Wednesday, January 09, 2008

The New Hampshire Primary, Polling, Media and Next Stop Michigan

Last night when the final figures came in from the New Hampshire primary, Hillary Clinton had a narrow lead over Obama and John McCain took it for the GOP side of things and this morning, pundits are full of questions and one NYT article is asking "Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back To The White House".

Others are questioning how the polls got it so wrong, but with such a narrow margin for the win, polls cannotbe blamed, they are to be used as a guide and can only report the answers they are giving... whether it was those sampled or the questions asked or the form of the question, or any of a dozen reasons, it really doesn't matter.

Polls are fine and dandy and we quote them because they are there but voters do and always will make the final call, as happened last night.

I have a feeling all the primaries, caucuses and votes leading into "Super Tuesday" will hold surprises and upsets and that is the nature of elections, otherwise we wouldn't have votes and voters and polling would simply determine who winners and losers are, so I am not seeing why all the fuss about the polls.

Then we have The Politico asking if the media can "come back" after NH.

There is only so much time to look backwards, there are still dozens of states to go and the next stop is Michigan for the Republicans and the Detriot Press has the headline, "McCain, Romney About To Take Michigan By Storm" and after Michigan we have South Carolina, Nevada, Florida and then Super Tuesday on February 5th.

All the speculation and criticism of the polls and the media and the deep analysis, some of which is very good, doesn't really make a difference and is not going to change the past results, nor influence the future results.

Each state has their issues and each state will vote accordingly.

Move along folks, nothing to see behind us, everything is in front.

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