New Hampshire: Early Indications
MSNBC set up a poll for visitors to predict who would carry the day in New Hampshire; with over 36,000 responses the poll has McCain with 63% and Obama with 73%.
Apparently there is a tradition in New Hampshire for the two hamlets closest to the Canadian border to have their vote in a just-past midnight early bird. This seems a little gimmicky to me, one woman of the 46 who voted said she was going to close her eyes and randomly mark a ballot for example however who would go out to vote at midnight besides her that didn’t care about the results? It seems a wasted effort to me. So here are the results from those 2 polls…
Democrats
Obama – 70%
Edwards – 13%
Clinton – 13%
Richardson – 4%
Kucinich – 0%
Gravel – 0%
Republicans
McCain – 43%
Huckabee – 22%
Paul – 17%
Romney – 13%
Giuliani – 4%
Thompson – 0%
Hunter – 0%
So I’m very happy with how things are looking so far. Why did I bother posting the results you may ask, well the major news websites only referred to votes cast in the body of their articles. I had to crunch the numbers myself for the percentages which I think puts things in a different perspective. Oh well, this is largely academic anyway given the tiny numbers we’re talking about. Unfortunately I have to work tonight so hopefully my partner will keep me appraised via text messaging as real (i.e. statistically significant) results come in.
Update: Bill Clinton has come out swinging against Obama but his comments essentially boil down to “I’ve seen things you haven’t, so just trust me he’s a bad guy” so while the initial shock of two Democratic heavyweights in disagreement was jarring the substance of the comment seems somewhat absent. I think this will likely counter the near-crying episode Hillary had the other day but likely won’t gain any further ground. Also rumours are coming out that the Clinton campaign is debating the merits of dropping out of the Nevada and South Carolina rounds. Apparently Obama has secured the support of the Culianry Workers Union in Nevada and the large African-American population in South Carolina isn’t likely to slow down his march to the nomination even if they did like Hillary more, which they probably don’t. As well rumours are surfacing about the Clinton camp exploring the possibility of creating an ‘independent’ 527 group ala The Swiftboats Veterans For Truth to discredit Obama without direct connection to the Hillary camp. Apparently one of the big roadblocks they’re facing is no one in the Democratic party wants to quarterback the effort for fear they would become a pariah within the party, particularly in the eyes of President Obama. Other than Bill’s comments these all look like very bad news items for Hillary. I can’t say I’m upset about it though. Did we really expect her to go down without a fight?
As if that wasn’t enough to make for a fun news day it seems the Secret Service had to remove Bill O’Reilly from an Obama rally after he verbally assaulted and pushed an Obama staffer demanding that he get out of the way so O’Reilly could get to Obama. O’Reilly called the staffer a “low class son of a bitch” and said, and I quote “No one on this earth is going block a shot on the O’Reilly Factor. It is not going to happen.” I guess the Secret Service doesn’t count as some one on earth because they stopped him. O’Reilly later defended his behaviour by saying “I had no choice, ladies and gentlemen, but to uphold the Constitution,” specifically he felt he had to defend the “freedom of the press” by calling the staffer a “son of a bitch“. Looks like Bob Novak may have some competition for the Douchebag Of Liberty Award for 2008.
Update: Colin Powell, the first African American National Security Advisor, Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has come out in support of Barack Obama saying that he is “taking joy” in Obama’s success and wants to encourage Americans to “enjoy this moment where a person like Barack Obama can knock down all of these old barriers that people thought existed with respect to the opportunities that are available to African Americans”. He went on to say “This argument about him not being black enough, that’s just absolute nonsense. He is putting himself forward not as a black man but as an American man who wants to be president of the United States of America. We should see Barack as a candidate for president who happens to be black, and not a black candidate for president”. I always liked Powell, when he wasn’t being use as a pawn that is.
Back to New Hampshire, some towns are apparently running low on ballots…but only the blue ones.
The media has been noticing that Obama’s New Hampshire speeches have had national themes rather than local content as the other candidates have been focusing on. Many have begun to speculate that this is Obama’s way of beginning to focus on his message for his campaign for November once he has the nomination. Kerry found his message in the dying days of his campaign, Obama hasn’t even won the nomination yet and he’s refining his message.
Another Clinton misstep: While introducing Hillary at a rally someone had this to say to the crowd, “Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated.” Not cool.
