by D. Cupples | Despite negative media coverage after Iowa (which even Pat Buchanan noticed), Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary (CNN). Clinton stayed a few points ahead of Barack Obama most of the night. On the Republican side, John McCain's victory was called about two hours before Clinton's.
Iowa and New Hampshire reportedly represent less than 1% of the U.S. population. Super-Duper Tuesday is February 5, when 24 states will hold primaries or caucuses for one or both major parties. The Mersman Political Blog has a list of those states.
Exit polls showed interesting differences between Republican and Democratic voters:
"Exit polls showed issues swayed Democrats but Republicans were moved by personality." (CNN)
That reminds me of Election 2000, when reporters (or was it pollsters?) actually asked voters which candidate they'd rather have a beer with: Gore or Bush.
Today, the story is about how wrong some pre-New Hampshire polls were -- and how wrong much of the media were for putting stock in the polls. Fox reported that Clinton's victory "defied pundits’ predictions, polling averages and exit polls from Tuesday’s election." Today's Washington Post has a similar headline about Hillary's having defied the polls. Many pundits seem shocked that pre-New Hampshire polls were wrong.
Why? Some of the pre-Iowa polls were equally wrong just days eariler: a CNN poll predicted that Clinton and Romney would win (BN-Politics, January 2). A Zogby poll predicted Clinton as Iowa's winner, and an MSNBC poll picked Romney (BN-Politics, December 31).
About Clinton's New Hampshire victory, The Hill said that attendees at Obama's post-primary party were stunned into silence. Again, why? Hadn't they noticed that major polls had been wrong about Iowa?
Last night, my co-blogger Damozel was laughing over how wrong the pundits and pollsters had it. My wish is that media personalities would stop making predictions, especially premature ones. Doing so would spare them the embarrassment of being wrong and the need to devote energy to saving face.
After some pundits' negative treatment of Sen. Clinton just after Iowa, it'll be interesting to see how they handle her New Hampshire victory. In some cases, it doesn't look good. The New York Times' Maureen Dowd, for example, is making nasty but irrelevant comments about Sen. Clinton. Damozel, and others, wonder if Ms. Dowd is just a tad envious of Sen. Clinton.
Another interesting facet involves inter-candidate relations. Shortly after the Iowa Caucus, John Edwards (second place) made a concerted effort to align himself with Obama (first place) and to take a stab at Sen. Clinton. After Edwards finished a distant third in New Hampshire, he spoke graciously of Hillary.
As Damozel also noted, Glenn Greenwald makes astute observations about media personalities' handling of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Memeorandum has other bloggers' reactions.
Related BN-Politics Posts:
* Primary 2008: Polls Don't Seem to Mean Much
* MSNBC : Media Gunning for Hillary, Worshiping Obama?
* Glenn Greenwald on Yesterday's Media Misfires
* Election Coverage: Beware of Cool but Empty Sound bites
* A Tale of Two Administrations: Would "Clinton 2" be Worse than What we Have Now?
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