January 11, 2008

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Huckabee Leads by 1.6%
Huckabee
 21.3
McCain
 19.7
Giuliani
 16.7
Romney
 13.0
Thompson
 10.3
Paul
 3.7
See All Polls
Clinton Leads by 7.0%
Clinton
 37.7
Obama
 30.7
Edwards
 16.3
See All Polls
STATE PRIMARY LEADERS
(EARLY STATES)
Huckabee +7.8%
Obama +13.0%
McCain +2.5%
Clinton Running Unopposed
Huckabee +1.5%
Clinton +10.0%
Romney +3.5%
Clinton +17.5%
Clinton
 48.5
Giuliani
 45.5
Clinton
 47.0
Thompson
 42.0
Clinton
 45.0
McCain
 48.5
Clinton
 49.8
Romney
 44.3
Clinton
 51.3
Huckabee
 42.0
See All Head-to-Head Polls

Why the Ref's Poll Averages Are Superior

The Ref's Calls

MEDIA NEEDS REALITY CHECK: Romney Not Out if He Loses Michigan Despite Media Predictions

The pundits declared Iowa and New Hampshire must win states for Romney. He won neither state yet he is the delegate leader. 

Delegate leader? Yes, delegate leader. In a race for delegates, delegates are what matter, not the number of wins a candidate amasses.  One would think many of the pundits do not know this basic fact.   

Romney has made it clear that he will not drop out of the race. He will run in all fifty states. He does not need the media to prop him up to raise money because he already has more money than any other candidate has or will have.

Why does the media continue to predict Romney's demise? Perhaps the fact that the conservative establishment supports him represents the reason. 

Regardless of the reason the predictions will be premature until February 5th at the earliest no matter what happens in Michigan. Bottom line, if Romney leads in delegates or is somewhere near the top after February 5th he is very much in the game.

Pundits that say candidates are finished after one, two, or even five states this year fail to account for the open nature of the Republican race. News channels' need to fill a great deal of time does not justify the incompetent political analysis we have seen lately. We have seen far too much of it this year.  The Ref - Jan. 9, 2008 

First Evidence of Faux Support for a Black Candidate in This Race

One of the consistent problems in polling on a black candidate are respondents who say they will vote for a black candidate but fail to when in the privacy of the voting booth. Some strange force seems to grasp some respondents that compels them to voice support for a black candidate when they do not intend to vote for him or her.

Certainly the polls have not been supremely accurate during this election cycle, but no polls have been so uniformly wrong than those that predicted a large Obama victory in New Hampshire. 

The force that compels the false response seems to rely on a lurking desire to please the pollster. Perhaps the high profile of polling in US politics is to blame. Even those who shun politics and only hear political conversations secondhand in bars or restaurants have heard the familiar refrain, "I don't know who they're polling. I've never been called." 

It is true. Very few potential voters actually receive calls from pollsters. So when one receives a call from a pollster who will report these results nationwide there might be a bit of nervousness that arises built on the desire not to look foolish or backward. 

Perhaps this is the reason that so many who said they would vote for Obama apparently did not. Maybe when they entered the voting booth without any desire to please another, but with only a sense of duty to do what they think is right, they voted for Hillary instead of Obama. 

These people are not racists but merely human. When so much attention is paid by the media to the wonder of a black man seriously contending for the presidential nomination, it is not surprising that some poll respondents respond in a way that they assume the pollster wants them to.  

Certainly other explanations may account for some of the disparity between the polls and the actual result, but some voters who told pollsters they would vote for Obama did not and probably never intended to.  The Ref - Jan. 8, 2008

Pundits Show Remarkable Shortsightedness

One cannot tune into a news channel or read a newspaper without finding predictions of Hillary's complete demise if she loses New Hampshire.  Unfortunately for Hillary haters, the conventional rules for the early primaries do not apply.

Pundits may very well be more concerned with ratings and circulation than reality, but their conclusion that Obama can finish Hillary off by winning the first three states ignores reality.  Here is reality.

The Clinton machine is massive and powerful.  In 1992 Bill Clinton did not win until Georgia and they have that built in narrative to fall back on.  Clinton leads in every state but the first three by sizable margins.  Finally, the first three primaries will have much less impact on the rest of the nation because they take place over a much shorter period of time than ever before.

While pundits rush to declare Obama the victor, Clinton waits for the day when they declare her back from the dead.  What better way to redefine yourself than by coming back from the dead?  Make no mistake about it, Hillary Clinton, even if she loses New Hampshire and South Carolina, will be very much alive.  If you doubt that simply refer to the Ref's National Poll Averages.     

Do not misread me.  I have no desire for Hillary or any other candidate to win.  But to declare her dead after three primaries simply ignores reality, this year at least.  The Ref - Jan. 6, 2008

 

The Ref's Daily Political Brief

Obama Receives an Establishment Endorsement

Hillary Holds Back Negative Ads, Conservative Novak Predicts Nasty Campaign

Primaries in General

McCain

Huckabee

Romney

Giuliani

 


Yahoo! News: Politics News

Dems look to health vote without abortion foes (AP)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks about healthcare reform at her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 4, 2010. REUTERS/Jose Luis MaganaAP - House Democratic leaders Thursday abandoned a long struggle to strike a compromise on abortion in their ranks, gambling that they can secure the support for President Barack Obama's sweeping health care legislation with showdown votes looming as early as next week.




Reid's wife, daughter injured in highway accident (AP)

FILE - In this June 24, 2007, file photo, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., right, and his wife Landra Reid attend an event at Ford's Theater in Washington. A spokesman says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's wife and daughter were being treated in a hospital Thursday, March 11, 2010, from serious injuries they sustained when their vehicle was rear-ended. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)AP - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's wife was hospitalized with a broken back and neck Thursday after a tractor-trailer truck slammed into the back of the minivan in which she and their daughter were riding on an interstate highway in suburban Virginia, officials said.




Report: Obama to tap Yellen to be Fed vice chair (AP)

President Barack Obama speaks at the Export-Import Bank's Annual Conference in Washington, Thursday, March 11, 2010. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)AP - President Barack Obama is planning to nominate Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, to take over as vice chairman of central bank in Washington, The Wall Street Journal reported.




Dodd tries to beat the clock with bank reform (Politico)
Politico - Dodd says Dems can’t keep waiting for GOP.

Loan bill could give Obama twin win (Politico)
Politico - Democrats and the Senate Budget Committee are signaling support for the move.

Dodd to offer his own financial regulation bill (AP)

In this March 8, 2010 photo, a sign for Wall Street is shown near the New York Stock Exchange. Stock futures fell slightly after the Labor Department said first-time claims for jobless benefits fell slightly less than expected.(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)AP - With one eye on the calendar and the other on elusive bipartisanship, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd plans to offer his own version of a sweeping overhaul of financial regulations without Republican support.




Pa. GOP picks Burns as nominee for Murtha's seat (AP)

A file photo of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden as he arrives at a memorial service for U.S. Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, March 3, 2010. REUTERS/Jason Reed/FilesAP - Republicans in Pennsylvania have nominated a political newcomer to fill the congressional seat of the late Rep. John Murtha.




GOP loses bid for ethics probe of Dem leaders (AP)

FILE - This Tuesday Oct. 14, 2008 file photo shows Eric Massa, Democratic candidate for New York's 29th Congressional District in Rochester, N.Y. One is a former Democratic freshman who was little known outside his Corning-Olean-Pittsford, N.Y. district. The other, a 20-term Democratic kingpin from Harlem, known to New Yorkers and anyone following tax bills. But now, Republicans — looking for any opening to regain control of the House — are portraying newly resigned first-termer Eric Massa and veteran Charles Rangel as dual symbols of Democratic ethical misconduct. (AP Photo/David Duprey, File)AP - House Democrats on Thursday stopped a Republican bid to force an investigation of Democratic leaders aimed at determining whether they covered up sexual harassment allegations against ex-Rep. Eric Massa.




Author assumes guise of 10-year-old to punk famous (AP)

Author Bill Geerhart poses with letters he received from Charles Manson, left, and Sarah Palin's father, all in his new book, 'Little Billy's Letters,' on his 1950s retro Formica kitchen table, at his home in Los Angeles Wednesday, March 10, 2010. But Geerhart was better known to some of the famous and infamous as Little Billy, punking them by posing as a school boy writing letters to them asking questions out of the mouths of babes. Their correspondence back - humorous, head-scratching, poignant - are compiled in 'Little Billy's Letters,' out this week. At rear is a movie poster from a 1949 RKO Radio Pictures film, 'I Married A Communist,' now a period cult classic, part of Geerhart's large collection of vintage memorabilia. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)AP - Over the years, "Little Billy" learned much from the country's top minds.




Ginsburg endorses end to local judicial elections (AP)
AP - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is endorsing an end to the election of judges at the state and local levels.

Critics of Justice Dept. lawyers under fire (AP)

FILE - In this Feb. 18, 2010, file photo, Liz Cheney, board member, Keep America Safe, addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), in Washington. The conservative group's bashing of several Obama administration lawyers as the 'al-Qaida Seven' has struck a nerve in the U.S. legal community, prompting even some fellow Republicans to denounce the group's attack. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)AP - A conservative group's bashing of several Obama administration lawyers as the "al-Qaida Seven" has struck a nerve in the U.S. legal community, prompting even some fellow Republicans to denounce the group's attack.




Italy murder convict blames Knox and ex-boyfriend (AP)
AP - A man convicted in the 2007 slaying of a British student has written a letter implicating his co-defendants and denying he had ever said they had nothing to do with the murder.

Cyprus ex-leader's stolen body is reburied (AP)

Women cry during a brief reburial ceremony for former President Tassos Papadopoulos at the suburban Nicosia cemetery in Cyprus, Thursday, March 11, 2010. The body of former Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos is reburied three months to the day after it was dug up from its grave and stolen. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)AP - The body of former Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos was reburied on Thursday, three months to the day after it was dug up from its grave and stolen in an apparent extortion bid.




Don't politicize yuan, China central bank tells Obama (Reuters)
Reuters - The United States should not make a political issue out of the yuan, a Chinese central banker said on Friday, as the two countries lurched toward a potentially serious clash about Beijing's currency regime.

Financial regulation bill to be introduced without GOP backing (McClatchy Newspapers)

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Chris Dodd listens to testimony at the Senate Banking Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 23, 2009. REUTERS/Larry Downing (McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — Long-awaited Senate legislation that would direct the broadest overhaul of financial regulation since the Great Depression will be introduced on Monday without any Republican support, despite weeks of bipartisan negotiations.




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