Media Criticism

The New Hampshire primary is over and the candidates have dispersed quickly to their various last stands. Mitt Romney has scampered to Michigan, John Edwards has gone back to South Carolina and Bill Richardson is heading home with two fourth place finishes. I think there are a number of lessons that can be learned from the shocking primary results for the Democrats and Republicans.

I think that internal polling and exit polling is becoming a dinosaur in modern politics. There were complaints by polling companies that the criticisms of poll results in favor of Barack Obama were unfair because telephone polls take time. My response is that pollsters need to get ahead of the tech game or go home. I don’t feel bad at all for pollsters since they cause more problems than they solve.

New Hampshire proved that John Edwards is going to be in third place permanently in every state. Hillary Clinton will get institutional support, Barack Obama will get “change�? voters and the two will split the rest. I admire the Edwards campaign’s “2 down, 48 to go�? mentality but the Democratic base seems to be mobilizing into the Obama and Clinton camps. Edwards will be left with the role of kingmaker since he is just popular enough to carry some delegates in a tight race if he stays in the race through Super Tuesday.

The success of candidates like Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama as well as the resurgence of John McCain has thrown the logic of an accelerated primary schedule on its ear. I am not a Mitt Romney fan but I don’t think Michigan should be his last stand like it appears to be. I think that Rudy Giuliani’s Super Tuesday strategy may pay off in the current atmosphere. Bill Richardson was right to get out of the race but I don’t think anyone on the Republican side outside of Duncan Hunter should budget before February 5th.

This brings me to my last lesson which is that the media needs to stop declaring things over. Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee were given the nominations by CNN, MSNBC and others by the virtue of the Iowa caucuses. I commend Tom Brokaw and Lou Dobbs for pointing out that the media needs to stop declaring the primaries over with 99% of the voters unrepresented. I know that both parties would like a tidy primary season but there is virtue in slugging it out across the country. The parties can find their identities as they head from New Hampshire to South Carolina, Michigan to Nevada, Florida to California.

The tightening primary schedule may not seem to be the best approach to picking a candidate but it has created an interesting dynamic in the 2008 election. The five days between Iowa and New Hampshire forced candidates to skip town in Iowa as soon as possible. New Hampshire is getting months of stump speeches, surrogates and commercials in less than a week. Candidates are forced to sling mud in every direction in order to hit at least one target before the primary on Tuesday. I do not envy the good people of the Granite State the task of putting up with this deluge.

Two debates classified under the euphemism “forum�? were held over the weekend. The ABC/WMUR debate featured six Republicans and four Democrats offering their platforms on a national scale. As much as I would like to think that this first forum was for New Hampshire residents, the fact that it was broadcast on ABC speaks to the nationalization of the primary process. I thought that the focus on the axes of conflict including the Obama/Clinton and Huckabee/Romney parings was an interesting byproduct of the contracted primary schedule. The problem was that Charles Gibson was a poor moderator and the questions asked were less than probative.

The less important debate was held on Fox News on Sunday evening. The Fox News forum was held under a shadow of illegitimacy as the New Hampshire Republican Party pulled support due to the censorship of Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter who were not invited. Chris Wallace (I can’t believe I am saying this) was a better moderator than Charles Gibson in getting to the conflicts among the candidates. Mitt Romney mixed the desperation of Hillary Clinton with his attempt at creating a Romney brand name (apparently, he worked in the private sector AND the Olympics). Mike Huckabee bore his teeth more than usual to attack back at Romney while John McCain and Rudy Giuliani seemed content to answer questions without much pressure.

These debates were perfect for political junkies like me who had a tough time getting to sleep this weekend. I don’t think that New Hampshire voters saw a lot to change their minds on Tuesday. I think that the only surprises will at the second and third positions behind primary winners Barack Obama and John McCain. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton will finish closer than the latest polls indicate with Edwards pulling within three to five points in the third spot. Huckabee has recently leaped over Rudy Giuliani with 14% of support in the latest poll. I think that number will go up as Romney’s numbers go down on Tuesday.