Slick Hillie Part 2

The failure of the New Hampshire pre-election surveys to mirror the outcome of the Democratic race is one of the most significant miscues in modern polling history. All the published polls, including those that surveyed through Monday, had Senator Barack Obama comfortably ahead with an average margin of more than 8 percent. These same polls showed no signs that Senator Hillary Clinton might close that gap, let alone win.

While it will take time for those who conducted the New Hampshire tracking polls to undertake rigorous analyses of their surveys, a number of things are immediately apparent.

First, the problem was not a general failure of polling methodology. These same pollsters did a superb job on the Republican side. …

Second, the inaccuracies don’t seem related to the subtleties of polling methods. The pollsters who overestimated Mr. Obama’s margin ranged from CBS and Gallup (who have the most rigorous voter screens and sampling designs, and have sterling records in presidential elections) to local and computerized polling operations, whose methods are a good deal less refined. Everyone got it wrong.

Third, the mistakes were not the result of a last-minute trend going Mrs. Clinton’s way. Yes, according to exit polls the 17 percent of voters who said they made their decision on Election Day chose Mrs. Clinton a little more than those who decided in the past two or three weeks. But the margin was very small … too narrow to explain the wide lead for Mr. Obama that kept showing up in pre-election polls.

Fourth, some have argued that the unusually high turnout may have caused a problem for the pollsters. It’s possible, but unlikely. While participation was higher than in past New Hampshire primaries, the demographic and political profile of the vote remains largely unchanged. …

To my mind all these factors deserve further study. But another possible explanation cannot be ignored …


Hmm, what could that possibly be. I haven't a clue, but I have noticed the Clinton spin doctors are talking about race as much as possible lately.

Of course, if it backfires, like the cocaine-abuse fiasco, someone will be fired.

You know the fiasco I'm talking about, right? The fiasco where the Clintonians went out of their way to deny they were bring up Obama's drug past: “We're not talking about his cocaine abuse THAT HE ADMITTED TO IN HIS BOOK, because that would be low. To bring up his cocaine abuse. Which he wrote about in his book. His biography, the life story of Democratic presidential candidate Barack HUSSEIN Obama. And his life with cocaine. Bringing somehting like that up would be very low, indeed.” It became a fiasco, because voter turned against the negative campaigning. So the Clinton leadership denied having anything to do with it, and fired an old friend.

They still want to pursue that campaign strategy, apparently, but with all the spare staffers fired what are they to do? Well, find someone they don't have to fire to sling their mud:

“Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, who appeared at a rally with Mrs. Clinton in Columbia, S.C., seemed to allude to Mr. Obama's use of cocaine as a young man.

“‘To me, as an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood — and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book — when they have been involved,’ Mr. Johnson said.”

Here's my favorite part, though: “Mr. Johnson later issued a statement saying he was referring to Mr. Obama's work as a labor organizer in Chicago, which he described in his book ‘Dreams From My Father.’” Yes, being a labor organizer was the thing so awful that Johnson couldn't bring it up.

Oh, well, I guess on the bright side, if you're race-baiting, you don't have time to lie about your record on the Iraq War:

Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton have repeatedly invoked the name of Senator Chuck Hagel, a longtime critic of the Iraq war, as they defend Mrs. Clinton’s 2002 vote to authorize the war.

In interviews and at a recent campaign event, they have said that Mr. Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, helped draft the resolution, which they said was proof that the measure was more about urging Saddam Hussein to comply with weapons inspections, instead of authorizing combat.

Mrs. Clinton repeated the claim Sunday during an interview on “Meet the Press,” …

“It was a vote to use the threat of force against Saddam Hussein, who never did anything without being made to do so,” Mrs. Clinton said.

But the talking point appears to misconstrue the facts.

Did I say, “lie?” I meant “misconstrue,” but only in the lying sense of the word.