Polled
It wasn't exactly Dewey defeats Truman, but a lot of scruffy media types were left scratching their heads Tuesday night.
The polls on the Democratic side of the New Hampshire primary were laughably wrong. I've yet to run across one in my archive that called the right winner. Pretty much all of them put Barack Obama ahead in a run-away over Hillary Clinton.
So what's the deal?
If you listen to the talking heads tell it, Clinton's "tearful moment" and loosening up with the media and voters played in her favor. Over the past five days she swayed people with her "more human" demeanor.
Meh. I don't buy it quite. Five days isn't quite enough to have that kind of a turn around. Some people, sure. A whole 10 or 12 points or so? Not so much.
My bet is no one thing went wrong, but a few things happened. Suspect number-one in my mind is - like with the Dewey vs Truman polling - some population wasn't getting surveyed or surveyed accurately in New Hampshire. Young, college-age women without landline phones, perhaps?
Also, there are a lot of Independent voters in New Hampshire who can choose which primary they vote in until the last minute. I've got to think that complicates the polling situation.
The bigger take away? There is a reason we hold the elections and county the votes rather than just do surveys. So the next time some scruffy media type - including yours truly - pushes poll results your way, view them with some skepticism.
