With so much at stake this election, it was a peculiar year for activists like Senator Carl Levin to intentionally break DNC primary rules to make the point that Michigan Democrats resent the advantage that New Hampshire and Iowa have in picking the Democratic nominee for president.

That said, Senator Levin has a point. At the DNC hearing recently he reminded us that the Democratic presidential nominee is usually picked by either NH or IA because they go first. The urgency to change the system could not come at a better time. The Democratic Party, thanks to the crises precipitated under George W Bush's two terms, has perhaps never been more engaged. It's hard to know whether Barack Obama is our nominee because he has engaged a new generation of voters or whether a new generation of voters plus the rest of us cried out for a candidate of Obama's talents and Barack answered that call.

So with all of us fully engaged, Iowa and New Hampshire no longer have the argument that they pay closer attention to what's going on. We're all paying attention.

With the make-or-break Super Tuesday primaries just 24 hours away, two breaking stories suggest that candidacies may be made or broken by media interpretation of the trivial.  In Connecticut, Hillary Clinton once again teared up at a campaign event.  And over the weekend, a questioner at a St. Louis Clinton rally reprised an earlier McCain supporter's faux pas by asking about "Bush the bastard."  No doubt, the analyses of tears and expletives on the Clinton campaign are about to begin.

I drove to NH with a few friends from NJ, to go see the candidates in the environment that is only New Hampshire. Leaving friday afternoon we made it in time to see 2 republicans,

Rudy and Romney.

At the rudy event a College student asked a health care question and by the end of Rudy's answer, he made it about 9-11, the Rudys sentences were disjointed and convoluted. Basically what one would expect from a batshit crazy Mofo. Anyway, we took some pics, and left early, The crowd was thin, about 80 people in a room that could hold 150, and there was only one TV camera.

The Great Orange Overlord has spoken on the New Hampshire Primary recount.  All is well in the world of Kos, and we should be greatful.

Story updated from this previous entry. Check out this video from Black Box Voting's website.

New Hampshire's chain of custody is quite a bit to be desired.

They didn't put the ballots in the vault and the seals come off without leaving a trace on the cardboard box! Anyone could get tamper with the ballots, so there is no way to ever know if they are legit or not.

Over at Media Matters, Eric Boehlert details the backlash that engulfed MSNBC's Chris Matthews over his aggressive and often sexist commentary about Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary.  But more important than the analysis of the "blog swarm" against Matthews is the prospect that his ham-fisted oafishness helped propel Hillary Clinton to her surprising victory.  Chris Matthews may well be the Rick Lazio of 2008.

***cross posted at http://www.politidose.com/

...that Hillary Clinton was declared politically dead after losing the Iowa Caucuses.  It was just two weeks ago when everyone in the media said that Obama would sweep through New Hampshire, Nevada, and Super Tuesday, riding his newfound momentum to the nomination.

Perhaps the only development more disappointing than the injection of racial politics into the Democratic primary process has been the descent of Bill Clinton into attack dog politics.  It seems that with each passing day, the still very popular former President sacrifices his good name - and the huge reservoir of good will he enjoys among the American people – in the service of his wife Hillary's presidential campaign.  Sadly, while Bill Clinton's unseemly and undignified barbs may batter Barack Obama's standing, they also inflict lasting damage to his own.

In light of what happened in New Hampshire last week, there is a newfound skepticism for pre-election polling.  Of course, the skepticism only goes so far.  It doesn't stop the Obama supporters from bragging about a poll like this, or the Clinton supporters a poll like this, or the Edwards supporters a poll like this.

On balance, the caution is warranted, and in fact long overdue.  However, it has also been somewhat misdirected.  The problem is not that polls are "wrong", so much as that they never told us as much as you'd think in the first place.

It seems like an eon has passed since the pollsters and many of the pundits were bollixed by the results of the New Hampshire Primary. Before the primary, polls (and plenty of pundits) shouted that Obama would win—and probably by a significant amount. He lost. Polls (and pundits) suggested that on the Republican side, that McCain would win—and he did. Many who are obsessed with politics wonder how civilization could continue while the mystery about the New Hampshire Polls remained unsolved.  Just how could one series of polls (for the Democrats) be so wrong, while the other (for the Republicans) could be so right?

Clinton said listening to voters had helped her find her voice.

Many zeroed in on a teary moment Clinton shared with voters and the media the Monday before the primary.

Some suggested that it was the debates that had made Clinton the front runner before the Iowa Caucuses, the debate that took place the Saturday before the primary had done it again.

As we know, election integrity has been a talking point for the Democrats since the debacle in Florida in 2000.  And it reared it's head in 2004 with the debacle in Ohio.  Now, in 2008, it's popped up in New Hampshire.

Originally posted on The Bilerico Project by IN LA magazine editor Karen Ocamb.

Change? Bah, humbug.

When I watched John Kerry endorse Barack Obama, I couldn’t help but think: "Here we go, again."

Kerry was the Vietnam war hero turned anti-war hero who threw gays under the bus to get elected in 2004.

And we relented, not wanting to upset Democratic Party big-whigs like Bill Clinton who made it sound like we were the ones who brought on the anti-gay marriage initiatives in eleven states that year. They passed, Kerry lost, and we were blamed. By the way, has either Bill or Hillary Clinton ever confirmed that Bill Clinton advised Kerry to support the anti-gay ballot initiatives as a way of defusing the gay issue?

So here’s Barack Obama, so fresh and new – getting his national jump-start at the 2004 Democratic National Convention where he talked about red and blue states and having gay friends.  Yes – he actually used the word "gay." But no more. Both in his New Hampshire concession speech and in his thank you to Kerry, Obama reverted to the code word "equality."

Here we go again.

Hillary Clinton's poll-defying victory in last week's New Hampshire Democratic primary had pollsters, pundits and conspiracy theorists scrambling to explain the difference between Barack Obama's 8-point average lead in the preceding surveys, versus Clinton's 2-point victory on election night.  Polls are often wrong, but rarely this wrong, and so not surprisingly, the post election narrative was as much dominated by the unexpected nature of the results as the results themselves.  Whereas Obama left Iowa with a surge of positive press, Clinton came away from New Hampshire with a gigantic question mark.

DemFromCT has an exhaustive roundup of the latest thinking on what went wrong (or what went right, depending on your perspective,) and while I tend to agree with the conclusion that multiple factors led to the pollsters' pratfall, I think there is one theory that deserves closer examination, not in spite of its lack of supporting evidence, but because of it.  Of course, I'm talking about the supposed "Bradley Effect."

It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don’t want and get it. – Eugene Debs

In my last pre-primary post – when I re-affirmed that I was voting for John Edwards -- I wrote: "I would like to live in an America in which Kucinich is a viable candidate." I knew I would hear about that, and I did. A Kucinich supporter reminded me of all the issues where Kucinich and I agree: single-payer health care, impeachment, leaving Iraq, no torture, civil liberties. "Kucinich is viable if you vote for him," his email said. "Don’t let the media tell you who is viable. They have their own agenda."

Now that New Hampshire is quiet again, I can think more calmly and clearly: Was he right?

I had hoped to post about my NH canvassing experiences while I was there, but with limited time and internet access, it wasn't possible.

So here are photos from my trip, along with a bit of commentary.

Well, we saw the "miraculous" Clinton victory in New Hampshire.  Some people felt that Clinton's tearing up moved many women, some people speculated that the backlash from press misogyny helped her, some people felt that there may have been a "Bradley Effect".  Perhaps it was a combination of all of these factors.  

We may not know till the heat of the campaign is finished and  time and perspective allows for a full review what the real reasons were, but now the Washington Post reveals that there may have been something more mundane - old school dirty tricks done by a Democrat to another Democrat, by the  Clinton campaign to the Obama campaign.

Below the fold for more...

In the previous diary we talked about 4 pillars of the Team Obama campaign strategy:
.

1. A message of "'hope' & 'change'"

2. An appeal to the divine

3. A 'must-win Iowa' focus: Concentrate as many resources as necessary to secure a
    Hawkeye State victory and then use this first-contest-in-the-nation success as the
    springboard for the rest of the campaign

4. A 'momentum candidacy:' Build momentum from early-state victories and ride it into
    Super Tuesday with the hope of garnering momentum-coattail wins on Feb. 5

.
Part I discussed how Hillary Clinton's dramatic win in the New Hampshire primary of January 8 has left points 3 and 4 either irrelevant or untenable.

Part II examines how Obama's unforeseen New Hampshire defeat will end up crippling tactical points 1 and 2 as well. We will also look at possible strategic alternatives for Team Obama and how these changes might or might not succeed as the race for the nomination continues. Finally, we will predict how the contest will conclude and who will emerge as the last candidate standing.

It was somewhat bizarre to read and listen to liberal bloggers and talk show folks maintaining that there was nothing odd about the New Hampshire Democratic primary election results; whereas, the professional pollsters have been scratching their heads and struggling to come up with an explanation.  I’m quite confident that these same liberals would be screaming "fraud" and demanding a recount if this had been a general election and the pre-election polls had the Republican down by nine points and then she/he won by three points.  Statistically, what happened in New Hampshire is, by several magnitudes, less likely than what happened in OH in 2004.  Or FL 2000.  The votes may well have been recorded and counted accurately, but  it’s crazy to cavalierly dismiss such a wide disparity between the pre-election polls and the results as a function of "women coming home to Hillary" because Hillary showed some feeling and/or an angry response to how the MSM trashing of Hillary for it.