af40's Blog

I'd just like to take a moment to post a letter I sent to the folks at USAElectionPolls.com. See, yesterday, on their election numbers-crunching website was posted a bold prediction (which has since disappeared from public view): that Hillary Clinton would lose to Obama by a wide margin, some 20% or so. Well, we all know how that ended up.

So, without further ado..


Dear Sirs:
 
You stated yesterday with near CERTAINTY that Hillary Clinton would not only lose the NH primary, but that she would lose by a BIG margin (you were quoting 10-20% margin, if not higher- seems like that prediction has suspiciously "disappeared" from the site). Oh man, and you guys are number crunchers to boot. See, that's the big problem..
 
 The polls don't always get things right because the people who are polled don't always represent who actually goes to vote (remember all that exit polling "certainty" in the 2004 national election that predicted a Kerry win?). Yes, a whole bunch of polls (a "poll of polls") can reduce sampling error, but all that is irrelevant if the underlying sample does not have some external validity as far as what is actually measured.
 
Numbers aside, Obama's supporters were largely of two kinds: Young Democrats who are typically inspired by the generic and non-specific messages of "hope" and "optimism"- basically modern-day Hippie types who want world peace but have no actual means to accomplish it (I still get a chuckle rolling "the audacity of hope" off my tongue- how about the audacity of being brief and concise?) . The second group is independents, and remember, New Hampshire has open voting for independents. The problem with that is that many times independents don't represent the Democratic voters..they might even be Republican-leaning voters who want to vote against Hillary because they feel she is the greatest threat to the Republican nominee, whoever that may be. Getting Hillary to waste funds in a close contest might be a way to do that. And, New Hampshire has only been "right" in picking the eventual Democratic nominee some 57% of the time. The bottom line is that while NH matters for image, symbolism, and that thing politicians like to call "momentum", isn't THAT important.
 
Now here's why Hillary will beat Obama. Hillary is generally seen as the only candidate who is not only capable to serve as president (sorry, but Obama's just over 3 years in the Senate doesn't cut it) but also the only truly viable (win-capable) nominee. Obama will not beat any Republican candidate except for maybe  Ron Paul. Obama is like the Titanic..fresh, new, seemingly unsinkable..but prone to the smallest and least forseen probems. And those problems will sink his ship eventually. Democrats aren't stupid. Young people are stupid, because they aren't practical, and, let's face it, no national candidate has ever won largely (or solely) on the basis of the young vote.  As Hillary says, even John F. Kennedy, to whom Obama has been compared, had a lot of experience  prior to his run for the White House. 
 
While you guys prominently display ads showing how bad Hillary is faring, she is slowly but surely gaining real momentum. It would take a major breakdown of Dean proportions for her to lose this nomination. Our country isn't at a point in its history that a flash in the pan like Obama will solve our problems, even as appealing and eloquent as he might appear. He's style, but Hillary is substance.
 
Your numbers crunching is useful, but it should be taken with a grain of salt. I'd be more careful about making "predictions" solely based on numbers next time.
 

PS: Yes I am gloating a bit, but I just love when people take their numbers too seriously, especially polls.