We Got It Wrong. New Hampshire Voters Got It Right.
On the morning after the New Hampshire primary, one strong conclusion can be drawn: the media collectively blew it. This should be seen as downright liberating to the 48 states which have not voted yet. Because it means that everyone who hasn't yet voted should now rightfully conclude: "Those guys don't know what they're talking about. I'm voting for who I really want to win. Who knows, maybe they will!" To paraphrase (no relation to Hillary, of course) the immortal words of George Clinton: Free your mind, and your vote will follow.
Now, normally I do my fair share of condemning the mainstream media for their stupefyingly obtuse and superficial behavior (to be honest, they make it really easy for me to do so). But on this one, I've got to take the heat with the rest of them. I, too, blew it. I saw the polls, and (while not believing in any single one of them) I did believe in the trend. I thought Barack Obama had it sewn up. Until the results started coming in. As Mark Twain (or maybe it was Disraeli) once said: "There are three types of lie: a lie, a damned lie, and statistics."
While I was wrong, I had no lack of company. Pretty much everyone in the chattering classes also got it wrong. We all read the same polls, and we all came to the same conclusion. And we were all wrong.
I realize that the Monday morning quarterbacking is already under way. As a pundit (or someone who plays one on the web), I am at this time supposed to be telling you why we all blew it... and reassuring you that it won't happen again.
Maybe it was Hillary's emotion the other day, swaying women voters. Or it was Hillary's going negative against Barack. It was the warm weather. It could have been the fact that most people hang up on pollsters. Or it was the sampling and weighting methodologies of the polls themselves. Or the large margin of error involved in a state so small. It was Venus rising in Sagittarius, with Mars on the ascendant in Virgo. It was the "Bradley Effect," which all black candidates face between the opinion polls and the ballot box. It was independents going for McCain, who didn't turn out for Obama. It was the fact that more women voted than men. It was the huge turnout. It was the weekend debate before the voting. It was because Kang and Kodos from The Simpsons were really running the election.
Or whatever. You can expect plenty of that sort of microscopic analysis of exit polls from all sides for the next few days and weeks. Political pontificators of all stripes will be falling all over each other to point fingers and explain why everyone got it completely wrong.
Not me. I'm just going to admit we all blew it, and look for the silver lining. Because there is one, and it's huge. It's not good news for political reporters and opinionators, but it's great news for the voters.
Now, don't get us opinionators wrong -- we absolutely love a scrappy good election fight, and all of us will be absolutely salivating over the prospect of a real race now (instead of a "coronation"). Heck, we'd all be in nirvana if both campaigns wound up resulting in actual open convention fights! It gives us more to write about, for months on end!
But while most in Medialand will have their own novel explanation for why everyone getting it wrong was a complete aberration and couldn't possibly ever happen again because lightning simply doesn't strike twice... I, personally, am completely embracing the idiocy of all of our predictions.
We got it WRONG! Doesn't that tell you (yes, you!) -- the media consumer -- something crucial? It means that we don't really know what we're talking about... and that the only poll that matters is the one that happens on election day. Which means that you should spit in the eye of everyone who tries to tell you: "the race is over, you shouldn't even bother voting" -- and go vote for who you believe in anyway.
Because sometimes the voters surprise the media. And who's to say it won't happen in your primary? So get out there and vote for your candidate. Take whatever I -- and everyone else -- say with an enormous grain of salt. A virtual boulder of salt.
Because you just might prove us to be wrong.
And what could be more fun in an election than that?
Cross-posted at The Huffington Post
-- Chris Weigant
Sometimes I think the pollsters just close their eyes and throw darts at names and numbers but I also think that people are often not as forthcoming about who they intend to vote for when they respond to these polls.
I too am hoping at this will keep voter turnout high.
...Stan
My theory? Its all those former Massachussetts residents who have moved north into NH for cheaper real estate have changed that states voting bloc for good or ill. Plus,were all the universities back from vacation yet?
Stan -
I think there may be another facet to it. Many people are dumping their "land line" phones entirely and just relying on their cell phones. And while I'm not 100% sure about it, I think these numbers are off-limits for pollsters. This trend (if I'm right) may also contribute to skewing the polls.
Mjolnir -
Ah, you speak of the "Masshole Effect." Heh heh. OK, I apologize, I just couldn't resist! You raise a good point. I think the college kids are back in school, but maybe not for all schools. Interestingly, this contributed to Obama's win in Iowa due to their strange rules. Iowa college students were not back on campus yet, and Obama encouraged them to go to the caucuses in their home regions. Because the rural counties proportionally count for more in Iowa, this may have helped boost Obama's Iowa numbers. But that's just rampant speculation on my part, I have no data to back it up with.
Thanks to both of you for writing!
-CW
Although you acknowledge the fact that the blogosphere "got it wrong", this has MUCH more significance than simply offering the conclusion that you "can't trust any of us".
That the polls got it wrong is perhaps no story at all. That Clinton won is even not really a story. The fact that the blogs got it wrong IS THE STORY that comes out of the NH primary.
"Citizen journalism" has been touted to the high heavens as "THE corrective" for bad, biased or agenda-driven "professional journalism". The implication, if not the explicit declaration, has been that the "social we" can be counted on to "get it right". The citizen journalist has been crowned as the final court of appeal as the source of "truth" whenever facts reported in the commercial press are in any doubt.
The meltdown of the blogosphere in the New Hampshire primary calls all of this into serious question, both generally and particularly in reference to the political blogosphere, and the latter is the more interesting question.
It seems very clear now that the blogosphere must be different in some very critical way(s) from the electorate, because regardless of how the "Clinton Comeback" occurred, or why, the phenomenon at the polls should have been reflected in the blogosphere if the nexus between blogs and the electorate had been truly robust.
I am utterly disinterested in how or why the professional pollsters got it wrong. It's not the first time, and won't be the last. What interests me is how the blogs - if, in fact, blogs are one "voice of the people" - got it wrong when the same people spoke with a different voice - their votes. How, if we are truly talking about the SAME SOURCE, could the messages have been different?
BTaylor -
Interesting. I'm not sure I fully agree, but your comments are indeed thought-provoking.
My article was written mainly to show how the mainstream media all got it wrong, and I magnanimously included myself in with the pack, to show this wasn't some personal vendetta, but more of a mea culpa.
Ultimately, the pollsters were the ones who got it wrong, or got it inaccurate at the very least. We all just followed their lead.
My main point was that you truly can't trust any of us to "call" the race in your state in advance. None of us has the resources of a professional pollster, and sometimes all the "undecideds" decide something unexpected, so even the pros can't be trusted either.
But you do raise a good point about bloggers. Now, in my mind, the only credible bloggers would have been (1) New Hampshire-based bloggers, or (2) bloggers actually on the ground in NH. Anyone else (including me) are relying on others' reports of what the situation is like on the ground, so we're all secondary sources. But primary sources close to the action could have conceivably ferreted out the true situation.
Did any of them do so? The blogosphere is so huge that I can't keep track of it all myself, so I ask you -- did anyone get it right at all? Or did even the home team bloggers get it wrong?
-CW