In the wake of the Clinton win in New Hampshire last night it seems that everyone is taking a closer look at the polls and wondering where they failed.
Many polls predicted an Obama landslide a'la Iowa but ended with Clinton winning by 3 points.
Does this mean that polls are unreliable, that we shouldn't trust them?
Many candidates and skeptical members of the public take polling data with a grain of salt. There are many variables that have to be taken into consideration when reading a poll. When the pollster called? Which member of the house they were speaking to? The gender? The skin colour? etc etc etc
Any number of these variables can skew a poll. The pollsters shut down their data collection services around 36 hours before the voting began. Doing that was a mistake because they missed the one event that changed this primary:
The tears almost shed by Hillary Clinton led to an outpouring of emotion from women and the elderly who drowned their sorrows in the voting booths by ticking the name 'Hillary Clinton'. Clinton, who was always lambasted for being to steely and never showing any emotion, won over these voters in the 36 hours that the polling booths were shut down. In this day and age of instant news it's well known that a single event can change the outcome of an election and this was that event. Polls should be open until the voters walk through the front door. After that they should conduct exit polls. Here's Hillary's victory speech, she seems as surprised as anyone else in the room:
I'm sure that polling will be scrutinized a great deal over the next several primaries up to Super Tuesday. I'm sure Barack Obama is feeling awful, he was floating on a cloud and a sure thing for the New Hampshire primary. As i stated in a previous post i'm sure that Obama will make an amazing president once he's had some on-the-job training, hopefully as Hillary's VP. I only hope that he realizes this before he gets too big for his own boots and implodes; denying America of an astounding politician.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
New Hampshire
Well for the last few hours i've been sitting at my computer addicted to the drudgereport. John McCain was an early call, beating Mitt Romney by several points but Clinton and Obama were within 2-3% of each other for about 2 hours. Drudge is calling it for Hillary Clinton so i send her all the congratulations i can. To Barack Obama i only hope that this doesn't deflate the wind from your sails.
Lets see what happens come Super Tuesday.
Lets see what happens come Super Tuesday.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Interesting article in 'The Australian'
This was a very interesting article in the Australian newspaper. It comments once again, on the US Iowa caucus and Barack Obama. I'm going to be travelling for the next few weeks. I'll try to update throughout the month but i'll be back in the middle of February.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23013962-7583,00.html
A Democrat even Republicans can like
Andrew Sullivan | January 07, 2008
THE historical analogies for the phenomenon that is Barack Obama have already stretched credibility. For a while, pundits likened him to the Democratic Party's 1950s effete loser Adlai Stevenson. But Obama doesn't seem like such an airhead after his gritty, crushing defeat of Hillary Clinton in Iowa.
So now the favourite analogy is JFK: the young, hopeful rhetorician urging a New Frontier after two terms of conservatism. But that doesn't work either: John F. Kennedy won by out-hawking Richard Nixon in 1960, and Obama is a clear anti-Iraq war candidate. Bobby Kennedy is more apposite: a mix of inner steel and an evolving moral candidacy. Just as a vote for RFK in 1968 was seen by many as a form of collective self-absolution for Vietnam, so Obama resonates among many Americans who do not recognise what their country has become these past few years.
The analogy that worries Republicans the most is a more recent one. Could Obama be a potential liberal version of Ronald Reagan? Could he do for the Democrats what Reagan did for the Republicans a quarter century ago? It's increasingly possible. Reagan was the cutting edge of the previous realignment in US politics. With a good-natured civil appeal to Democrats who felt abandoned by their party under Jimmy Carter, Reagan revolutionised the reach of his party.
He didn't aim for a mere plurality, as Bill Clinton did. Nor did he go for a polarising 51 per cent strategy, as George W. Bush has done. He ran as a national candidate in search of a national mandate, a proud Republican who nonetheless wanted Democrats to vote for him.
He came out of a period in which Americans had become sickened by the incompetence of their government. Reagan shocked US elites by pivoting that discontent into a victory in 1980. And by his second term, he won 49 out of 50 states.
You can see the same potential in Obama. What has long been remarkable to me is how this liberal politician fails to alienate conservatives. In fact, many like him a great deal. His calm and reasoned demeanour, his crisp style, his refusal to engage in racial identity politics: these appeal to disaffected Republicans.
He is particularly attractive to those on the US Right who feel betrayed by the Bush administration's version of conservatism, just as many Democrats felt betrayed by Carter's liberalism.
These voters -- non-evangelical, fiscally and militarily prudent, socially tolerant -- do not feel at home in the angry, southern, anti-immigrant Republican Party of the past few years.
Almost one-quarter of those voting in the Democratic caucus last Thursday night were Republicans or independents. In both categories, Obama beat Hillary Clinton by more than two to one. In New Hampshire, independents are even more prevalent and may well represent 40 per cent of the Democratic vote. (In Iowa as well as New Hampshire, you can change your party registration on the day of the vote.)
Reagan won a national victory on the strength of Reagan Democrats. Obama could win with Obama Republicans. That's remarkable in itself. When you realise he's also a liberal urban black man whose middle name is Hussein, it's gobsmacking.
Put these disaffected Republicans together with a spectrum of minorities and a black vote potentially greater than at any time in history, and you begin to see what Obama offers his own party.
The other strikingly Reaganite aspect to Obama is his appeal to the younger generation. People forget that the oldest president was extremely popular among the under-30s.
Obama has an almost cult-like standing on college campuses. The youth vote is always touted every four years but never materialises on polling day. Last Thursday, it came out in force. In Iowa, where the over-65 cohort usually outnumbers the under-30s by five to one, the old and the young were evenly divided.
Among the under-30s, Obama beat Clinton by 57 per cent to 11 per cent.
This generation, moreover, is a huge one: the boomer echo. Between Bush pushing them and Obama pulling them, the Democrats' advantage could define a generation's politics. And that's increasingly Obama's ambition. He has kept his ego in check, but he is clearly aiming for a large mandate rather than a small win. He isn't a Clinton in this respect or even a Bush. He is a Reagan, a Margaret Thatcher of the Left.
Mike Huckabee, meanwhile, is being discounted as not significant in the same sense. But it is, I'd say, very foolish to underestimate him as well. In the wreckage of the post-Bush Republican Party, Huckabee is the most talented natural politician. And he has taken Bushism to its logical conclusion.
He argues, proudly and simply, for a politics based overwhelmingly on religion. He refuses to apologise for previous statements that he wants to reclaim America for Christ or that people with AIDS should be quarantined. In Iowa, he won the born-again vote and the vote of Bush fans. He's the kind of preacher who lets you know he likes a beer and knows his rock'n'roll. It works. One slogan seemed as powerful as it is simple: I Like Mike. And so many do.
And, unlike Bush, Huckabee has combined a belief in the paternalist state with a hostility to Wall Street.
He is a potential builder of a future Republicanism that is as socially conservative as it is economically populist: extremely hostile to illegal immigrants, gay couples and abortion, but just as angry at big corporations, free trade and the globalised gilded elites. In making the case against Mitt Romney -- a multimillionaire former business consultant -- Huckabee argued that it was a choice between the bloke you work with and the man who sacks you.
The simmering class resentment, which is just beneath the surface, clearly motivates his supporters. When they were attacked by Washington Republicans as know-nothings, they responded by surging to the polls. They can smell the condescension. And it angers them.
It may be that Huckabee, as the conventional wisdom has it, cannot win the nomination. Underfunded, underorganised and a foreign policy embarrassment, he is unlikely to win New Hampshire against that state's favourite old codger, John McCain, or the slick former governor of neighbouring Massachusetts, Romney.
But South Carolina, brimming with evangelicals, is another matter. And talent counts. Huckabee's underrated skills have already begun to bring in more established advisers such as former Reagan aide Ed Rollins (now Huckabee's campaign manager) and Bill Clinton's scruples-free guru Dick Morris. Clinton himself is a fan.
Even if Huckabee falters this time around, he represents a viable future for the Republicans, albeit a very different one from the past. Huckabee represents the consolidation of the Republicans as a southern, religious, working-class party.
If he wins the nomination, he could push a lot of economic conservatives into the Democratic camp, lose badly and yet reshape his party: a reverse Barry Goldwater, turning Republicanism into something closer to religious populism than Yankee conservatism.
There is, of course, a natural tendency to overestimate the import of a single caucus. But so far the underestimaters have been the ones who have got this election wrong. Washington's elites assumed a match between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani this year. But they didn't see the turmoil remaking the US, and the deep hunger for a new direction. As unrest grows in Pakistan, as the US economy looks headed for a nasty downturn, I see no reason to think that the forces behind Obama and Huckabee will abate soon.
Yes, history happens. And Americans, exhausted from fear and war and economic insecurity, have just informed us that they can shape it again. I wouldn't bet against them.
Andrew Sullivan is a columnist for Britain's The Times.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23013962-7583,00.html
A Democrat even Republicans can like
Andrew Sullivan | January 07, 2008
THE historical analogies for the phenomenon that is Barack Obama have already stretched credibility. For a while, pundits likened him to the Democratic Party's 1950s effete loser Adlai Stevenson. But Obama doesn't seem like such an airhead after his gritty, crushing defeat of Hillary Clinton in Iowa.
So now the favourite analogy is JFK: the young, hopeful rhetorician urging a New Frontier after two terms of conservatism. But that doesn't work either: John F. Kennedy won by out-hawking Richard Nixon in 1960, and Obama is a clear anti-Iraq war candidate. Bobby Kennedy is more apposite: a mix of inner steel and an evolving moral candidacy. Just as a vote for RFK in 1968 was seen by many as a form of collective self-absolution for Vietnam, so Obama resonates among many Americans who do not recognise what their country has become these past few years.
The analogy that worries Republicans the most is a more recent one. Could Obama be a potential liberal version of Ronald Reagan? Could he do for the Democrats what Reagan did for the Republicans a quarter century ago? It's increasingly possible. Reagan was the cutting edge of the previous realignment in US politics. With a good-natured civil appeal to Democrats who felt abandoned by their party under Jimmy Carter, Reagan revolutionised the reach of his party.
He didn't aim for a mere plurality, as Bill Clinton did. Nor did he go for a polarising 51 per cent strategy, as George W. Bush has done. He ran as a national candidate in search of a national mandate, a proud Republican who nonetheless wanted Democrats to vote for him.
He came out of a period in which Americans had become sickened by the incompetence of their government. Reagan shocked US elites by pivoting that discontent into a victory in 1980. And by his second term, he won 49 out of 50 states.
You can see the same potential in Obama. What has long been remarkable to me is how this liberal politician fails to alienate conservatives. In fact, many like him a great deal. His calm and reasoned demeanour, his crisp style, his refusal to engage in racial identity politics: these appeal to disaffected Republicans.
He is particularly attractive to those on the US Right who feel betrayed by the Bush administration's version of conservatism, just as many Democrats felt betrayed by Carter's liberalism.
These voters -- non-evangelical, fiscally and militarily prudent, socially tolerant -- do not feel at home in the angry, southern, anti-immigrant Republican Party of the past few years.
Almost one-quarter of those voting in the Democratic caucus last Thursday night were Republicans or independents. In both categories, Obama beat Hillary Clinton by more than two to one. In New Hampshire, independents are even more prevalent and may well represent 40 per cent of the Democratic vote. (In Iowa as well as New Hampshire, you can change your party registration on the day of the vote.)
Reagan won a national victory on the strength of Reagan Democrats. Obama could win with Obama Republicans. That's remarkable in itself. When you realise he's also a liberal urban black man whose middle name is Hussein, it's gobsmacking.
Put these disaffected Republicans together with a spectrum of minorities and a black vote potentially greater than at any time in history, and you begin to see what Obama offers his own party.
The other strikingly Reaganite aspect to Obama is his appeal to the younger generation. People forget that the oldest president was extremely popular among the under-30s.
Obama has an almost cult-like standing on college campuses. The youth vote is always touted every four years but never materialises on polling day. Last Thursday, it came out in force. In Iowa, where the over-65 cohort usually outnumbers the under-30s by five to one, the old and the young were evenly divided.
Among the under-30s, Obama beat Clinton by 57 per cent to 11 per cent.
This generation, moreover, is a huge one: the boomer echo. Between Bush pushing them and Obama pulling them, the Democrats' advantage could define a generation's politics. And that's increasingly Obama's ambition. He has kept his ego in check, but he is clearly aiming for a large mandate rather than a small win. He isn't a Clinton in this respect or even a Bush. He is a Reagan, a Margaret Thatcher of the Left.
Mike Huckabee, meanwhile, is being discounted as not significant in the same sense. But it is, I'd say, very foolish to underestimate him as well. In the wreckage of the post-Bush Republican Party, Huckabee is the most talented natural politician. And he has taken Bushism to its logical conclusion.
He argues, proudly and simply, for a politics based overwhelmingly on religion. He refuses to apologise for previous statements that he wants to reclaim America for Christ or that people with AIDS should be quarantined. In Iowa, he won the born-again vote and the vote of Bush fans. He's the kind of preacher who lets you know he likes a beer and knows his rock'n'roll. It works. One slogan seemed as powerful as it is simple: I Like Mike. And so many do.
And, unlike Bush, Huckabee has combined a belief in the paternalist state with a hostility to Wall Street.
He is a potential builder of a future Republicanism that is as socially conservative as it is economically populist: extremely hostile to illegal immigrants, gay couples and abortion, but just as angry at big corporations, free trade and the globalised gilded elites. In making the case against Mitt Romney -- a multimillionaire former business consultant -- Huckabee argued that it was a choice between the bloke you work with and the man who sacks you.
The simmering class resentment, which is just beneath the surface, clearly motivates his supporters. When they were attacked by Washington Republicans as know-nothings, they responded by surging to the polls. They can smell the condescension. And it angers them.
It may be that Huckabee, as the conventional wisdom has it, cannot win the nomination. Underfunded, underorganised and a foreign policy embarrassment, he is unlikely to win New Hampshire against that state's favourite old codger, John McCain, or the slick former governor of neighbouring Massachusetts, Romney.
But South Carolina, brimming with evangelicals, is another matter. And talent counts. Huckabee's underrated skills have already begun to bring in more established advisers such as former Reagan aide Ed Rollins (now Huckabee's campaign manager) and Bill Clinton's scruples-free guru Dick Morris. Clinton himself is a fan.
Even if Huckabee falters this time around, he represents a viable future for the Republicans, albeit a very different one from the past. Huckabee represents the consolidation of the Republicans as a southern, religious, working-class party.
If he wins the nomination, he could push a lot of economic conservatives into the Democratic camp, lose badly and yet reshape his party: a reverse Barry Goldwater, turning Republicanism into something closer to religious populism than Yankee conservatism.
There is, of course, a natural tendency to overestimate the import of a single caucus. But so far the underestimaters have been the ones who have got this election wrong. Washington's elites assumed a match between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani this year. But they didn't see the turmoil remaking the US, and the deep hunger for a new direction. As unrest grows in Pakistan, as the US economy looks headed for a nasty downturn, I see no reason to think that the forces behind Obama and Huckabee will abate soon.
Yes, history happens. And Americans, exhausted from fear and war and economic insecurity, have just informed us that they can shape it again. I wouldn't bet against them.
Andrew Sullivan is a columnist for Britain's The Times.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Barack Obama
It's hard not to be swept up in Obama-mania.
He's just won the Iowa caucus and is giving a rousing speech thanking the people for having faith in him.
Here is a charismatic young man who has overcome the adversity of youth, financial difficulties and most importantly the colour of his skin. He's 20 years younger than his nearest Democratic rival and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. The man gives an amazing speech.
He will make an amazing president. Just not yet.
If Obama would accept the Vice President under Hillary Clinton (who has a wealth of foreign policy experience) it will remove all political taboos in the country. There will no longer be old, white, men running the country. With Hillary improving America's relations overseas and Obama taking care of the domestic front i'm sure that over the next 16 years of Democratic rule in the White House (8 for Hillary, 8 for Obama) i'm sure that America will be improved.
However, if Obama were to win presidency then i'm sure that he would surround himself with the best and the brightest of all the administration, including Hillary. I'm sure she'd make an amazing Secretary of State :)
He's just won the Iowa caucus and is giving a rousing speech thanking the people for having faith in him.
Here is a charismatic young man who has overcome the adversity of youth, financial difficulties and most importantly the colour of his skin. He's 20 years younger than his nearest Democratic rival and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. The man gives an amazing speech.
He will make an amazing president. Just not yet.
If Obama would accept the Vice President under Hillary Clinton (who has a wealth of foreign policy experience) it will remove all political taboos in the country. There will no longer be old, white, men running the country. With Hillary improving America's relations overseas and Obama taking care of the domestic front i'm sure that over the next 16 years of Democratic rule in the White House (8 for Hillary, 8 for Obama) i'm sure that America will be improved.
However, if Obama were to win presidency then i'm sure that he would surround himself with the best and the brightest of all the administration, including Hillary. I'm sure she'd make an amazing Secretary of State :)
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Two very interesting news articles
Shin Bet data shows dramatic drop in 2007 terror fatalities
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
Thirteen Israelis were killed by Palestinians in 2007, the lowest number in years, according to data released yesterday by the Shin Bet security service.
The fatality figures for 2006 and 2005 were 24 and 50, respectively.
Moreover, there was only one successful suicide bombing last year, down from six in 2006 and 60 during the intifada's worst year, 2002. That bombing, in Eilat last January, killed three people.
According to the Shin Bet, the sharp decline in terror stemmed not from a drop in the terrorists' motivation, but from Israel's success in foiling attacks. This success is based on three elements: the separation fence, superb intelligence, and the Israel Defense Forces' almost complete freedom of action in the West Bank.
The data show "as close as possible to a victory over terror," a senior defense official told Haaretz. "The IDF and Shin Bet succeeded in thwarting suicide terror, reducing it to a tolerable level."
In contrast to the sharp decline in suicide bombings, however, rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza continued apace. In total, Palestinians fired 1,263 rockets and 1,511 mortar shells at southern Israel last year, compared with 1,722 rockets and 55 mortars in 2006. Rocket attacks accounted for two of last year's fatalities, both in Sderot.
The Shin Bet estimates that 80 tons of explosives have been smuggled into Gaza since Hamas ousted Fatah in the strip last June, and that Hezbollah funnels $10 million a year to Palestinian terror groups.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/940526.html
and
Study: Number of Palestinians killed by IDF dropped 43% in '07
By Avi Issacharoff
The number of Palestinians killed by the Israel Defense Forces in 2007 decreased by 43 percent since last year, to 373, but the total number of Palestinians killed this year reached a record high because of the 344 Palestinians killed in the internecine conflict, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said in its year-end report.
The report also found a significant drop in the proportion of civilians killed, which decreased from 54 percent of the 657 Palestinians killed by IDF fire in 2006 to 35 percent of the 373 Palestinians killed between January 1 and December 29 of this year.
Fifty-three of the Palestinians were minors and the vast majority - 270 - were killed in the Gaza Strip.
In addition, seven Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinian fire in 2007 - the lowest number since the second intifada began.
Civilians killed
Three of the civilians were killed in a suicide bombing in Eilat, two by a Qassam rocket in Sderot and two in a shooting attack in the West Bank, while six Israeli security personnel were killed by Palestinian fire this year. In contrast, 17 Israeli civilians were killed in 2006, according to B'Tselem.
The organization also found that the settler population grew by 4.5 percent this year, far exceeding population growth but showing a lower rate of growth than last year, when the settler population increased by 5.8 percent.
There are 36 manned roadblocks in the West Bank that are along the Green Line, and another 66 that are not, B'Tselem found. It said the number of unmanned roadblocks, such as heaps of dirt or cement blocks blocking the entrance to villages, increased to 459 this year, compared to 445 in 2006 and 410 in 2005, but that the number of surprise IDF roadblocks decreased in the second half of 2007.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/940067.html
These reports indicate that the war on terror in Israel is being won with fewer civilian casualties on both sides. An aggressive military approach is halting terrorists before they have the chance to attack. Furthermore the army is adapting their methods to cope with urban warfare and using more non-lethal tactics. Hopefully within the next few years there will be results in single figures, and please god that figure will be 0.
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
Thirteen Israelis were killed by Palestinians in 2007, the lowest number in years, according to data released yesterday by the Shin Bet security service.
The fatality figures for 2006 and 2005 were 24 and 50, respectively.
Moreover, there was only one successful suicide bombing last year, down from six in 2006 and 60 during the intifada's worst year, 2002. That bombing, in Eilat last January, killed three people.
According to the Shin Bet, the sharp decline in terror stemmed not from a drop in the terrorists' motivation, but from Israel's success in foiling attacks. This success is based on three elements: the separation fence, superb intelligence, and the Israel Defense Forces' almost complete freedom of action in the West Bank.
The data show "as close as possible to a victory over terror," a senior defense official told Haaretz. "The IDF and Shin Bet succeeded in thwarting suicide terror, reducing it to a tolerable level."
In contrast to the sharp decline in suicide bombings, however, rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza continued apace. In total, Palestinians fired 1,263 rockets and 1,511 mortar shells at southern Israel last year, compared with 1,722 rockets and 55 mortars in 2006. Rocket attacks accounted for two of last year's fatalities, both in Sderot.
The Shin Bet estimates that 80 tons of explosives have been smuggled into Gaza since Hamas ousted Fatah in the strip last June, and that Hezbollah funnels $10 million a year to Palestinian terror groups.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/940526.html
and
Study: Number of Palestinians killed by IDF dropped 43% in '07
By Avi Issacharoff
The number of Palestinians killed by the Israel Defense Forces in 2007 decreased by 43 percent since last year, to 373, but the total number of Palestinians killed this year reached a record high because of the 344 Palestinians killed in the internecine conflict, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said in its year-end report.
The report also found a significant drop in the proportion of civilians killed, which decreased from 54 percent of the 657 Palestinians killed by IDF fire in 2006 to 35 percent of the 373 Palestinians killed between January 1 and December 29 of this year.
Fifty-three of the Palestinians were minors and the vast majority - 270 - were killed in the Gaza Strip.
In addition, seven Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinian fire in 2007 - the lowest number since the second intifada began.
Civilians killed
Three of the civilians were killed in a suicide bombing in Eilat, two by a Qassam rocket in Sderot and two in a shooting attack in the West Bank, while six Israeli security personnel were killed by Palestinian fire this year. In contrast, 17 Israeli civilians were killed in 2006, according to B'Tselem.
The organization also found that the settler population grew by 4.5 percent this year, far exceeding population growth but showing a lower rate of growth than last year, when the settler population increased by 5.8 percent.
There are 36 manned roadblocks in the West Bank that are along the Green Line, and another 66 that are not, B'Tselem found. It said the number of unmanned roadblocks, such as heaps of dirt or cement blocks blocking the entrance to villages, increased to 459 this year, compared to 445 in 2006 and 410 in 2005, but that the number of surprise IDF roadblocks decreased in the second half of 2007.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/940067.html
These reports indicate that the war on terror in Israel is being won with fewer civilian casualties on both sides. An aggressive military approach is halting terrorists before they have the chance to attack. Furthermore the army is adapting their methods to cope with urban warfare and using more non-lethal tactics. Hopefully within the next few years there will be results in single figures, and please god that figure will be 0.
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