In response to The Arm's latest post, I just wanted to throw out a few reasons why New Hampshire turned out the way it did, and I don't think it's because it was rigged.
1) Clinton's own internal polling showed her 11 points behind and she was prepared for a defeat. They even cancelled the big hall they'd reserved for election night and moved the event to a smaller venue.
2) NH is an open primary and you needn't be a democrat to vote in the democratic primary, nor need you be a replublican to vote in the republican primary. So the following theories apply:
--If Obama and McCain were competing for the independant vote and the polls showed Obama with a double-digit lead, the Indies decided Obama didn't need their support and chose instead to support McCain and defeat Romeny and Huckabeee.
or
--Republicans were so disenchanted with their candidates they realized that the only way they can win in November is if the Democratic candidate is the polarizing and widely reviled Hillary Clinton. They chose to vote FOR Clinton instead of tussling in a futile republican primmary (as I've written before: We're going to have a brokered Republican Convention...no one will win the nomination outright).
3) And then there's the possibility of the "Bradley Effect". Basically this theory posits that people when polled will say they'll vote for an African American, but when the time comes to vote, and no one is watching or judging them (as in a caucus), they can't bring themselves to vote for a black man.
4) Clinton's moment choking up was the first time she came across as human. I have to admit, when I saw that video, I found I had sympathy for the woman, something I didn't think was possible. If it could have that effect on me, just imagine the kind of effect it had on people who don't have a vast storehouse of negative feelings about Hillary.
Finally, Ron Paul's finish was almost exactly where he finished in Iowa. I expect he's got aroun 8-10% support in the country. Very vocal and well-financed support, yes, but not a majority, and not a ceiling he's likely to crack. 9iu11ani's improved numbers might have more to do with Paul being excluded form the Fox debates, and not a neo-con conspiracy with diebold. Ron Paul still has a big roll to play in this election, because at a brokered convention, if he's got 8-10% of the delegates, he'll be in a position to make some serious demands.
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3 comments:
Did Chris Matthews write this post?
Chris? Is that you?
Hey I've been meaning to tell you that you need a trim in the back. You're starting to get a gray mullet, or as mulletsgalore.com would call it, a "silverback".
C'mon, Arm! Wild and Crazy electoral fraud, or poor polling? If Clinton didn't have solid popular support in the party nationally, and if she hadn't been the national frontrunner for a year, then maybe I'd be more suspect, but is it really surprising that she won, depsite the polls.
Your argument for fraud rests on the premise that the media was correct in their polling, but this is the same media that you regularly excoriate? Which is it? Are they an accurate source of information or not?
I still love you, even though you called my Tweety.
I understand your argument. But also, why did the media not defend any of their polls? They just rolled over and said "we were wrong". These are not the kind of egos that like to admit that they are wrong. But they sure folded on command last night when the votes came in for Hillary Clinton. I just think something is rotten in the state of New Hampshire. I have a hard time these days when looking at election results to NOT think fraud first.
We'll just have to wait and see.....
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