Congratulations, Monster! You can hate Hillary, but give credit where credit is due...

It's easy to blame losers instead of crediting winners. You see it all the time. Kansas didn't win the basketball national championship, Memphis screwed up and lost it. The Giants only won the Super Bowl because the Patriots stunk. It's always the loser's mistakes and never the victor's skills, it seems.

This line of thinking is common in politics, too. Why can't Barack close the deal? What did Hillary do wrong in Iowa? Etc. When it comes to Monday morning quarterbacking and political punditry, it's all about the loser's shortcomings these days. People like to analyze why one person lost instead of focusing on why the other won.

I think that's crap. I believe in giving credit where credit is due. That puts me in a difficult position this morning. If you've ever read a post here before, you know that I think Barack Obama is our best remaining choice for President and that I believe Hillary Clinton causes cancer of the political soul.

Nonetheless, I'm not going to spend this morning blaming Obama's failures for Pennsylvania. Nor am I going to take the easiest out possible--arguing (perhaps accurately) that Hillary's support came, in large measure, from a bunch of idiots. Nope. I'm going to simply congratulate Hillary on winning.

Hey, Monster...

Congratulations.

Clinton won Pennsylvania by 1o points and now Monster can continue its march of shame right into Indiana and beyond. Hell, for all I know Hillary will be able to spread the disease so successfully that she'll end up as our next President. That's still VERY unlikely, but anything can happen.

She did a smash-up job winning Pennsylvania. She withstood a massive spending imbalance. She quickly and forcefully jumped on top of every little Obama act that could be twisted into a negative. She got her picture taken while guzzling brews, talked about her family's involvement with the gun culture and painted her opponent as a snobby elitist in an area where snobby elitists aren't all that popular. She did the better job in the debate of appearing Presidential to the remaining undecided voters and soft Obama supporters. She made all the requisite TV appearances and even snuck in a day-before interview with KO at MSNBC, proving that she didn't mind walking into the lion's den in exchange for face time.

Good work, Monster. You won. You worked your positives, amplified your opponent's real negatives, created some new temporary negatives for him, created more memorable TV ads and convinced Pennsylvanians that you're the "tough" one.

Obviously, Barack Obama didn't do everything right. That's a whole different story for a different day. The fact of the matter is that Clinton did better. The proof is in the pudding. Scoreboard. 10 point lead.

If we wanted to select Presidents based on their ability to run tenacious long-shot campaigns... If we wanted to choose leaders based on their ability to execute old school politics like true professionals... If we wanted to honor those who are really good at playing the game... Well, it that's what we wanted I think Hillary Clinton has made a very strong case for herself since Super Tuesday.

Personally, I have higher aspirations. That's why I won't pull a lever labeled Monster. Obviously, others don't feel that way. I truly believe I'm right and they're wrong, but what the hell... Today, let the fans of Hillary rejoice.





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New Hampshire's inaccurate polls spur election fraud allegations.... Hillary couldn't REALLY beat Obama, could she?

Hillary beat Obama even though the polls predicted otherwise. Fraud? No. Poll inaccuracy? Yes. Why? Here's the John Brown Explanation:

Obama was kicking ass in the polls. Hillary was a tearful mess. Facing the inevitable Obama Victory with a capital "V", she was flailing in desperation. She was gonna call in Carville. She was firing everyone. Bill was steaming. Insiders said she was trying to decide when to surrender the whole damn race, leaving Mr. Obama only the formality of beating down John "Mad Dog of the People" Edwards on his way to two consecutive terms of Camelot II.

That's when they decided to actually have the people in New Hampshire vote. Early results showed Clinton with a slight edge over Obama. The TV people didn't even really seem to notice. They kept wondering aloud how big the eventual Obama margin of victory would be. Eventually, they noted that it was closer than anticipated, but they still seemed pretty convinced that the O-Man would prevail.

He didn't. The polls were wrong.

Hillary won.

At least that's what I thought until I started to read all the people who claimed polls couldn't be THAT wrong. Obviously, something wasn't kosher in New Hampshire (which really isn't surprising considering their love of shellfish-based recipes).

Election fraud in New Hampshire, they say. The evidence? Well, there's one interesting story about percentages and the use of the Diebold Devil Machine. There's also a family of Ron Paul-backers who claim that nefarious forces didn't tally their votes. Someone just can't believe people won't vote for Dennis Kucinich and his hot wife. Otherwise, the reason why people seem to think there was fraud boils down to one thing... The polls were so fucking wrong.

If you don't happen to be one of the more conspiratorial among us and have your doubts about election fraud, join the club. Sitting fears of electioneering aside, however, it is rather interesting to look at why those polls might have been off by so much.

Hillary beat Obama even though the polls predicted otherwise. Fraud? No. Poll inaccuracy? Yes. Why? Here's the John Brown Explanation:

The undecided factor. Something like one in five of all potential dem. primary voters self-described as "undecided" even in very recent polls. They just so happened to decide to side with HRC when it came time to pull the levers.

The name placement factor. This might sound ass-crazy, but I read an interesting observation about the placement of names on the New Hampshire ballot. Apparently, Hillary got lucky. Her name appeared in the top slot. Some say that placement might be worth 3%. Enough to turn the Obama loss into a win, you know.

The limitations of polling. Mystery Pollster has an interesting run-down of the reasons exit polls suffer from inaccuracy. Some of those factors apply to more predictive polling, too. Gary Langer puts into New Hampshire-specific terms:

"In the end there may be no smoking gun. Those polls may have been accurate, but done in by a superior get-out-the-vote effort, or by very late deciders whose motivations may or may not ever be known. They may have been inaccurate because of bad modeling, compromised sampling, or simply an overabundance of enthusiasm for Obama on the heels of his Iowa victory that led his would-be supporters to overstate their propensity to turn out. (A function, perhaps, of youth.)"

Every race is unique and poses its own particular challenges to the measurers of opinion. Janet Elder makes that argument with respect to New Hampshire:

"What is more likely is that New Hampshire voters’ opinions were very much in flux, with voters buffeted by the intense media coverage until the moment they finally stepped into the voting booth and registered what pollsters call “considered opinion,” the kind of opinion born of reflection rather than one elicited in an instant by a poll taker."

The empirical inaccuracy of polling. Check out this little study. It evaluated poll data and compared it to real results for a couple of California elections. You'll notice that polls often under- or overestimate candidate popularity outside of the usually anticipated margin of error. Mystery Pollster has another cool post that shows how past polls in national elections have been FUBAR. Political Arithmetik has a groovy graph that shows how polls tend to be pretty damn accurate in close races (assuming two candidates, but still...), but also notes that "More practically, it means that polls rarely miss the winner with a 10 point lead, but they DO miss it 10% of the time."

Here is a lesson in reason and good political sportsmanship, Obama-backers... Don't blame Hillary's evil minions for rigging the New Hampshire primary. She didn't. She just picked up more votes. If you felt let down after some poll-inspired overconfidence and need to be pissed with someone, look in the mirror.



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