I haven't written much about the New Hampshire results from last night. That's because I don't have any original thoughts anyone couldn't find somewhere else. I'm kind of surprised that Hillary won on the Dem side, but then so is everyone else. Mickey Kaus has some theories. I'm not sure I believe in the Bradley Effect, though. It's always easy to accuse other people of racism and conservatives get more than their fair share of it from liberals. As a result, I don't want to get into it.
Anyway, there is lots of bloviating on all sides as to what the results so far mean. I really have no idea at this point other than that Romney is far from done (he leads the Republican side in delegates, for goodness sake!). There is still too much that is going to happen. Quin Hillyer has a fairly anti-McCain blog post with some historical perspective on the race at this point. It's a very good reminder that pundits and the press (and pro-McCain conservatives) need to calm down:
Last night's results should prove once and for all that "polls" and "facts" are almost mutually exclusive things. Especially during presidential primary season, polls about the fall horse race are virtually meaningless. At about this time in 1980, for instance, Jimmy Carter held a nearly two-to-one (!!!!) lead over Ronald Reagan, even as Reagan led the national horse race polls within the GOP. Another thing that is overrated is money. In 1976, Reagan was dead broke and had lost five straight contests and was in terrible shape in the polls. Then Jesse Helms helped him beat Ford in North Carolina, and everything changed. Therefore, what is more important in analyzing who can beat whom in the fall isn't current polls, it is logic combined with past performance and with more generic, NON-PERSONALITY based surveys.
He then goes on to analyze what may happen to McCain in the general election if he wins the nomination.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment