How Clinton won in New Hampshire. It was not "tears"

Diebold voter fraud?

I've heard several "theories" as to why Clinton won in NH.

1) She teared up. I don't really buy this one. Maybe a few voters gave her a sympathy vote, but others probably ran from it.

2) She had the backing of the "Democratic Machine" in NH. That seems like a big factor. All the locals have been Clinton supports for a while. She had no trouble coming out with a mayor or city councilman at her side. Obama and Edwards were running as outsiders.

3) She opened up to the crowd. I really like this one. In Iowa, she wasn't taking questions and was running a Bush like campaign of planting crowd questions and keeping her distance from those who might ask hard questions. She engaged a lot more in NH.

4) The polls were wrong. This is probably correct as well. Clinton leads for months, we see a big swing in perception after Iowa, then NH comes in a little closer than projected two weeks ago. If you forget the week between when Iowa finished and NH started, you would find the results right in line.

5) The Clinton campaign put out feelers that Obama was luke warm on abortion rights. This is true and NARAL put out a statement that all the Dems on the ballot were pro-choice to their satisfaction to counter it, but it might have had an impact. We know Clinton won the female vote decisively.

6) Clinton got some favorable press after Iowa. Maybe that's true as well, but she sure got a lot of "she's done" to go along with it. I was surprised on Monday that NPR interviewed her. I thought it must be part of a series and they would interview other candidates, but that didn't happen.

Of course, when you plant questioners in your crowd, you have great answers to the questions which get asked. You oughta be honest about that BBB.

From Andrew Sullivan:



It wasn't the question and answer she's been doing in NH lately which won it for her.

Cycloptichorn

The one I forgot to mention is the "Bradley Effect" where white candidates lie to pollsters for fear of looking racially biased. Several other links here. This essay is thought provoking as well.

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:





When will people realize that all the information they've been wanting to know about Barack Obama has been available to them for more than a year now? When will they stop refusing to read it for themselves rather than wait for some reporter to interpret it for them?

If people still refuse to read Barack Obama's books, speeches and legislation because they are too wordy or too long, here's a "Reader's Digest" version of it.

Can't get much better or more concise detail than the current Wikipedia articles on Obama. There are two of them, one on his biography and the other on his political positions. The nice thing about them is the included footnotes on sources if needed. Here are the links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Barack_Obama


As far as Barack not being questioned by his speech audiences, perhaps you have missed all the town hall meetings he held last year in several states where people asked and he answered questions on many issues. I realize they were during the time that the media was complaining about how early the political season got started and insisted that people were getting burned out by the numerous political rallies and town hall meetings. But, there was a lot of press coverage about those meetings.

The good news is that Obama continues to hold such meetings and you'll have more opportunities to see question and answer sessions, unlike other candidates who ignored questions during the prior year and only answered them two days before a vote when they couldn't be rebutted.

Obama got the 36% that the polls predicted, Hillary took her margin from Edwards, who made the misogynist comment concerning her getting emotional.

Strange how a State who's motto is LIVE FREE OR DIE would support a socialist candidate such as Clinton.

Something like 57% of the voters were women who overwhelmingly voted for Clinton - because she is a woman.

What stupidity. Whatever little respect I have for Democrats is fleeing my body.

This lady is a lost cause
forsaken belife
No chance.
USA is super commercial and nothing to do with democracy.
Show
fun
Consumption

How The Anti-Chris Matthews Vote Helped Clinton to Win
The Anti-Chris Matthews Vote
And how it sparked some media soul-searching (though not from Matthews)
By Liz Cox Barrett
Wed 9 Jan 2008 05:13 PM

As my colleague Gal Beckerman observed earlier today, with last night's New Hampshire victory, Hillary beat the press.

Meanwhile, the press spent some time last night beating itself.

Here is a sampling of the sort of mild self-flagellation on display last night on MBSNC (the channel I happened to be watching) where many of the network's familiar faces-with the exception of Chris Matthews-seemed to be doing some form of soul-searching for having, as Tom Brokaw put it, prematurely and sometimes excitedly "end[ed] the Clinton era," for having been so sure of New Hampshire's outcome hours or even days before the polls closed. (Sounds familiar, no?) Often, it seemed to be Brokaw gently apologizing for his onetime peers. (Maybe that's what gravitas means).

At 10:30pm:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: …Yes a lot of people have a lot of explaining to do…[New Hampshire voters] have almost en masse decided this goes on from here. And this is how we feel. Perhaps predicated on the media coverage they have seen…
Minutes later:

TOM BROKAW: Let me read the headlines of the last twenty-four hours here. So yesterday, a picture of Hillary on the front page of the Boston Herald. "Panic" in the New York Post with Hillary. The end of the Clinton era-a lot of pundits saying that on this channel and all the other channels as well… all of that conventional wisdom was turned on its head. This is one of the great triumphs in recent years in American presidential politics. Hillary Clinton is back. And the rest of us who were saying out loud that this is not going to happen, you know, we've got a lot of explaining to do.

KEITH OLBERMAN: Of course, one lesson from headline succeeding headline succeeding headline is that we should wait for all the headlines rather than just pick the one that has happened the most recently…

And later still:

BROKAW: We don't have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed and trying to stampede, in effect, the process. Look, I'm not just picking on us, it's part of the culture in which we live these days. I think that the people out there are going to begin to make judgments about us, if they haven't already, if we don't begin to temper that temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are deciding…

CHRIS MATTHEWS: You know, Tom, there are whole universities that depend almost entirely for their identity, their brand on their polling operations, and it seems like so many people depend on getting out an early estimate of what is about to come…

There are also whole cable television shows, whole cable news personalities, even, "that depend almost entirely for their identity, their brand… on getting out an early estimate of" - that is, speculating and pontificating on - "what is about to come."

Here is the closest Matthews came to contrition last night:

MATTHEWS: If [Hillary] wins tonight, she has got a leg up on the predictors, on the pundits, the people like me. Who were reading the polls for three days now and believing them. She's able to say, not only am I the Comeback Kid, I'm the victor. That's better than the Comeback Kid. And Barack Obama, I will still say, has given the most inspiring speeches I have heard…Surpises, surprises. You know, politics is, as they say, phenomenal. It is not predictable.

MIKE BARNICLE, Boston Herald: Well, politics is incredible and the emotion of politics is incredible. It proves once again you have to play the games, you have to have the elections…

Yes, you do have to "have the elections."

By far the most dramatic self-flagellatory exchange of the night was the following:

PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC analyst: This is an astonishing development. Look, the pollsters were dead wrong. They were predicting 7-8 to a dozen points for Obama. The press was dead wrong. We had virtually canonized Obama and said he had been born in Bethlehem and now you've got a race where Hillary Clinton is running three or four points ahead of this fella. Something has happened. There is a hidden vote here somewhere, or my guess is this: The New Hampshire voters said, look, the press has been telling us Obama's the second coming. We don't think so. The press has been telling us she's gone, and the women came out and said, no, she's not. What New Hampshire did was stand up and body slam the national establishment, the press corp., the pollsters, the whole bunch that came in here as well as Barack Obama's folks who must be in a state of shock tonight.



MATTHEWS: What Web site?

MADDOW: Talkingpointsmemo.com. It's cited anecdotally…

MATTHEWS: My influence over American politics looms over the people! I'm overwhelmed myself.


MADDOW: People feel that the media is piling on Hillary Clinton. They're coming to her defense with their votes…

So was there, in fact, what amounts to an anti-Chris Matthews vote that emerged in New Hampshire? And if so, why might Hillary Clinton have been the beneficiary?

Would it help to know that Hillary carries a gun and isn't afraid to use it?

Kicky


I wold be happy to hold Chris Mathews down while Hillary Clinton kicks his ball brains.

Why isn't Chris Mathews' wife telling him he is a stupid pig?

BBB

Is that a gun in Hillary's pocket or is she just glad to see you, Kicky?

Re: Kicky


Seriously - LMFAOROTF!!!! Is this how women really think? God forbid one gets in the Whitehouse!!!!!

Re: Kicky


Of course, you being the perfect role model for men and how they think.

Dennis Kucinich seems to think there were problems with the voting machines. He's paying for a recount.

Gotta love that dufus.

There are ethical people on both sides of the aisle applauding Kucinich's effort to begin holding people accountable early in this election cycle. With all the past funny business, you'd think anyone who resisted efforts to clean up the process is "dufus".

I hope he's right. It doesn't make him any less of an idiot though.