Pew President Says Obama Lost N.H. Due to Race
Posted on Thu Jan 10, 2008 at 11:59:44 AM EST
Tags: New Hampshire 08 (all tags)
Andrew Knoupt, the President of the Pew Center, attributes Obama's loss in New Hampshire to race and bigotry, not women. His piece is about why the pollsters got it wrong, but he's not too subtle:
Poorer, less well-educated white people refuse surveys more often than affluent, better-educated whites. Polls generally adjust their samples for this tendency. But here’s the problem: these whites who do not respond to surveys tend to have more unfavorable views of blacks than respondents who do the interviews.
What he's really claiming is that white people who make less than $50k a year and didn't attend college are bigoted.
Mrs. Clinton beat Mr. Obama by 12 points (47 percent to 35 percent) among those with family incomes below $50,000. By contrast, Mr. Obama beat Mrs. Clinton by five points (40 percent to 35 percent) among those earning more than $50,000.
There was an education gap, too. College graduates voted for Mr. Obama 39 percent to 34 percent; Mrs. Clinton won among those who had never attended college, 43 percent to 35 percent.
As to why this didn't happen in Iowa, he only says:
My guess is that Mr. Obama may have posed less of a threat to white voters in Iowa because he wasn’t yet the front-runner. Caucuses are also plainly different from primaries.
I'm not buying this at all, and I think it's insulting to New Hampshire voters.
Update: Here's another view, one I subscribe to more: Hillary's message and moment won the day. [More...]
Women, in particular, responded: Several said they chose to vote for Mrs. Clinton at the last moment because she had shown a human side of herself that they had never seen.....Based on interviews with a dozen New Hampshire voters, a review of surveys of voters leaving the polls, and revelations from Clinton advisers about their own surveys there, it is clear that Mrs. Clinton’s remarkable turnaround after her loss to Mr. Obama in Iowa occurred because of several key moments — some planned, some not.
This is the one that makes the most sense to me:
She also won support by sharpening her message of experience into concrete terms, casting herself as a doer competing against Mr. Obama’s image as an eloquent talker.
I do think experience played a role even though the voters wanted change. Perhaps her newer message that you get change through experience and she's always been for change made an impact.
It also appeared, based on that exit poll, by Edison/Mitofsky for the television networks and The Associated Press, that Mrs. Clinton’s argument that she is the most experienced Democrat in the field — contributed to her victory. She was backed by 71 percent of Democratic voters in New Hampshire for whom experience was the most important quality; these voters made up 19 percent of those surveyed.
Bill played a factor too.
According to a survey of voters leaving the polls Tuesday, Mr. Clinton was viewed favorably by 83 percent of Democrats, while 49 percent had a very favorable opinion of him. Of the latter group, Mrs. Clinton got a majority of their votes.
As did the Saturday debate, particularly her "hurt feelings" comment which probably increased her likeability factor, and Obama's "your likeable enough" comment which many may have seen as condescending.
Bottom line in my opinion: Women voters and the experience and empathy factors won New Hampshire for Hillary. There also may have been a sense that voting for Hillary was a vote for the underdog after Iowa, and a belief that Hillary needed to win N.H. to keep this a two candidate race. People weren't ready for her to go away and the media kept insisting she was done if she lost New Hampshire.
I just don't see race as a factor, and racism even less so.
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