O.k., I shouldn’t call it “reality free” — the cable news media personalities certainly use a nugget of fact. They take the poll results for the Presidential candidates which are certainly facts. But then they proceed from there to spin fanciful narratives. The only reason that Hillary Clinton was in such a tailspin was because the pack of pundits declared in gravely knowing tones that it was so. And, lucky for her, because the New Hampshire “comeback” would not have been possible without the Iowa “collapse.”
At the moment, with about 2/3s of the precincts reporting, Clinton has 69,000 votes; Obama has 64,000 votes; and Edwards has 30,000 votes. If these results hold up, that will give Clinton and Obama about 0.6% and .4% of the delegates they need, respectively, to get the nomination. They’ll split the take of 22 delegates when they need something like 2,200 to win.
The media personalities are essentially hyperventilating over the pre-season. Unfortunately, politics being such an abstract competition, these solemn pronunciations by our wise men can affect the game. Too bad it’s not like competitions that are more reality based. When Bob Sanders hits a guy really, really hard, he goes down, no matter how wrong Tony Kornheiser’s commentary will inevitably be.
Update My delegate counter hasn’t updated yet, but my understanding is that the results of the New Hampshire primary in terms of delegates was 9 for Obama, 9 for Clinton, and 4 for Edwards; bringing the Democratic total to Obama – 25; Clinton – 24; Edwards – 18. On the Republican side, the results were 7 for McCain, 4 for Romney, and 1 for Huckabee. The totals for the Republicans are Romney – 21; Huckabee – 14; and McCain – 11. As you listen to or read media coverage, see if what you hear bears any relationship to these vote totals or the percentage of the totals they represent.
I think it was Chris Matthews (or maybe Pat Buchanan talking to Chris Matthews) who said a few years back that people will tell pollsters they plan to vote for the minority candidate. They don’t want to appear bigoted, or want to seem open-minded or progressive. Then they get alone in the booth and they’re not so much that way. I’m not saying that’s what happened here. But it’s something that was described in the past, prior to these polls being so wrong, and maybe explains it to a point. Iowa’s format where everyone is talking and witnessing others’ votes would tend to make people want to appear even more open-minded, progressive, or cutting-edge in the presence of their friends and neighbors. So in Iowa it may have been accentuated in just the opposite direction.
You should probably start including superdelegates in your count. This will greatly alter the numbers in the Democrat race.
Seems like a number of superdelegates were supporting Dean in 2004 but then ultimately didn’t vote for him. I’ll count the superdelegates after the dust settles from the primary fight.