(Cross-posted at The Field.)
- So many theories have flown around today about why the pollsters “got it wrong” (did they really?) in New Hampshire and why the late surge for Clinton. Having spent all day considering each and every one, I’m prepared to say it’s much simpler than many suggest, and that there is a confluence of reasons for what happened. Here we go…
- Carney has (what I think is) one of the most plausible explanations for Clinton’s victory in New Hampshire yesterday: The exits of Joe Biden and Chris Dodd from the contest just four days before the primary, with the grey beards' supporters and undecided voters breaking for Clinton. (He also thinks that some Edwards supporters flowed into her camp. I find that plausible and I repeat: Edwards is not pulling more votes from Obama than from Clinton, he’s not Nadering here.)
Remember that Obama, at 36 percent, came in virtually matching his Pollster.com average of 36.7. He held that vote. But undecided voters – including those recently deserted by the elder senators in the race – moved Clinton up from a 30 percent average to 39 in the final hours. It’s clear the emote moment helped her (perhaps as much because it helped her dominate free media coverage on TV for the last day and night of the primary campaign as for the humanizing aspects.)
NH voters, it turns out, were the proverbial highway cop that decided not to write out the speeding ticket that so many said would be delivered to knock Clinton off the road. It was clear to most voters that if Clinton had lost New Hampshire her campaign would have gone into a tailspin – something her own aides were acknowledging with all the (now moot) talk of a staff shake-up - and the primary-day desperation talk of skipping Nevada and South Carolina also now propels Clinton into those states. The voters weren’t ready to take her license away. Not yet.
I think those factors are far more likely than the “lying to pollsters” theory (the so-called racist or “Bradley”) effect, or than Diebold Overlord trickery (we have to wait for later primaries to see if there’s a pattern, and I intend to be vigilant in monitoring that, but I remain skeptical): after all, the exit poll came out pretty close to the final margin, too: who would lie to telephone pollsters but then tell the truth to an exit pollster? Obama matched his expected support number of 36 percent, but picked up no more momentum. He hit the real glass cieling: 36 percent of the Democratic primary white vote (in the coming days I'll explain why, if he keeps that, or even a little bit less than that, he wins the nomination).
Clinton "organized and got hot at the end" and pulled in the undecided voters. Nothing was all that weird or unprecedented about it, except for the context of the frenzied expectations game.
Oh, and for course, there are four more reasons why Clinton squeaked out a surprise victory: Whouley, Whouley, Whouley and Whouley.
- Kos, no big fan of Senator Clinton, profoundly gets one of the important dynamics of yesterday, and offers a wise warning to those that inadvertently personalize their distaste and create a reaction on her behalf:
“The more she's attacked on personal grounds, the more sympathy that real person will generate, the more votes she'll win from people sending a message to the media and her critics that they've gone way over the line of common decency. You underestimate that sympathy at your own peril. If I found myself half-rooting for her given the crap that was being flung at her, is it any wonder that women turned out in droves to send a message that sexist double-standards were unacceptable? Sure, it took one look at Terry McAuliffe's mug to bring me back down to earth, but most people don't know or care who McAuliffe is. They see people beating the s**t out of Clinton for the wrong reasons, they get angry, and they lash back the only way they can -- by voting for her.
“The vote for the two ‘change’ candidates outstripped the vote for the two ‘experience’ candidates. I'm with change. I have no interest in seeing behavior that, in essence, helps the status quo."
- “Uncommitted” has the Big Mo in Michigan’s beauty contest. Would that not be brutal next Tuesday, for the restored frontrunner: to lose to a candidate named nobody?
- Looking ahead to February 5: Hispanic voters in California and Arizona share demographic similarities with the working class white voters that Clinton won in New Hampshire, and she's counting on them to tip California. But McCain has a real shot at drawing Latinos into the GOP primary to vote for him. Truth be told, he's paid a greater price for being humane on the immigration issue than any Democrat so far. Who can say he doesn't deserve it?
- Post New Hampshire Endorsement Parade: Clinton picks up endorsements from US Rep. Shelly Berkley of Nevada and Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner.
While Obama picks up new support from Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, US Sen. Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota), US Reps George Miller and Adam Schiff (both D-California) and it’s now official what we told ya two nights ago: the 60,000 member Culinary Workers in Nevada have joined the 18,000 member state SEIU in backing Obama. This is the point where endorsements begin to pile up based on who people feel is going to win it. Expect more tomorrow.
- Did anyone else notice that the newspaper endorsements in NH on the Dem side didn’t influence their local readers? Concord Monitor and Keene Sentinel endorsed Clinton, but Obama won those cities. Nashua Telegraph endorsed Obama, but Clinton won there. Among Democrats, media endorsements and media spin may be provoking a negative reaction. On the other hand, virtually all NH dailies endorsed McCain and he won virtually everywhere. Republicans trust the media more than Democrats? Interesting.
- Finally, you might have noticed that the unstoppable Deb Kozikowski is working hard to send me to Nevada to report, from the ground, the nuclear war to come on January 19. If you've donated already, thank you. We're not there yet. But we'd sure like to be.