Hey, wait a minute! Wasn’t Obama supposed to run away with this thing tonight, while McCain was supposed to win by a relatively smaller margin on the GOP side? Wasn’t tonight supposed to spell the end for Hillary Clinton?
Sure, the results are not all in yet on the Democratic side as I write this, but what’s happening is far from what I expected, point spreadwise.
That’s what I get for putting too much stock in Zogby. Here’s what he had as of this morning:
Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby New Hampshire Tracking Poll: Obama, McCain Enjoy Solid Leads As Election Day Dawns
UTICA, New York — 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….
OK, so he wasn’t so far off on the GOP side — he had McCain beating Romney 36-27 percent — but the Democratic contest doesn’t look anything like what anyone expected.
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Hillary Clinton won using a classic tactic of females of her station – crying (when all else fails, play the damsel in distress). While I don’t think it was insincere, I think she let herself go to a place she would not have gone had she been winning in the polls.
As for Gloria Steinem’s excellently timed piece (to generate even more sympathy for Hillary; were the crying and the op-ed piece perhaps synchronized?) – yes, black men did technically have the vote before women – but Gloria, Ms. Steinem, conveniently forgets the tyranny that surrounded the black vote well into the sixties. Annnd, it’s not like the feminist movement really included women of color, who have NEVER had the option of playing “damsel in distress” like Hillary was able to do in the New Hampshire primary.
Let me venture out onto a politically incorrect limb to express my displeasure at this development.
I don’t want a president who cries to get what she wants, and I really don’t want a president who cries to get what he wants.
But if Bill Clinton has to bawl to get another gig on Pennsylvania Avenue, here’s betting the tears stream down his cheeks in torrents.
First of all, that was a three day rolling tracking survey (see below) using data from Jan 5 – 7 and the word is that women reacted very strongly to talk radio and idle chatter calling Hillary a (rhymes with witch) after the debate on Friday. That might not have registered in polling until Monday and doesn’t include any women who were fed up starting Tuesday when that “bitch” chorus likely peaked. Tearing up/welling up/crying, whatever you want to call it helped make her seem vulnerable and women reacted with the lever. So the dramatic change in the woman vote might not have been a vote against Obama, but a vote for someone they thought needed a hand. We’ll see how it plays out, but I don’t see it carrying over in SC or anywhere else.
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The GOP and Democratic three–day rolling tracking surveys were conducted using Zogby International’s live operator call center in Upstate New York. The GOP rolling sample included 859 likely voters and carries a margin of error of +/– 3.4 percentage points. The Democratic rolling sample included 862 likely voters and carries a margin of error of +/– 3.4 percentage points. Both tracking survey samples were taken between Jan. 5-7, 2008
The media and Obama bloggers purposely smeared Edwards by claiming he wasn’t sensitive to Hillary – when he was asked by reporters about her crying.
Edwards response was NOT sexist! He was reacting to a candidate crying – and his response was the same for ANY candidate – regardless of gender.
He said campaigning was rough. Nothing sexist about that!
The pollsters couldn’t figure out how to poll all the illegal voters from Vermont and Massachusetts who stole the primary for Hillary.
Expect the same in other primaries and in the general election. Democrats are suing Georgia and Indiana to stop their requirement for a resident photo ID voter registration card. Hillary cannot win an honest election.