Wednesday, January 09, 2008

SPEECHLESS

I knew enough about politics to appreciate the high likelihood that the pre-primary polls in New Hampshire wouldn't precisely predict the outcome. But I never dreamed that Barack Obama, who was ten points ahead of Hillary Clinton, on average, in the final pre-primary polls that I saw, could actually lose by a couple of percent.

Explanations? I have many, but none of them ring true. If any of you feel that you can adequately explained what happened yesterday in the Granite State, do tell.

As for me, I simply recall from my days in law school that I am NOT a New Englander, so my understanding of how they think is probably less than reliable.

In any event, good luck to Barack as he picks up the pieces from last night. If nothing else, he gave another amazing speech ... even if it was in defeat.

2 comments:

Mary Lois said...

In recent years I have been annoyed by the total dependence on pre-primary polls and the assumption that they were always right. Until last night, however, their accuracy was so good I had given up being annoyed.

Then last night I became annoyed again when all the early returns showed a Clinton lead and all the talking heads were blithely ignoring what was in front of their faces and assuming a landslide for Obama. In the Iowa caucus I was equally annoyed that Edwards' second place was overlooked.

More annoying, of course, was the reality that Clinton did win New Hampshire, although not by a significant number. I liked Maureen Dowd's column today, but I cannot believe that the behavior of Bill and Hillary Clinton in the days preceding New Hampshire was really what pulled the votes in. I think their work in the state for the past few years just finally panned out.

I also think that Obama has a long way to go to wrest the nomination from Sen. Clinton and her female supporters. The time seems to them to have come for a woman President, and they have set all other issues aside as Gloria Steinem has, refusing to see the emperor's-new-clothes side of this particular candidate. She says she's for change -- I wonder where she got that -- and that for 30 years she had produced change.

Well, I've been around long enough to have watched her at work, and I don't see that she has changed a thing in the workings of Washington. I don't think she has any idea what Obama is talking about when he uses the word.

Daniel Spiro said...

I tend to agree with Dowd, but what I think even more strongly is that I haven't a clue what happened in New Hampshire.

I've always supported Affirmative Action up to a point ... but applying the kind of tokenist logic that Steinem applies is sickening to me. Obama offers real hope for this country to break the gridlock. Hillary offers four more years of polarization and, hence, inaction. So what does Steinem say? Vote for Hillary because she has two X chromosomes.

Like I said when I created this post, I'm speechless.