New Hampshire
Early election politics always amuses me. This year is not the exception as I am looking at news articles talking about todays primary in New Hampshire.
Among the bits I found most amusing was reading the articles as I got up this morning about McCain and Obama having an early lead in the NH primary.
I found this rather odd, that so early in the day people could be talking about their being in the lead, given that none of the polling places should have been anywhere close to closing yet, even given the time differences from coast-to-coast. The truth of the matter was that yes, they were in the lead, if you count two towns with populations of 42 and 75 which both voted at midnight to be a deciding factor in the entire states return. How many of the articles that I saw mentioned the small voting body that gave them the ‘early lead’: Most of them did, eventually, in small asides near the end of the articles talking about when and where the votes were cast. However, ‘Towns of 42 and 75 vote Obama and McCain’ makes for a much less interesting headline then ‘McCain, Obama, Take Early Lead’.
It is also interesting reading the comments I see on various editorial blogs covering the election. If you thought the negativity was just in the campaign ads, you haven’t seen anything compared to how nasty some people get in commenting on others blogs about the election. I rather wish I was working as an admin at one of the ‘mainstream’ media websites, it’d be fun to go through the IPs of people posting comments to blogs and try to identify how many of the comments are being posted by ‘real people’ reading the blog/editorials and how many of the comments are being posted by campaign workers, paid or volunteer.
I have to admit that part of the reason I am as interested as I am in the primary process is that I never really get to participate in it. Oregon being soo late in the primary season, very little money gets spent here on ads or campaign workers so I never really get to experience what it is like being in a battleground state like these early primary states.
Most of my exposure to the actual campaign media, the tv and radio spots, comes from media outlets talking about various biting ads one candidate or another has running which really doesn’t convey the true campaign experience. I have to imagine that there are quite a few ads that hit the airwaves or the print media that never reach Oregon because they are targetted at states that simply matter much more in the candidates getting the party’s nomination.
Anyways, as far as links go at the moment, the most amusing I’ve seen at the moment has been CNN’s political ticker.
The early exit poll results (up to 05:51 PM ET at the moment) are truly shocking, in the same sense that ‘rain is wet’ and ‘fire is hot’ are stunning bits of news.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
At the moment, in NH, it seems that on the Rep. side McCain has been declared the winner with 13% of the precincts reporting the Rep. vote. McCain currently holds a lead of 37% to Romney’s 29% to Huckabees 12%.
Honesty, not terribly surprised by this. McCain has gotten the nod from NH before, and Huckabee’s religion-heavy campaign wasn’t going to play well in NH. I have to imagine that Romney is disappointed though.
On the Dem side it is apparently a closer race. No one has been declared a ‘victor’ yet, but at the moment with 14% reporting Clinton holds a lead of 40% to Obama’s 35% and Edward’s 17%.
That has to make the Clinton office feel good at the moment, though I think it is going to be a long night for all of them there as they wait and see what the final results will be. I’ll be somewhat surprised if that lead holds, I expect Obama will finally take the state but with a relatively close margin. Guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens, and how things go in the coming weeks leading up to Feb 5th.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
17% of precincts reporting Dem -
Hillary Clinton - 19,219 / 40%
Barack Obama - 17,260 / 36%
John Edwards - 8,135 / 17%
Bill Richardson - 2,124 / 4%
Dennis Kucinich - 831 / 2%
16% of precincts reporting Rep -
John McCain - 10,909 / 37%
Mitt Romney - 8,224 / 28%
Mike Huckabee - 3,509 / 12%
Rudy Giuliani - 2,682 / 9%
Ron Paul - 2,426 / 8%
Fred Thompson - 437 / 1%
Duncan Hunter - 167 / 1%
January 8th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
38% of precincts reporting Dem -
Hillary Clinton - 35,945 / 39%
Barack Obama - 33,144 / 36%
John Edwards - 15,219 / 17%
Bill Richardson - 4,254 / 5%
Dennis Kucinich - 1,346 / 1%
37% of precincts reporting Rep -
John McCain - 24,514 / 37%
Mitt Romney - 19,409 / 30%
Mike Huckabee - 7,701 / 12%
Rudy Giuliani - 5,806 / 9%
Ron Paul - 5,383 / 8%
Fred Thompson - 841 / 1%
Duncan Hunter - 377 / 1%
January 8th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
58% of precincts reporting Dem -
Hillary Clinton - 57,982 / 39%
Barack Obama - 54,431 / 37%
John Edwards - 24,788 / 17%
Bill Richardson - 6,951 / 5%
Dennis Kucinich - 2,149 / 1%
55% of precincts reporting Rep -
John McCain - 44,472 / 37%
Mitt Romney - 38,014 / 31%
Mike Huckabee - 13,549 / 11%
Rudy Giuliani - 10,428 / 9%
Ron Paul - 9,442 / 8%
Fred Thompson - 1,418 / 1%
Duncan Hunter - 617 / 1%
January 8th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
76% of precincts reporting Dem -
Hillary Clinton - 82,606 / 39%
Barack Obama - 76,030 / 36%
John Edwards - 35,275 / 17%
Bill Richardson - 9,686 / 5%
Dennis Kucinich - 2,876 / 1%
73% of precincts reporting Rep -
John McCain - 63,470 / 37%
Mitt Romney - 54,761 / 32%
Mike Huckabee - 19,209 / 11%
Rudy Giuliani - 14,699 / 9%
Ron Paul - 13,322 / 8%
Fred Thompson - 2,059 / 1%
Duncan Hunter - 855 / 0%
January 8th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
This is the single, stupidest, piece of political news I have seen so far: Clinton supporters boo Obama.
Yes, Clinton supporters, at a Clinton victory part, shout ‘boo’ at a television when Obama appears on screen giving his speach. What the fuck? Where is the news?