 4th there… Swirling the bowl is Rudy… frankly, he was the one candidate, either party, who had to be stopped… and his own personal corruption seems to have stopped him, along with insanely stupid strategy.
And so… McCain, who himself was written off as dead, emerges as the GOP Establishment favorite, going into MI, SC, FL and NV; Romney, who won WY, and will probably win his native MI, is still in it, and Huck is still a movement of his own, though in the 22 state melee on February 5th, not having any money or real organization may be a problem for him (though if he wins SC, and wins or does well in FL… again, whoa Nelly, though the GOP Establishment will, if necessary, promise him McCain’s veep spot to keep Evangelicals interested in the general).
And aside from the big winners tonight being old people, the other big winners are old money, as in “Grand Old Party”. Not only do the Republicans place their own strongest candidate back in play (despite their bizarre visceral hatred for him), but the Democratic candidate they would most like to face has emerged as the NH winner from a five-day maelstrom of doom… as ready for prime-time.
January 8th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
In the end, polls leading up to the New Hampshire primary vote showing a double-digit lead for Democratic Senator Barack Obama were wrong — and Senator Hillary Clinton scored an upset victory — once again tossing the (new) conventional wisdom out the window and creating a new political dynamic.
And so the stage is set for a battle royal — one likely to go the distance:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won New Hampshire’s Democratic primary Tuesday night, pulling out a stunning victory over Sen. Barack Obama in a contest that she had been forecast to lose.
On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain defeated former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and climbed back into contention for their party’s presidential nomination.
Obama had beaten Clinton, who has been the national front-runner, in the Iowa caucuses last week, and he had appeared to be poised for victory in New Hampshire with tracking polls showing him surging into the lead.
But with 63 percent of Democrats precincts reporting Tuesday night, Clinton had 39 percent of the vote to 36 percent for Obama, who is seeking to become the nation’s first black president. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina trailed with 17 percent.
Polling place interviews showed that the female vote — which deserted the former first lady when she finished third in last week’s Iowa caucuses — was solidly in Clinton’s New Hampshire column.
The former first lady also was winning handily among registered Democrats. Obama led her by an even larger margin among independents.
CBS News also has declared her the winner — and noted that the returns even surprised the Clinton camp:
Clinton, the former first lady who finished third in Iowa, was mounting an unexpectedly stiff challenge to Obama in the nation’s first primary. Polling place interviews showed that the female vote — which deserted the former first lady when she finished third in last week’s Iowa caucuses — was solidly in her New Hampshire column.
Clinton also was winning handily among registered Democrats. Obama led her by an even larger margin among independents.
She had 39 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary to 37 percent for Obama, who is seeking to become the nation’s first black president. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina trailed with 17 percent.
Despite running a distant third to his better-funded rivals, Edwards had no plans to step aside. He pointed toward the South Carolina primary on Jan. 26, hoping to prevail in the state where he was born - and where he claimed his only victory in the presidential primaries four years ago. Clinton’s performance, based on the early returns, surprised even her own inner circle.
The question is now being asked (we asked it much earlier): could the widely-publicized incident of Ms. Clinton choking up have played a role in an election result not mirrored in a slew of pre-election polls?
Stay tuned…
January 8th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The political nail-biter continues in New Hampshire, where primary votes so far show New York Senator Hillary Clinton holding a slim but persistent lead against Senator Barack Obama, whose victory in the Iowa caucuses last week led to an explosion of Obama-mania in not just the media — but in pre-New Hampshire opinion polls as well.
Part of the pre-vote conventional wisdom was that New Hampshire independents would vote for Obama in such numbers that it was possible that it would sink Republican John McCain’s campaign. McCain has long been a favorite of independent voters, but fell out of favor when he tried to win over parts of the GOP that scuttled his 2000 campaign.
Did the reverse happen tonight? (Note that the final vote is not over and neither Clinton or Obama have yet been projected as winning the contest)
Did McCain siphon votes from Obama? (The final results will tell the story). In the sea of press and blog stories (including on TMV) on Obama, it was easy to forget: McCain “connects” exceedingly well on TV, has a life narrative many respect and know and successfully woos voters in one-on-one situations.
CLICK HERE and you can see the see-saw in motion, via a page on MSNBC (it’s updated ever 5 minutes).
The bottom line: as of 6:53 PST the Democratic race is still not being called by the networks — but keep in mind that Clinton has steadily maintained her lead (the numbers are changing as we write this). ABC News:
With the polls closed in New Hampshire, ABC News does not have enough information yet to project a winner for the Democratic Party in the state that is poised to irrevocably shake up the Democratic presidential race.
For the Democrats, it looks like a two person race between Democratic rivals Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. — and ABC News is projecting that former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., will be third.
Meanwhile, exit poll results indicated 55 percent of Democratic primary voters said they’re most interested in a candidate who can bring about needed change — suggesting Obama’s campaign message has resonated with the first-in-the-nation primary voters.
January 8th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Early returns from New Hampshire put Republican Senator John McCain ahead in the Republican Presidential nomination race — while the Democratic Party’s race is too close to call. The question thus becomes: will pollsters be red-faced tomorrow — and the conventional wisdom be changed again?
The reason: rather than showing a massive blowout for Senator Barack Obama on the Democratic side, early returns show Senator Hillary Clinton narrowly ahead. CNN has projected McCain will win the Republican primary. (Here is a LIST of polls going into the vote.)
Sen. John McCain will win the New Hampshire GOP primary, CNN projects.
Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a tight race, early results show.
Clinton and Obama are within 2 percentage points of each other as early vote counts come in.
With 11 percent of precincts counted, Clinton had 39 percent of the vote to Iowa caucus winner Obama’s 36 percent. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards had 17 percent. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had 4 percent, and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich had 1 percent.
Edwards will finish third, CNN projects.
With 9 percent of Republican precincts reporting, McCain had 37 percent of the vote. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was second with 28 percent, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the winner of last week’s Iowa GOP caucuses followed with 12 percent.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had 9 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 8 percent.
John McCain was leading Mitt Romney in New Hampshire’s Republican primary, early returns showed Tuesday. On the Democrats’ side, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton battled in a race that was too close to call.
Even before the voting ended at 8 p.m. EST, there were reports of possible changes in staff and strategy in Clinton’s campaign.
…The economy and the war in Iraq were the top issues in both party primaries, according to interviews with voters leaving their polling places after casting ballots in the most wide-open presidential race in at least a half-century.
Exit polls showed independents constituting a slightly larger proportion of voters on the Democratic side — they made up 43 percent of those voting Democratic, as opposed to 38 percent on the Republican side.
In New Hampshire, independents can opt to vote in either party’s primary, making attracting them a key to victory.
If Clinton wins, some questions should be asked, such as:
–Polls started showing a sizable Obama margin going into the vote. What happened?
–Former President Bill Clinton has been criticized by some (including yours truly) for melding Hillary Clinton’s campaign into a campaign seemingly with him as the unofficial co-candidate. Rather than cause a backlash, did this help her?
–How did the two organizations stack up in terms of the ground game?
–Did Ms. Clinton’s getting choked up on Monday strike a chord with New Hampshire voters? It got widespread media play.
January 8th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
New Hampshire voters are reportedly flocking to the ballot boxes in such record numbers today that they’re running out of ballots — amid signs that many independent voters were opting to vote in the Democratic race.
That’s likely to mean another big win for Democratic Senator Barack Obama and another loss for longtime front-runner Senator Hillary Clinton. The other candidate who is widely believed to likely benefit from any independent voter spike would be Republican Arizona Senator John McCain, who won there in 2000. But some analysts believe independents voting for Obama could in the end deprive McCain of a victory.
Secretary of State Bill Gardner predicted a record turnout and some polling places reported they were in danger of running out of ballots. Lines formed at some voting stations before they opened at 6 a.m., according to local news reports. One state election official described the turnout as “absolutely huge” and it was added to by a springlike day.
Turnout was particularly high in Portsmouth and Keene — both of which are overwhelmingly Democratic, as well as Republican-leaning Hudson — And some towns were running out of Democratic ballots, with independents favoring that contest over the GOP race.
At this point is heavier than it was four years ago — a positive sign for Obama and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., both of whom are depending on large numbers of independent voters to back them in their primary races.
There were echoes in his Iowa victory speech Thursday night that may come from the influence on Barack Obama of the man who worked with JFK on “Profiles in Courage” and his Inaugural Address in 1960.
At 79, Ted Sorensen has been out on the campaign trail, introducing Obama and comparing him to the President he served almost half a century ago.
“Obama is older than Kennedy was when Kennedy ran for president,” Sorensen has been pointing out. “He’s had the same experience in the Senate as Kennedy had when he ran for president, and he’s had the same opportunity to view the country from abroad as Kennedy did when he ran for president.”
Sorensen, who doesn’t see well now and needs help getting up to speak, tells crowds, “Don’t worry about my eyesight. I have more vision than the President of the United States.” Read the rest of this entry »
January 8th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The latest Zogby tracking poll indicates the headline coming out of the today’s New Hampshire primary could again be voters thirsting for change giving Democratic Senator Barack Obama a whopping victory margin — and a comeback by Republican Senator John McCain:
The big momentum behind Democrat Barack Obama, a senator from Illinois who is seeking his party’s presidential nomination, continued up to the last hours before voters head to the polls to cast ballots in the New Hampshire primary election, a new Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby daily tracking poll shows. Fed by a strong win in the Iowa caucuses Thursday, Obama leads with 42% support, compared to 29% for rival Sen. Hillary Clinton.
In the Republican primary race, Arizona Sen. John McCain extended his lead over rival Mitt Romney from five to nine percentage points since yesterday, the survey shows.
Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards mostly held steady, winning 17% support, though he has begun to lose steam. Though he won the Republican Iowa caucus Thursday, Mike Huckabee found himself in the same position as Edwards, unable to build Obama-like momentum and stuck in third – a distant third in Huckabee’s case.
If the polling results reflect the final results it suggests:
![[The New Zealand Herald, New Zealand]](http://worldmeets.us/images/obamawhitehouseblack_nzherald.gif)
