Damned Dennis Kucinich.
With Kucinich out of the national spotlight, electing instead to endeavor to keep his job in the Ohio 10th, no one remains to demand what MUST be called for:
A complete recount of the South Carolina Democratic Primary, of course.
After all, one of the primary rationales I heard from Kucinich backers (and no small numbers of disgruntled Obama backers, as well) is that something MUST HAVE BEEN FISHY in New Hampshire. After all, the polls showed an Obama lead of 8-12 points. He wound up losing by two. A deviation of 10-14 points from the latest polls? Conspiracy afoot!!
So, today, when I saw that Barack Obama, who had been favored to win the South Carolina primary by around 10-15 points, instead won the thing by 28, I (like America) smelled the same vapors of electoral taint.
So, Mike Gravel, if you are listening: This is YOUR chance at the lead story on Countdown. Rudy? You aren't doing shit in the Republican primary, so you might as well contribute here, bud.
Alright, alright...I have met my snark limit for the night, so I am going to quit now.
ONTO THE REAL POINT OF THE DIARY:
There have been two major stories in the Democratic primary season OTHER than the Obama-Clinton kerfluffle that has the news media all a-twitter and a good many Kossacks taking arms against their brothers.
One story is the enormous turnouts we have seen in Democratic contests. This trend continues tonight with a turnout (now over 530,000 voters) which not only crushes the Republican turnout from last week, but also nearly doubles the previous record in a Democratic presidential primary.
We will get back to this story later.
The OTHER story: how the polls have done an absolutely ABYSMAL job of predicting the outcomes of the Democratic primaries.
New Hampshire's polls were so far off that they spurred an ill-advised recount and a torrent of diaries here at DKos. I can remember polls, especially last second tracking polls, missing the winner. But it is pretty unusual for a series of tracking polls to all trend towards a modest victory for one candidate, only to see the voters go narrowly in the other direction.
New Hampshire got a lot of attention, but it is important to remember that Nevada's polling data (what little data we were offered) were also off to an extent. In this case, the biggest problem was with the polls themselves. The volatility was incredible to behold. On Monday, Edwards looked like a possible winner, with 27% of the vote. By Saturday, he was limping out of the desert with 4% of the vote. Part of that, to be sure, was the fifteen percent viability threshold. But not all of it. The polls, again, were not as great a predictive tool as they have been in the past.
Finally, of course, no pollster foresaw the significant ass-whipping visited upon the rest of the field tonight by Senator Obama. Polls had this race between three points and fifteen points, with the critical mass around 10-13 points. Nobody had Senator Obama over 50%, and not a single pollster had anything CLOSE to Senator Obama beating Senator Clinton by a greater than a 2-to-1 margin.
So, what the hell is happening?
I told you that we would get back to turnout.
Pollsters have to make some assumptions when they perform their craft. And the one that seems to be absolutely baffling them to this point is figuring out WHO is coming out to vote.
They can hardly be blamed for this. Every Democratic contest that has been contested has seen record turnout, often at what is essentially cartoonish levels.
Consider:
In IOWA, the high end estimate for the Democratic caucuses, according to the conventional wisdom, was around 180,000 voters. The actual turnout was closer to 240,000. In other words, the turnout was 33% higher than the most optimistic estimates.
In NEW HAMPSHIRE, the high end estimate for the Democratic primary was around 200,000. The final turnout was almost 284,000 votes. In other words, the turnout was 42% higher than the most optimistic estimates.
In NEVADA, the high end estimate for the Democratic caucus was around 80,000. The final turnout was 116,000 votes. In other words, the turnout was 45% higher than the most optimistic estimates.
Finally, in SOUTH CAROLINA, the high end estimate for the Democratic primary was 350,000, according to the state party chairman. The actual turnout now stands at 530,300. In other words, the turnout was 51% higher than the most optimistic estimates.
That means when pollsters screen for likely voters in this primary season, even if they base that on the most optimistic turnout estimates, that have been still excluding one-in-four voters, at a minimum. That is going to lead to some mistakes, inevitably.
This also explains, by the by, why the Republican numbers have been pretty close in each of these states. There has been (ahem) nothing special about the turnouts in the Republican primaries. Ahead of normal, but not shattering records in the way that all of the Democratic contests have done thus far.
Something to think about if polls show Obama winning Georgia and he winds up losing by two. Or if the polls show HRC up five in California, and she winds up getting upset.
It ain't necessarily the hands of the evildoers. It is more likely that the pollsters are as mystified by this primary season as we all are.