- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 3
-
Sparkle (0)
[Originally posted on http://fudgelady.livejournal.com/]
New Hampshire has spoken. Now the action moves to Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina.
In the meantime, here's my Quote of the Day -- highly appropriate no matter who you're voting for:
"Up until now, about half of 1 percent of Americans have voted. Ninety-nine percent plus have not voted. And those 99 percent deserve to have their voices heard because we have had too much in America of people's voices not being heard." -- John Edwards.
Amen! While the media seems obsessed with choosing the nominees the night of the first primary, which is like predicting the Boston Marathon winners before the runners leave Hopkinton, the plain fact is that most of us haven't been to the polls yet.
With almost all the Granite State results in, one AP story mentioned Hillary Clinton's "startling upset" over Barack Obama. I have to ask: Startling to whom? With universal name recognition, vast amounts of money, and one would imagine a pretty good ground game, Hillary didn't seem to me in much danger of collapse. (Unless the voters of New Hampshire fell for the stories that made her sound like a weepy Ed Muskie; thankfully, they were too smart for that.)
Sometimes I wonder how many frustrated fiction writers pound out news copy. The post-Iowa story seemed to be: Obama Victorious! Hillary Plummeting! This totally ignored that second-place Edwards and third-place Hillary were only 1 percent or less apart. Now, the New Hampshire story has been spun to: Hillary the Comeback Kid! This totally ignores what I saw on my periodic visits to the Concord Monitor website, which updated election results every five minutes: Over time, Obama came within 2 percent of Hillary (and possibly closer when I wasn't looking), making it seem premature to call the race for Hillary as early as they did. Right now, the separation is just 3 percent -- giving Hillary only first-place bragging rights. Obama is still on her tail! And her Iowa results were none too shabby, so the AP's tale of how she's "resurrecting her bid for the White House" is beyond bizarre.
Anyone who follows politics (or sports!) knows these simple truths: It's early yet. Anything can happen. Just ask John McCain.
My questions for the press (which I was a full-time part of for years) are: Can't you just wait for them to count the damn votes, and can't you admit that the race is far from over?
