I’M BACK!
Pollsters and political pundits in America skipped breakfast on Wednesday morning; they had so much egg on their face.
Defying all pre-poll projections, Hillary Clinton stormed to a dramatic win in the New Hampshire primary, stalling rival Barack Obama’s energetic drive towards the Democratic nomination. On the Republican side too, there was an electoral rebirth. John McCain, also written off by many analysts after a feeble start to his campaign last year, roared into contention beating a host of rivals, principally Mitt Romney, to make it an another open race.
But it was Hillary’s shock win that left the press and the pundits flabbergasted. Every pre-election poll had put Obama at least ten points ahead. So what happened?
Here’s what: New Hampshire’s motto is Live Free or Die, and the people here are considered famously and fiercely independent. The state has some 45,000 independent voters and there were indications that many of them had not made up their minds even a day before the election. Pollsters ignored this constituency.
It turns out that they pulled their weight and punished pollsters for projecting an Obama win. Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory was only around 6,000 and many voters are said to have decided in her favour in the last-minute after the press simply wrote her off.
Then there is the Lachrymose Theory. Pre-election polls showed Obama had a 3 per cent advantage among women voters. But exit polls on Tuesday showed that it was Clinton who ended up with a 13 percentage plus female vote, indication that her tears or near tears may have done the trick. Some women did admit to being swayed by Hillary’s emotional moment. Whatever the case, Clinton appeared vastly relieved. “I come tonight with a very, very full heart, and I want especially to thank New Hampshire,’’ she told cheering supporters who gave oxygen to her campaign. “Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice.’’ It is still a long, long way for the nominations
Pollsters and media pundits momentarily lost their voice, wondering where they went wrong as Democratic presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton made a dramatic comeback at New Hampshire. “This has happened in election after election but we never seem to learn,’’ lamented CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Even the normally cautious Bob Woodward confessed that he had been writing a premature Clinton political obituary titled “Dynastic fatigue.’’
The one thing that was evident in the final hours of the Clinton campaign in New Hampshire and her victory speech was the subtle change in tactic. They switched from attacking Obama’s inexperience to attacking his modest record; they embraced his mantra of change that is resonating among the youth.
Winners from both parties spoke of comebacks. “My friends, you know I’m past the age when I can claim the noun kid, no matter what adjective precedes it. But tonight, we sure showed them what a comeback looks like,’’ Mc-Cain told his Republican supporters.
Hillary also played on the comeback word which her husband famously earned after being routed in Iowa and coming second in New Hampshire and still getting to the White House in 1992. “Now together, let’s give America the kind of comeback that New Hampshire has just given me,’’ she told her supporters.
But there is still a long, long way to go to the party nomination, much less the White House. The party faithful who voted in Iowa and New Hampshire constitute less than one per cent of the American electorate; the vast majority has not spoken yet.With this turnaround however, all talk of Hillary’s exit has gone out of the window. Instead, she is expected to buttress her staff and crank up her fund-raising machinery from Wednesday.
The party caravans will move to South Carolina for the next big prize later this month with the race in both parties wide open. An estimated 50 per cent of the state’s Democratic voters are Black, and there is expected to be a serious three-way fight here between Clinton, Obama, and John Edwards, who comes from neighbouring North Carolina.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson, both southerners, are expected to make a fist of it while McCain preserves his energy and dollars for his stomping grounds in the South-west. None of these states will decide the nominations. It will all boil down to Super Tuesday on February 5 when 22 states hold primaries in one shot.
Defying all pre-poll projections, Hillary Clinton stormed to a dramatic win in the New Hampshire primary, stalling rival Barack Obama’s energetic drive towards the Democratic nomination. On the Republican side too, there was an electoral rebirth. John McCain, also written off by many analysts after a feeble start to his campaign last year, roared into contention beating a host of rivals, principally Mitt Romney, to make it an another open race.
But it was Hillary’s shock win that left the press and the pundits flabbergasted. Every pre-election poll had put Obama at least ten points ahead. So what happened?
Here’s what: New Hampshire’s motto is Live Free or Die, and the people here are considered famously and fiercely independent. The state has some 45,000 independent voters and there were indications that many of them had not made up their minds even a day before the election. Pollsters ignored this constituency.
It turns out that they pulled their weight and punished pollsters for projecting an Obama win. Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory was only around 6,000 and many voters are said to have decided in her favour in the last-minute after the press simply wrote her off.
Then there is the Lachrymose Theory. Pre-election polls showed Obama had a 3 per cent advantage among women voters. But exit polls on Tuesday showed that it was Clinton who ended up with a 13 percentage plus female vote, indication that her tears or near tears may have done the trick. Some women did admit to being swayed by Hillary’s emotional moment. Whatever the case, Clinton appeared vastly relieved. “I come tonight with a very, very full heart, and I want especially to thank New Hampshire,’’ she told cheering supporters who gave oxygen to her campaign. “Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice.’’ It is still a long, long way for the nominations
Pollsters and media pundits momentarily lost their voice, wondering where they went wrong as Democratic presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton made a dramatic comeback at New Hampshire. “This has happened in election after election but we never seem to learn,’’ lamented CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Even the normally cautious Bob Woodward confessed that he had been writing a premature Clinton political obituary titled “Dynastic fatigue.’’
The one thing that was evident in the final hours of the Clinton campaign in New Hampshire and her victory speech was the subtle change in tactic. They switched from attacking Obama’s inexperience to attacking his modest record; they embraced his mantra of change that is resonating among the youth.
Winners from both parties spoke of comebacks. “My friends, you know I’m past the age when I can claim the noun kid, no matter what adjective precedes it. But tonight, we sure showed them what a comeback looks like,’’ Mc-Cain told his Republican supporters.
Hillary also played on the comeback word which her husband famously earned after being routed in Iowa and coming second in New Hampshire and still getting to the White House in 1992. “Now together, let’s give America the kind of comeback that New Hampshire has just given me,’’ she told her supporters.
But there is still a long, long way to go to the party nomination, much less the White House. The party faithful who voted in Iowa and New Hampshire constitute less than one per cent of the American electorate; the vast majority has not spoken yet.With this turnaround however, all talk of Hillary’s exit has gone out of the window. Instead, she is expected to buttress her staff and crank up her fund-raising machinery from Wednesday.
The party caravans will move to South Carolina for the next big prize later this month with the race in both parties wide open. An estimated 50 per cent of the state’s Democratic voters are Black, and there is expected to be a serious three-way fight here between Clinton, Obama, and John Edwards, who comes from neighbouring North Carolina.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson, both southerners, are expected to make a fist of it while McCain preserves his energy and dollars for his stomping grounds in the South-west. None of these states will decide the nominations. It will all boil down to Super Tuesday on February 5 when 22 states hold primaries in one shot.
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