eriposte, you can gloat if you want, but the manic posts you've treated us to since Iowa hints at more than a little discomfort. I'd suggest if your candidate becomes the nominee, you find a source of "happy pills"....once the real GOP trains their guns on her, you'll need them by the boatload. In the meantime, primaries/caucus in two tiny states proves only one thing and that is that a tiny portion of the public is very undecided where to turn. On to Feb 6.
Posted by T2 at January 9, 2008 06:22 AMt2,
It may have escaped your notice but the "real gop" has been training its guns on Hillary for a really, really, really, long time. That's what some of us like about her--that she keeps fighting. I like Obama and Edwards too, but the whole "wow, wait till that little woman wakes up and realizes she's a target" shtick is pretty stupid. Are you too young to remember vince foster and travelgate? because I'm not.
aimai
Posted by aimai at January 9, 2008 06:32 AMGreat post eriposte.
Congrats HRC. This is a great comeback. NH voters didn't see the beef in Obama's hope speeches. I certainly think, she needs to stay focus on Economy and hit him with how he is going to bring the change he talks about. Take questions like she did in NH, make voters educated. Be Hillary and stop listening to the pollsters.
Go Hillary.
Remember, if Obama is our nominee, I will vote for him. But I think, she is a better candidate than him at this time and I think, eriposte is like that too from what I get from his posts.
Well, Obama does have Bill Bradley's endorsement. John Anderson's, too - remember him?
Which may or may not be positives, depending what you think of Bill and John.
Posted by Horselover Fat at January 9, 2008 07:05 AMGloat, T2? eriposte didn't call people bitter even once, nor did he say "Obama's dead." You might check out the comments from Obamaphiles all week for some examples of real gloating. How sad that a Hillary supporter isn't allowed to post after a good night for the candidate without getting sneered at for supporting said candidate.
If anyone should be gloating, it's all of us for the total humiliation of the chattering class last night. They looked like the extreme idiots they truly are.
Still, it's funny - up until yesterday, the primaries were over and Obama was our new president, and today, quite suddenly, people remember that this is only two states out of 50.
Posted by iamcoyote at January 9, 2008 07:29 AMWell, whatever happened in NH yesterday is basically unprecedented as far as I know, I'll await some site digging up a situation where final polls and consensus polling trends were as utterly wrong as these (by the nation's top organizations and the campaigns themselves) were in NH, 2008.
Was there EVER substantial movement to Obama as (all) the polls said? Did it then immediately (and in the same amount) move back to Hillary over the course of a day? Why? This doesn't happen, basically. Yet that's the story. It's implausible.
At the very least, followers of American politics have no basis to believe expert opinion polls for political races anymore. Apparently enormous masses of folks can now have their stated opinions change over the course of 6 hours with no identifying event as the cause. That's quite new.
I haven't yet seen if the exit polls tracked with the actual results. One hopes so. Perhaps if a TLCer sees that somewhere they can let us know. Thanks.
Posted by euzoius at January 9, 2008 07:49 AMIf you want to gloat...I gloated over "the total humiliation of the chattering class last night. They looked like the extreme idiots they truly are," in 2004. Those people continued to talk up the exit polls over the actual numbers on the lower portion of the screen. They didn't pay attention to the numbers, the vote counts. They wrote off President Bush and the voters put him back in office to spite them. Or in spite of them. Nothing different, nothing new, same script, these script writers should go on strike, unfortunately they'd starve.
Posted by peter at January 9, 2008 07:56 AMLet's not be too hard on Obama.
He's likable enough.
Exit polls aren't wrong, peter---that's how real democracies know that an election was stolen, like Ukraine's, and like Bush accomplished in 2004.
The Hillary NH win is much different, as far as I can see. Bush's "win" in 2004 didn't happen, Hillary's could have, it's just unfathomable.
Posted by euzoius at January 9, 2008 08:02 AMFirst, without Edwards siphoning votes from Obama on the Left Clinton's amazing victory would have been a depressing landslide loss (note Tim Grieve at Salon today). Despite her campaign's redefining the race as a two-person battle she should hope that Edwards does hang in there until the convention.
Second, New Hampshire is a conservative state. If the most conservative, well-connected candidate can't bust 40% then how great is her popularity among the rest of Democrats across the country?
Third, it is reassuring that the very same Diebold machines that can be hacked in Ohio can be fully trusted by Clintons supporters in NH. It shows that the same gullibility that Republicans felt in 2004 is shared by Clinton supporters. You guys aren't all that different. Heck, your leaders both supported the war! Beautiful. No wonder why you find "change" a bad word. Was the huge switch in votes from Obama to Clinton the result of Steinem's op-ed, the guys with the "Iron My Shirt Bitch" sign, or the guy who asked Hillary the rude question? Was the discrepancy between the preelection polling and the vote really a grand movement of women to vote by gender identification or did someone just flip a switch or two?
And do you see any headlines saying that Hillary Clinton is the first woman to win a presidential primary? There was all this gloating by Chris Matthews about how the world would shake if Obama won Iowa. Nothing, nothing in the news about the first woman winning a primary. And Obama was not the first black man to win a primary - Jesse Jackson beat him to it.
Let's just agree that this was unexpected by everyone including Hillary Clinton. If you are a supporter of hers, then there is cause for celebration. If you are not, then pick up the pieces and move on to another day.
I'm a woman, a mother, grandmother and wife. I am HRC's age and a practicing attorney. I am proud of what she has accomplished and proud to be on her team. That is not to diminish the potency of Obama's appeal to many people; it is just to note that we all need to show some respect for each other.
Posted by Grandmother at January 9, 2008 08:35 AMEuzoius, the exit polls track within a point or three of the results. It was the polls between Iowa and NH that were not trustworthy. Experts said there wasn't time to get an accurate read on what the Iowa victory meant to Obama in NH, and they were right. I highly doubt Diebold decided this election.
Look, all this "Phoenix" and "Comeback Kid," etc., are hogwash, just rubbish. Let's look at what really happened, and I'm repeating myself here, but it's true.
A month ago Hillary had a 20-point lead in NH. She had a double-digit lead in NH less than 2 weeks ago. Less than a week ago, a 7-point lead. Those were real numbers.
Those polls showing an Obama 13-point lead turned out to be garbage, and unreliable as experts said they would be.
What happened here was Obama's momentum was only enough to grab 3 or 4 more points from Hillary since Iowa.
Now, let's have a really, really frank conversation about the racial politics here. And, please note, I am NOT saying "New Hampshire honkeys are racist." I don't believe that, okay? What I am talking about are how the demographics of America will effect these Democratic primaries, elections in a nation that for 500 years -- since before there was a nation -- has kept white people at the top of the heap, unjustly so. Today, there's an opportunity to change that. Given the demographics in the rest of the states, how do you think that's going to work out for Hillary? I'll tell you how.
All the rest of the primaries from here will go differently, they will break for Obama, if only because of the racial demographics. If New Hampshire was as "black" as Nevada -- and that's saying something, because Nevada is lily white and Hispanic, not African-America -- Hillary would have lost last night. And that's what's going to happen to Hillary in South Carolina, Nevada, and Florida. She might pick something up on Super Tuesday, but it won't be California. Listen to what I'm saying very clearly, and do the math yourself. Can any candidate win the Democratic primaries without the "minority" vote? No, they can't. Does anybody believe that anyone but Obama will get that vote?
On top of this, Obama is NOT the "black" candidate. He's an American candidate. I don't think the white people of New Hampshire made a decision against Obama due to his race. Obama has a lot of support from white America, probably just a few percentage points less than Hillary. But you take that support and combine it with the racial demographics in the rest of the states, Hillary loses. Period.
All that happened last night was Hillary did not entirely lose her once insurmountable lead. She's going to lose more and more from here on out. The momentum, the trends in the polls, are against her. The only way she wins now is if Obama's supporters give up, and I don't see that happening.
Posted by Brian Bell at January 9, 2008 08:39 AMNo euzoius, you don't get to make that difference. Same thing, same machines, maybe a sticker on top of the Diebold name, something called Premier. What a crock, Hill's NH win is different than Bush's Ohio win. Nope, same thing. If one is good so is the other.
Posted by peter at January 9, 2008 08:41 AMBob in Pacifca - First of all, classifying NH as a "conservative" state is wildly incorrect. Democrats and Indies in NH have a long progressive history - and this is a primary, where Repugs can't vote in a Democratic race! Secondly,again, this is a primary where more than two candidates compete - true for both parties. It would be a fallacy to assume how people would actually vote in a two person race. Apples and oranges.
Thirdly, I find it very sad that some Obama supporters are of the same mind-set of those Nader voters in 2000 who ensured 8 years of Bush hell by their ill-placed and stupid righteousness!
Posted by islandpartisan at January 9, 2008 08:49 AMUnbelievable, Obama's cult followers wouldn't stop at anything. Here are some of the reasons provided by Obama followers
1. Diebold machines. (wouldn't this matter or what if Obama had won the elections)
2. White folks wont vote for black man.( Nearly 36% of the people voted for Obama. He is a very viable candidate. Just 3% more thought Clinton would be better)
3. Hillary's tear moment changes the momemtum. (According to polls, Men were more sympathetic to this than women. But she had the lion share of the women votes.)
Give some credit to NH voters, probably, they didn't see any beef in Obama. I think he needs to explain more on his policies and how he would bring in change and explain his positions clearly.
Top issue was Economy and people saw, HRC is the person who can do good job. So for Obama, he needs to talk about economy and put forth his economic policies and show what he could do instead of just relying on change strategy.
I will vote any democrat that would be the nominee, they are anyday better than the rethugs that are in the field today.
BKK, I don't know if it's just "Obama cult followers" that are grumbling about the results this morning. Ron Paul's people have a website that lists percentages of hand-counted votes versus machine-counted showing that ONLY Clinton got a greater percentage of machine-counted versus hand-counted votes. That is, the Diebold machines skewed more in her favor than ALL OTHER Democratic candidates; no, more than that, the Diebold machine voters skewed towards Clinton and against all other Democratic candidates by a margin that gave her the victory.
That suggests that the dramatic surge of feminists voting for Clinton happened on Diebold electronic machines and that people who used ballots that were handcounted actually voted for Obama to win.
Curious, no?
Read here: http://ronrox.com/paulstats.php?party=DEMOCRATS
BradBlog, which has done so much work on Diebold machines and voter fraud in other elections is looking into the results too. Amazingly, the only race that is different from preelection polls is the Obama/Clinton election. Suddenly, a huge group of disaffected Obama voters who only used Diebold machines voted only for Clinton.
Now how about that?
Posted by Bob In Pacifica at January 9, 2008 09:08 AMThanks for the exit poll info, Brian B.
And peter, you obviously don't even know what an exit poll is, no "surprises" there.
Let's hope that Hucksteree (theocrat wing) v. McLame (wealth wing) actually splinters the GOoP or we're in big trouble again.
Posted by euzoius at January 9, 2008 09:09 AM
I think Aravosis at Americablog was the most disgusting last night. He said she won either because of racism or because of tears. I'm so tired of his gay male chauvinism, his utter lack of use for anything female. What a hypocrite when it comes to equality.
Last night was a great night. The Hillary haters can spin it anyway they want to make themselves feel better. We won.
Posted by tia at January 9, 2008 09:10 AMBKK, as I'm the only one who went into the demographics of future state primaries, your point #2 seems to apply to what I said, except, that's NOT what I said, not at all.
What I said is the demographics of most of the remaining states show that Obama wins, Hillary loses. I did NOT say that "white folks won't vote for black man." As a matter of fact, I said they would and are doing that, and that combined with the demographics of the rest of the states means Obama wins.
Hillary's toast, and you all know it. New Hampshire was her firewall, and it came damn close to burning to the ground. Instead there's maybe 3 inches of it left standing and it's still on fire. Hillary's presidential goose is cooked. All she and her team are doing now are trying to put out the meme that this was some tremendous victory for her. It wasn't. She hung on by her fingernails was all she did. South Carolina, Nevada, etc. They're lost to her.
Posted by Brian Bell at January 9, 2008 09:11 AMI thought Ian Welsh at The Agonist put it well:
Everyone take a deep breath and relax.Unless Obama and Edwards national numbers collapse they have no reason to bow out. Even if Clinton or Obama winds up with more delegates, if they don't have 50%+1 it isn't over yet. And Obama and Edwards are much more buddy buddy with each other than with Clinton, each of them probably figures they could make a deal with the other if it comes down to the convention.
Think I'll send Edwards 10 bucks to keep going.
Posted by Seven of Six at January 9, 2008 09:11 AMaimai, alas, no I'm not that young. ..all you had to do to realize that the GOP guns are being loaded was to see Bugman Tom DeLay on TV yesterday salivating at the idea of running against Clinton or Obama.
Bob in Pacifica, I read through the link you provided, if you follow little closely, HRC has advantage of approx 3% in Machine votes where as Obama has approx 4% advantage in Hand counted. it is basically a wash. The advantage is in Unknown counted method. We know she did very well in Manchester area which is in "Unknown town".
Bob, I've read a 5.54% difference between hand vs Diebold for HC and a -2.96% difference for Obama. Obama obviously faired better when hand counts happened. Do your references tally the same?
Posted by peter at January 9, 2008 09:35 AMwell, well, well, after reading the panting pro-Obama comments of the past few days it looks like the deification of Obama will have to wait
This is all nonsense. I have it on good authority from Snark that there is "no mystery" about Hillary winning. Seems like a lot is being written about something that is "no mystery."
Posted by Judith at January 9, 2008 11:14 AMI just love how myopic the American public is. How can the winner of Iowa be the national front runner? Is Iowa a microcosm of the entire nation? Maybe at best, Iowa can indicate how the midwest/corn belt voters with trend, but Iowa is far (in many aspects of hte word) from New Hampshire. Hillary had double digit leads for months headed into New Hampshire...it was crazy to believe the extreme swing in polling (to Obama being up double digits). I guess it was assumed that the New Hampshire voters are that fickle?
There are a total of seven delegates separating Obama (currently leading) and Edwards (in third). Come on poeple, this thing is just getting started. As Edwards said last night...2 down, 48 to go.
Posted by the professor at January 9, 2008 11:16 AMAlso, does it matter that Hillary got 39% of hte vote to Obama's 37% or that they both got 9 delegates and if you add the superdelegates (Hillary has 2 and Obama has 3), didn't Obama really win in New Hampshire 13 to 12?
Posted by thr professor at January 9, 2008 11:29 AMNonsense. Yes.
Posted by snark at January 9, 2008 12:01 PMProfessor, CNN has HC's superdelegates at 159 right now, far ahead of the other candidates.
Posted by peter at January 9, 2008 12:32 PMand it wouldn't be a discussion without pant pissing pete's BS input...answer the question petie: why are you wasting bandwidth here? Still think anyone's interested in your troll crap?
Posted by headxray at January 9, 2008 01:10 PMBut how much of Obama's white support is based on being 'the black candidate who doesn't talk about race.' Will his numbers hold if he switches to a blatant race-based campaign?
Re the polls, I'd take a close look at the race psychology. Racism is a neurosis, and like any illness, it feels great to be cured of it. It's a healthy breakthrough for a white person to know in your heart, 'yes, I really would vote for a black President.'
Iowa proved white Americans would vote for a black President -- so now voters don't have to make the symbolic gesture. It's enough to know in their hearts they would vote for Obama if he were the most qualified candidate. The polls may have reflected that -- not that they were going to vote for Obama, but that in their hearts they would vote for him if he were the most qualified. And that's not insignificant.
If you interviewed a black person for a job, and decided on the merits not to hire him, you might want to bend over backwards to reassure him race was not a factor in his rejection. You might not feel the same need for a rejected white candidate. Something along these lines is probably closer than the so-called 'Tom Bradley' effect.
It's also possible that the fairy dust just wears off after a few hours.
Posted by whoframedrudy at January 9, 2008 05:27 PM