Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

New Hampshire Open Thread

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Fire away — from your thoughts and hopes, to the road conditions on the highways in northern Massachusetts (paved in blue, and bringing thousands of progressive voters home before the polls close, of course.) Anyone actually in NH: please tell us what you see.

UPDATE (by David): NPR and various other news outlets have called the Republican race for John McCain.  The Democratic race, so far, is much closer than the most recent polling was indicating, and remains too close to call.  Doesn’t look like an Obama blowout, though, unless something radically changes — as of now (8:35 pm, 14% in) Clinton is actually ahead.

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  1. hearing that many places are running out of Dem ballots because the Independents are taking the Dem ballot in HUGE numbers.

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    p>Seems it would be good for Barak and bad for McCain if that happens.

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    p>Maybe Mitt stays close enough to McCain to keep on going?

    • I read the same logic in multiple places and I dont buy into it … the line about independant turnout in the GOP helping McCain … This isnt 2000 … long way from there.
      I would think if anything Mr “just fine with spending the next 100 years in Iraq” McCain would be working towards banning independants from voting in the neoCons show …

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      p>However on a bright note (for McCain) my inbox is lighting up with all kinds of alerts about NewHampshires Diebold counting software …
      Has anyone else picked up the same stuff … like NH must lead the nation in obsolete hackable machines? Whats up with that?

      • This isnt 2000 … long way from there.

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        p>Yes, indeed.  It’s 2008 and what’s the turnout like in New Hampshire? (Emphasis Mine)

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        p>

        Governor John Lynch predicted a record voter turnout in New Hampshire today as early reports filtered in about some polling places running short on ballots.

        Lynch cited Secretary of State William Gardner’s projections that 500,000 voters will cast ballots in the primaries, more than 100,000 above the previous record in 2000.

        “We’re seeing tremendous excitement and enthusiasm across the state,” Lynch said on CNN. He said the buzz is particularly strong on the Democratic side, mentioning Gardner’s prediction that 150,000 independents will vote, and 90,000 will choose the Democratic ballot.

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        p>Yes, indeed.  This sho’ ain’t 2000.  Heh.

      • Ralph Reed just made a pretty compelling argument on CNN that McCain’s lead in NH is exactly due to that.

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        p>Why don’t you buy it?

    • There is some evidence that Romney might be making a comeback:

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      p>1. A poll released by WHDH this morning showed Romney up by 4 points.  Something about this poll feels a bit sketchy, but it is intriguing nonetheless.

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      p>2. Rasmussen Reports has been conducting a national daily tracking poll of the race.  This morning, their daily tracking showed Romney gaining 4 points overnight and McCain losing a point.  Also, their current NH poll has McCain up by only one point.

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      p>3. A few hours ago, Romney began talking more confidently about his chances of winning.  This probably reflects positive internal polling results.

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      p>Of course, a Romney victory would depend heavily on independent voters overwhelmingly opting to participate in the democratic primary.  Incidentally, has anyone else noticed that Romney has been very complimentary of Obama the past few days?  IMO, this is a strategic attempt to built Obama up, and thereby encourage independent voters to go for him instead of McCain.

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      p>What does everyone think?  Is this all spin and pollster error, or are we going to have a NH surprise tonight?

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      p>Yours,
      Carey

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      p>P.S. For the record, I am a liberal and do not support any of the Republican candidates.

      • And honestly, I’d give Romney about a 50% shot. He had more money and organization than McCain, so if Rasmussen is right (I never trust Suffolk), Romney can overcome a 1% lead. Hell, a 1% lead isn’t statistically significant anyway, that’s pretty much a complete tie.

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        p>Some more honesty: I’m hoping for the Romney comeback. He’ll get trounced in the General. McCain, on the other hand, could turn it into a race. I still think he’d lose, but if it’s all the same, I’d rather take my chances with Romney. Lastly, a Romney victory would by no means translate into more victories in the future. It was pretty much Guiliani’s strategy to allow Huck-Rom-McCain all get victories in the first few states, while he pinned his hopes on Florida. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see Huck win Iowa, Romney win New Hampshire, McCain take a state or two, then Guiliani win Florida or something (bearing in mind, Florida will only have half it’s usual delegates, since it broke the rules to move up the primary). Lynne suggested there could be a very fun Republican National Convention, without a clear party nominee. At the very least, it’ll mean the Republicans will have to campaign longer, spend more and wear out their volunteer base… just in time to get crushed even harder by a well-rested, well-oiled, better funded Democratic machine.

  2. Carl Kasell on NPR starting the news with “Fighting got, uh voting got underway in New Hampshire.”

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    p>Carl needs a vacation, I think.

  3. I just got from another big day of working for Edwards in the Seacoast Region. I would be shocked if Romney comes close to McCain tonight. Admittedly I have only seen the area between Portsmouth and Exeter but in the split households (one voting D, one voting R) I have contacted I hear plenty of support for McCain (as well as the Dems) but almost nothing for Romney over the past week. It could be a bad night for Mitt and the Suffolk poll. (One other hand David P of the poll could be one of the few genius in the business if he is right.)

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    p>The reports of big turnout are huge. Lots of trees died making all the door knockers I saw today.

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    p>It has been so much fun.

  4. At what vote count do candidates get historized into oblivion, off the radar screens of “media”.

  7. Has live primary results. Only 10% of precincts in, looks like just the rural areas sofar mostly. http://concordmonitor.com/

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    p> Clinton , Hillary Dem 12,282 38%
    Obama , Barack Dem 11,579 36%
    Edwards , John Dem 5,414 17%
    Richardson , Bill Dem 1,376 4%
    Kucinich , Dennis Dem 619 2%
    Crow , Randy Dem 437 1%

    • Here’s hoping Romney wins Michigan, and Thompson South Carolina.

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      p>Interesting results in New Hampshire thus far…  I want to smack any pundit who calls anybody “out” after two miserly primaries.  Let’s wait until a primary in a state with a diverse population and some urbanization.

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      p>Based on exit polling, Hillary seems to be winning among Democrats, Obama among Independents.  I imagine Camp Hillary is already preparing a “Can Obama Survive the Closed Primaries?” spin.

  9. Looks like he lost, CNN and MSNBC called it.

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    p>I thought Romney could pull off an upset, but I should have known better. Romney channeling Obama was not only an odd thing to do at the last minute, but I would have to think really turned off a lot of Republicans, given that before Romney opened his mouth over the past day or two, the polls had tightened to a very close race (with Suffolk being an outlier AGAIN showing Romney with a 4pt lead).  

    • what’s up with Suffolk?  I remember this from the 2006 Gov race here as well — they were always the ones disagreeing with everyone else.  And when they disagreed, they were always wrong.  Someone needs to do a methodology check over there.

      • David Paleologos presented his findings at a seminar I took in campaigns and elections, and the seemed to report the dissatisfaction with Mitt, overwhelming support for Deval, but support for Muffy’s viewpoints.  How was that off-kilter?  Prof. Paleologos generally knows what he’s doing.

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        p>If you really want to know “what’s up,” then you can find out for yourself.  That site has results, marginals, cross-tabs, contact information for Prof. Paleologos, and more! 😉

  10. The monitor showed 443 votes for this fine businessman, outdistancing Mike Gravel by 393 votes:
    http://www.randycrow.com/

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    p>Sadly for comedians everywhere, this turned out to be a misprint, as his 443 votes changed into the significantly more modest seven.

  11. My faith could be restored – I can’t fathom a reason why Hillary looks so solid so far tonight other than the fact that all the pundits were wrong and people identified with Hillary’s tears as I did: they were geniune and endearing.

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    p>Perhaps the public is ahead of the media yet again – this time on sexism. Whether she ends up winning or not, at least I’m glad to know that this country isn’t as sexist when it comes to the POTUS as I started to suspect.

    • that folks are breaking for Clinton late:

      8:28 – The tabulations on the Democratic side indicate that Obama’s advantage was narrower among those who decided in the last few days than among those who decided over the last month (i.e. no big break to Obama in the closing days): Obama’s margin over Clinton (using the current estimates, which will likely change over the next few hours) among those who decided their vote today (40% to 37%), the last three days (41% to 35%), last week (47% to 25%), last month (48% to 32%). Among those who decided “before that,” Clinton leads 47% to 32%. And more than a third of voters (37%) say they made up their minds today or in the last three days.

    • So because the public is “ahead of the media on sexism” they changed their double digit Obama lead to a Hillary lead based on her tears?

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      p>In my opinion anyone who wins because their tears are splashed all over the news the day of the election is – well – somewhat underwhelming.

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      p>Maybe the Islamic jihadists will respond well to her tears when she’s president and they are giving her a hard time.  I hope they don’t turn out to be sexist.

      • Specifically,

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        p>

        Whether she ends up winning or not, at least I’m glad to know that this country isn’t as sexist when it comes to the POTUS as I started to suspect.

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        p>Based on the crap pundits were spewing, one would have expected her numbers to go down even below her polls. However, it didn’t, so at the very least her emotional moment didn’t hurt her. Furthermore, are tears any different than a meaningless “change?” Seriously, campaigns at that level are almost entirely about PR and message, so why would anyone be stunned that PR and message, used effectively, would impact a race? It’s just about the only thing that ever does, under the current system of politics.

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        p>Hell, look at the Republican side. Among those who said they voted based on a candidate’s issues, Romney got a higher percent of votes, with about 5-10% more than Romney. Among those said they were doing it based on personality/character –  no different than tears – and McCain had a huge edge. How is that any different? Why aren’t you complaining about that sort of thing?  

        • Among those who said they voted based on a candidate’s issues, Romney got a higher percent of votes, with about 5-10% more than Romney.

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          p>That’s a rather amusing mistake. Romney has taken both sides of every issue, so I guess he might as well as be running twice (and getting all the issues voters, since he has agreed with everyone at some point in the past).

  12. …is doing way better than expected so far.  She is actually leading Obama 40-36 with 15% of the vote in…an upset in the making?

    • =)

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      p>I’ve got to think the crying thing played bigger than anyone could have expected – in Hillary’s favor. She was down about 10% in the polls and is suddenly up 4%. There’s still waaay too many precincts waiting to report, but the stunning thing is many of them are in heavily populated areas where Hillary seems to be doing as well (by the Mass line).

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      p>All I can say is this is going to be a fun night and tonight should leave room for a fairly long primary – even if Obama wins, I doubt it would be nearly the amount polls were predicting at this point.

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      p>One moral of this story is it looks like all the NH polls sucked, but Suffolk was still the worst of all.

    • Nashua, etc. have yet to report.

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      p>Hill is holding a pretty wide margin in Manchester. I’d suspect if she wins there she’ll win the primary.  

      • Clinton should win Manchester, no question about that…so just winning it isn’t enough. However, she won there very decisively, so it should be close. We have to wait until the seacoast/western NH areas report to get a better sense of how this will end up.

  13. will probably still win, but looking at the cities and towns that have reported so far, it will be a lot closer than expected. Manchester went decisively for Hillary, which is what she needed to win (more blue-collar voters). Obama won Portsmouth, which isn’t surprising. What will be interesting is to see how much Obama wins towns like Durham, Bow, Exeter, Bedford, etc. He needs to win wealthier and college towns by fairly decent margins.

    • He did best among affluent voters; I was also told before the polls closed that they had it 40-38 Obama, which I found hard to believe, at that point.

      • about the 40-38. Interesting, the expectations seem to be accurate so far — Clinton winning the blue-collar areas, Obama doing better in the area with higher concentrations of more affluent voters. Looks like if Obama wins, it will be more in the 3-5% range, rather than a blowout.

  14. Remember, you had about 5% of the electorate being forced to make a last-minute decision: supporters of Senators Dodd and Biden.  I think this is an important part of New Hampshire that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere.  When Richardson pulls out, that’s another 3-5% leaning toward Hillary.

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    p>I think that going from Senate Committee Chairs to a guy with hope in his pocket and a smile on his face was a jump too far for a lot of those folks (David?).  Unsurprisingly, Edwards is collapsing.

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    p>Might be time to get Oprah on the road again.

  16. Seen during Huckabee speech on Wmur.  Security goons ejecting participant not seen.

      • that the crowing was premature …..

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        p>still some Manchester and Nashua precincts out, nothing from Lacnoia yet, and as the media is saying, Dartmouth/Hanover (isn’t that where all those right wing publications come from?)

      • ….my mother registered today to vote for Clinton and she has never voted in her life.  This could go either way.

  17. But it’s still very close.  CNN has the County breakdowns.

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    p>Nashua is breaking big for Hillary, 44% in and it’s:

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    p>Clinton 49%
    Obama 30%

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    p>Now that will be a story, double digit lead evaporates overnight.  There is something to be said about talking face to face with your voters.  Hillary has done a lot over the past few days in talking to voters and it’s paying off.

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