New Hampshire – A Lesson About Polling & Declaring Inevitability

You all know that I’m no fan of the main stream media, that goes without saying. In their zeal to be first to get the story sometimes they actually miss the story. The struggle to be first to know who will win certain political races sometimes backfires. Remember the 2000 elections? ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox all declared George W. Bush the winner in Florida before 50% of the precincts reported. That sparked the on again off again conciliatory speech from Al Gore. If the news agencies had kept their stories until there was a clear winner, the whole Florida fiasco might have been avoided.

This election cycle we heard an awful lot about Hillary Clinton’s inevitable nomination. Then her world fell apart just days before the Iowa Caucuses. Barack Obama came on like gangbusters and won the Democratic Caucuses. Then with little fanfare Obama took Wyoming.

Cartoon Courtesy of Glenn McCoy

All of a sudden Hillary was seen as “in trouble” by the main stream media and their faulty polling models. I say faulty polling models because none of the main stream media outlets predicted the massive turnout in New Hampshire. None of them.

Cartoon Courtesy of Eric Allie

Since New Hampshire has a large block of Independent voters and they are notorious for not making up their minds until entering the polling station, the main stream media correspondents were scrambling during the 5 days between Iowa and New Hampshire in an attempt to be the first to report. Problem, since their polling models were flawed they couldn’t in a million years predict the result.

After losing the precincts in the early voting to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton saw nothing but rising numbers in New Hampshire all day and all evening. She eventually took the Granite State by 3 percentage points.

On the Republican side, the inevitable candidate a year ago when the candidates of both parties began to announce was John McCain.

Cartoon Courtesy of Gary Varvel

Then it was Rudy, then Mitt, and finally the Huckster who ended up taking Iowa. Again with little fanfare Mitt Romney sneaked in and snatched the Wyoming Caucuses from Huckster’s hands. Then John McCain, who won New Hampshire 8 years ago defeating George W. Bush, exploded in the Granite State.

Lesson, don’t believe anyone who says they know today who the nominee will be when there are 47 states yet to be heard. Both parties are up for grabs now and that is the first real truth to come out in this election.

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