Redstate

Truly a rock and a hard place for the media. They can either take a small insignificant hit and admit a measure of humanity, or they can throw the party they have been shilling for under the bus.

Expect to see more news on how race is doing Obama in.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

I think it's ageism myself. Polls gravitate towards poeple who are at home a lot to be called, and who won't just avoid the pollsters rather than answering.

Hillary took a lot of votes from older women who probably don't want to pick up the phone and listen to some sales calls and who have the leisure time and diposable income to be away from the house.

The above explains why the pollsters missed these women; it doesn't explain why the broke Hillary. That would be Social Security. Hillary has been admirably consistent in her tenacious mendacity regarding this issue. Everytime she gets told the trust fund will begin to hemorrage red like a drive-by shooting victim in 2017, she puts her fingers in her ears and goes "NAHNAHNAH! I can't hear you!"

Obama, on the other hand has tried to have it both ways. He actually listens to these projections and then tries to creatively waffle on the issue. This is noted, and seniors don't trust him. That, right there, is the bias that got Obama scalped in NH.

"If this ain't a mess, it'll do until one shows up." -Sheriff Bell, No Country For Old Men

Americans are looking for neither a preacher or a messiah - just a president since most of us already have both...

--roxer

but apparently *Hillary's voters* are. Isn't that what is being said?

Has there ever been a "Doug Wilder" effect(http://www.discriminations.us/2006/11/bye_bye_doug_wilder.html) observed with women candidates?

Of the dozen or so times I've been telephone polled in my life, more than half of the times I've gotten the impression that the pollster was liberal and only once did I get the impression that the pollster was conservative(a poll on abortion). Is it possible that some might state liberal views to a pollster they decide may be liberal? Could this explain part of the leads that Hillary and Obama have over most or all Republicans in polls? I wouldn't think that people would cross party lines to seem less "racist" or "sexist", but I could imagine it happening at the margins for those who want to finish the poll as fast as possible so they could get off the phone with a liberal(or perceived liberal) pollster.

One dramatic difference between New Hampshire and Iowa is that in Iowa, you have to stand with or against your friends and neighbors. Everyone knows who you voted for.

With the way that Hillary polarizes people, could part of her showing in Iowa be that people didn't want others to know that they supported Hillary, of all people?

I think the reason for the pollster's errors was this -- the Iowa bump only lasts so long. If the election were held a day before, we might have seen Obama win. If the election was held a little later on, and we might have seen the Obama bump equalize out in the polls.

I also wonder how many people may have changed their minds after seeing the coverage of the confrontation with Iran. Exit polling says many people decided that day and they decided on issues not personalities. Of course, McCain's showing among Independents may have taken votes that might have went for Obama (although since they are so different on the issues I don't quite understand it).

About a week ago in another place, I posted this as a part of a much longer posting about the race:

"Getting back to race, I think it would be easier to elect a Black Republican than a Black Democrat.

Face it, no matter how small a margin, some people are not going to vote for a Black man… older voters most likely. Those in their late 60’s and 70’s voting for a black will be a tough sell, going against everything they have ever known in their lives. Also, those voters are the most reliable voters, the senior vote. Now, Blacks vote overwhelmingly for Democrats… so a loss of a couple of percent of the old white Democrat vote is a net loss.

A GOP Black would also lose some percentage of that older vote… but would likely pick up much more ‘cross over’ Black vote, vote that another GOP candidate would not get. Thus a net gain."

People, why is this so hard? If I "know" this, why doesn't the media? This 'mismatch' between polling and voting was entirely predictable.

There remain only two possible reasons for the media having 'missed' this: they are blinded by their love of Obama, or that they are rock stupid.

Okay, three reasons: both of the above

...was only reflecting what they were getting from the campaigns themselves. As Tim Russert said last night, Obama's internal polls showed him up by 14% and Clinton's internal polls showed Obama up 11%. The media got it wrong because the campaigns themselves had it wrong.

It seems obvious to me that it was the Bradley/Wilder effect. Bradley was up by 10% to 20% in the polls and lost, while Wilder was up 10% and won by .5%. In Iowa, voters had to "vote" publicly, in NH they got to close the curtain.

The polling on the Rs was pretty good. The results for McCain and Romney were both above the polling, but that is easily explained by the undecideds being split between the two frontrunners.
The polling was accurate to well within the margin of error for all Ds other than Hillary. She got +9, well outside the ± 3 of the polling.
OTB has a pretty good round up of possible reasons for the difference in actual and expected results in the D race.

on this are thoughtless tools talking out of their rear-ends - and since it's mostly the spin-cycle ("get me a new narrative, STAT!") squawkers on the tube, that should surprise none of us.

Just look at the numbers. Nothing went 'wrong' for Obama, per se. He got what the poll averages said he would - ~37%. While he may have lost some waffling women at the last minute, I doubt seriously it was any more than maybe 1-2% of the total. What happened here was HC's crying stunt worked as a hail-mary to women voters and soft supporters who were reconsidering after Iowa. The final tally reflected pretty much what the pre-Iowa NH polls said - neck and neck.

So, I think the upshot is, don't get your hopes up, kids. She can only cry once. It may have saved her candidacy and kept the bottom from dropping out, but my sense is that her support is still "mile-wide and inch-deep", and since she was dumb enough to let Obamna seize control of the debate, she's got an uphill battle.

It'll be interesting to see how many of her moneybags who were listing over the weekend start returning her calls again....

Be nice or i'll slap you cross-eyed!
- Granny