I don't understand what the media are doing. Time and again, I read that Obama is the new frontrunner after winning Iowa by 8 points, but I also read that McCain seems to be the new frontrunner after--uh, placing fourth in Iowa and polling high in New Hampshire? What happened to Huckabee, who won Iowa by 9? He has "limited appeal," I read in article after article.
It is with much amusement that I note that the people giving these analyses never cite polls. What do the current polls actually reveal?
On the Democratic side, two of the the three most recent U.S. polls show Clinton twenty or twenty-two points ahead of Obama. And Obama is the frontrunner. Interesting math. (The other shows them tied.)
On the Republican side, the math is more complicated:
USA Today AP-Yahoo Pew
Huckabee 25 22 17
McCain 19 14 22
Guliani 20 21 20
So McCain is on top in one of three polls, but in third place in the other two, where Huckabee is in first place, nationally. And yet he has "limited appeal," say the pundits.
I don't have an answer to why this is going on; I only observe it. Any ideas?
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It is certainly possible that the reporters are not doing the research, but my pet theory is that most reporters and media outlets are tendentious. Their predicted outcome becomes the real outcome because they print and broadcast it so.
I'm not suggesting this cynically - I wonder if it is even a conscious activity. I hypothesize that it is the same kind of echo-effect that convinced sincere military analysts that there were in fact WMDs in Iraq.
In an era of reader-voted news, it is hard not to write for Digg votes, Google results, and viewer ratings. The effect of being first is so powerful that it hardly matters how accurately the report describes the current state of affairs.
News is a becoming a popularity contest.
/ejt
Interesting observations, Eric! Now that the N.H. primaries have been called for McCain and Clinton, it will be also interesting to see where the media spin goes.
Regardless of how the MSM spins it, I think we'll see the Republican race narrow down to McCain vs. Huckabee. They are the two natural polarities in the GOP field right now and both are receiving their bounces from the initial races.
The Democratic race is harder to predict at this point, but certainly Hillary has popped a hole in the Obama-mania balloon. I think N.H. proved that she can rally her base, and that bodes ill for Obama as the campaign spreads out across a much wider field of engagement. Without the super-intense hype surrounding the Iowa and N.H. contests, primaries in other states will likely draw fewer independents and less-engaged Democrats -- the two groups that have floated Obama's campaign to date. It may be a long slog to the finish line, but it's just possible that Hillary Clinton will yet emerge the winner at the end.
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