The Hillary Beast Lives Another Day
by Big Dog on Jan 8, 2008 at 23:08 Political
The New Hampshire Primary is now in the books and while the votes are still being counted the major networks have called this one for Hillary Clinton. It would appear as if all the pundits were wrong on this one as they (I included) were predicting Clinton would lose this race by 10 points. There were two things involved here and they probably combined to change things a bit. Remember when Bill Clinton lost this race and went on to be the “comeback kid”? Well he remembers it too and he has mentioned it since Iowa.
It is likely that the polls in NH were exaggerated to show Obama with a huge lead so that if she came close or won she could be dubbed the second comeback kid. The people and the media of NH have always been Clinton friendly so it is not beyond reason that some things were exaggerated to help her out.
I think what was involved more than anything is that John McCain energized the Independent voters so much that he siphoned them away from Obama. In NH the Independents are allowed to in which ever primary they wish but only one). I believe that early polling showed Obama ahead and much of it was the Independents who were committed to voting for him. Then Hillary went on the attack over the weekend when she did Hillary redux and had her millionth make over. Her attacks made people wary of Obama but they also realized that there was no way in hell they could vote for Hilary so they migrated to John McCain who has always had great support in the state.
It is likely that some combination of these two events took place. However, while the Clintons probably played with the polls and the news to some small degree, it is much more likely that the voters in NH were in favor of Obama until Hillary counter punched and then they became worried about him and abandoned him for McCain.
If this is the case it shows that the Independent voters are afraid of Obama and will not vote for Clinton. This should make little difference in the upcoming primaries because I don’t think there are other states that allows Independents to vote for members of other parties. In this respect, Hilary and Obama will be fighting it out head to head while staying strictly in their party. They also cannot discount John Edwards. As long as he stays in he will split someone’s votes (he might have done a little of that tonight).
Where this issue of going for McCain hurts Democrats is in the general election where people can vote for any party they want. Conservatives will come out in droves to vote against Hillary. We have seen tonight the possibility that Independents will vote Republican rather than cote for the Democrats.
This could spell disaster for them in the general election. However, I am looking forward to Hillary getting knocked out of the primaries so we do not have to deal with her in the general election.
She is Satan.
Tags: comeback, Hillary, independent, new hampshire, satan, winner