Comments on: Handshakes, not the Internet, win N.H. for Clinton and McCain

The New Hampshire presidential primary showed that two candidates who are underdogs on the Internet are perfectly viable in the real world.

[Lee in San Diego]

Well that makes sense

How big is New Hampshire, how many people. Handshaking most
of the voters will not be so easy in the larger States.

[rhsc]

re: well that makes sense

Small is a relative term. New Hampshire has more than a million residents. Good luck shaking that many hands

[randombits]

Television, Newspapers

The article left out the influence of television and newspapers who often push for their favorite candidates with extreme bias.

[sanenazok]

tell that to Mitt

Ooo the media is so evil! They have a product and they sell it.

I'm pretty sure Romney outspent all other candidates on advertising in both NH and Iowa yet he failed to win either. One of the commentaries on PBS last night was that media endorsements AND media advertising had NO impact on the polling, with one exception - the Huckabee ad with Chuck Norris, which saw a slight increase, but only for a week or so. I'm not too worried about media influence, especially since people who watch the partisan media are already, well, partisan and would vote a certain way in any event. I'm sure Huckabee isn't counting on votes from Air America listeners (is that even still up?) and Obama isn't going to be getting the vote of Foxnewz viewers.

[Stating]

$200 A Vote Doesn't Hurt Either

Candidates spent $200 per vote in Iowa. I'll bet a certain Demo candidate spent $300 in New Hampshire.

[theeighteenthofjanuary]

myspace

I am a regular user of myspace. I tried several times the day of the "myspace primary" to vote, but each time i did- nothing happened. my vote would never go through. was it because of my choice of candidate? who knows? my choice was hillary clinton. i will also note that although barack obama is counted among my myspace friends, he is not my choice for the primary. if i am any example, these internet gauges might not be an accurate way of predicting who people will vote for in the primary.

[chash360]

Elections rigged

How can one state's primaries deviate from a nation wide 'poll' of citizens that choose so differently? There is not even a statistical relationship between the NH results and the political communities online. How many people live in NH, verses how many have expressed their views online. Being online or not should not really be a deciding factor in political canidates, there are so many more non-net related issues.

Answer: its rigged, they will tell you who won, and how will you know any different? Did you count the votes? We are no longer in control of our gov, not sure that we ever were. We need to update our voting system for the new century. The only reason we have the electoral college system was the logistical difficulties in massive nation wide voting of the past. With a proper secured electronic voting system, where you store your vote uniquely and anonomously on local storage (a voter memory card, etc) as well as online uniquely and anonomously, to validate no tampering occurs with your vote, we could have a system we could trust. Distribute the anonymous voter memory cards (picked at random from a bin), through gov offices, DMV, etc, by showing valid registered voter ID. Only with a validating anonymous system, can we trust any electronic voting system, otherwise it is just to easy for them to cheat (just like the last time).

Until then our 'democracy' and 'elections' will continue to be controlled by those with enough money or influence to control the media coverage and spin.

They control our system by limiting choices, and dividing people along those limited perspectives. These are the same types that imply if you are against the war, you are not supporting our troops. If you don't like the president, you are a terrorist. If you question the administartion's propoganda, or provide evidence contrary to it, you could be held without charge as an enemy of the state. So, If there is a truly honest canidate that will fight for the people, you can be fairly certain we will not get a chance to vote for them when the time comes. If we do, they will still tell us who they are putting in the office, and how will you be able to argue it? Gore had all the evidence to prove he did win the election last time, or at least florida, and evidence of tampering so why didn't he? Answer: He was not in control of the media, and the media was not free to report the truth.

[bilfor]

I agree. The elections are definitely rigged.

According to a report, vote fraud expert Bev Harris contacted the head clerk in Sutton,NH, Jennifer Call, who was forced to admit that the 31 votes Ron Paul received were completely omitted from the final report sheet, claiming "human error" was responsible for the mistake. How many other "human errors" have happened that we don't know about? Ron Paul and Barack Obama got robbed. Simple as that.

[sanenazok]

in reply to your rant...

You sure like to jump head FIRST into a strange conclusion. If I understand your argument correctly (that may be impossible) you argue that the difference between "nationwide" and "internet" polls versus the actual outcome in NH is the result of fraud.

There is an obvious alternative explanation for the difference: the VOTERS OF NH are different. Each state will deviate from the national "polls" because each state has different demographics. Obviously we know that CA will pick a liberal democrat for president REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE NATIONAL POLLS PREDICT. So no, there are plenty of reasons why a state would reach a different result than the nationwide poll.

Speaking of which, there is an enormous difference between polls and actual voting. Even well-done polls will have error rates of 3-5%, at least. Just think how a poll actually occurs - people are called up and asked how they intend to vote. There's absolutely NO guarantee that the people who tell the surveyor that they'll vote a certain way, will actually carry through. See the election between Truman and Dewey:
http://www.kennesaw.edu/pols/3380/pres/1948.html

Lastly, Internet Polls are USELESS and have NO significance other than amusement. There's no control of the survey sample and fraud is not only likely, but entirely prevalent. See an article from the National Science Foundation: http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/survey/index.jsp?id=trust

Your other comments lead me to question if you realize what the electoral college is and its relevance to primaries (hint:ZERO).

[Nuke Baby]

I am laughing at you Ron Paul supporters

Ron Paul lost because he's a crazed moron. Face it, America doesn't want him.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

[savagesteve13]

Guy is proud of Romney's vote fraud?

In the Florida primaries, Mitt Romney supporters were videotaped voting multiple times in a FL straw poll. This has happened just about everywhere it is allowed (yes it is allowed at some places!).

Now you know why Mitt's numbers are so high, his Mormon cult followers will do ANYTHING to put him in the White House so he can turn around and enrich the Mormon Church with tax dollars.

[poindexteriii]

To argue with..

.. an idiot is an exercise in futility, but I will post in the case someone may have an interest in the points to be considered. If Ron Paul wants to remove troops from Iraq to eliminate the 1 trillion U.S. $ deficit our grandchildren will be paying, that sounds dumb, huh? How about limiting the Gov. spending to only a balanced budget, and a smaller one at that, sounds dumb too? Ok, maybe removing the Private Federal Reserve, which is a private corporation of banks who's tax collection (FICA), was shown in the Regan (Grey's Gov. Audit Commission), not one cent returns to the American people in any service, benefit, or payment and is 100% absorbed by the FED. I'll bet that sound really dumb. And once the Liberal (Socialist) Democrats made their moves on our children through public school indoctrination, we now call a human embryo a fetus, thus dehumanizing them and made a case to kill our own population. We take down the 10 commandments, remove the pledge of alegance, force the language of neighboring counrties on our our kids. Now, maybe you should ask your media gods why they haven't told you that there is a government move to join the US, Canada, & Mexico into one financial structure (search term: Amero). What about the RFID chips the people in power are planning to stick in us to "secure" OUR finances, and, oh yea, without it you can't buy, sell, or trade, so you had better get used to doing what "they" tell you or they might just turn your off and render you a non-citizen. That sounds absolutly Orwellian, but look into it yourself, until the Internet becomes policed anyways. Net Neutrality, anyone read this thing? No? Am I just paranoid, or maybe just informed by someone outside of the private mainstream media.
Who are you gona trust with your childrens future? Any one of these other cantidates have a solid track record of voting with the people's rights according to the U.S. Constitution, no a one. One even refuses to salute the American Flag and will swear on a Koran.

[JohnnyL]

Takes more to be a citizen that sitting on your Ass

If all it took to be a responsible citizen of this country was to sit on your ass and click your mouse a few times then everyone would fulfilling their civic duty. Fortunately it take a little more effort than that which is why it should surprise anyone that great internet numbers is no predictor of the real world. Its really funny to see all of the so called journalists and pundits take it on the chin. They obviously were doing their own jobs by sitting on their rears instead of getting out and actually talking to real people.

[spm82]

Independents won for McCain

The fact that people didn't have to be registered as Republicans to participate in the Republican primary are what won it for John McCain. He is quite possibly the most liberal of the Republican candidates, but if opposing a candidate like Hillary or Obama the bulk of these independents would likely not vote for him. FYI, that's also the obvious reason Ron Paul got 8% or whatever it was he finished with.
As for the idiot that blasted Giuliani's placement, if you followed any political commentary you would know that Giuliani barely touched down in Iowa or New Hampshire. He is focusing right now on Florida and Michigan and very well may win both states, much to my chagrin as a supporter of another GOP candidate.

[savagesteve13]

McCain has ethical issues

He's one of the Keating Five, he took bribes from the lobbyist Charles Keating who was later convicted of federal crimes. McCain was heavily involved in the S&L crisis that cost American taxpayers 1 trillion dollars in bailout money.

Well at least he isn't a Mormon.

[Dr_Zinj]

From New Hampshire

The internet did not make or break any of the candidates campaigns here in N.H. What it did do is provide an additional venue, more responsive to the voters, to discover information about the candidates: their history, their stands on issues, where they were going to appear, etc.

In the past week, we were deluged with junk mail fliers, e-mail ads, and phone calls. Saturday alone I counted over 25 political phone calls to my house, and that doesn't count the dozen or so ones that hung up as soon as the answering machine came on.

I'm a barely registered Republican, although my actual voting habits are more Independent. I evaluated all the candidates several times over the past couple of months and arrived at the conclusion that Ron Paul would be the best person in the White House for the nation. Unfortunately, at this time he is not really electable; and there are several Republicans running that are not suitable to run this country. That being the case, I voted for McCain as being the second most suitable Republican in an effort to shut out the undesireables.

On the Democratic side, it will really come down to Obama and Clinton - Edwards might make a good VP running mate, but isn't going to be able to stir the nation like these other two. Clinton makes a good speech, but looking back at her performance in Washington, as well as historically, she is as much business as usual as the current occupants of the White House. Obama really is the only viable Democratic change candidate.

Here's a little history on Ms. Clinton from my experience. My apologies to the Dales if this causes some undesired attentions to be placed back on them. Ms Hillary claims to have extensive experience in how to run the presidency by virtue of her work behind the scenes during her husband's terms of office. That being the case, she was probably intimately involved, if not instrumental, in the events leading to the Travelgate scandal. For those who fail to remember, Travelgate was the situation where the administration basically attempted to frame Billy Dale, the then manager of the White House Travel Office, in order to justify their firing him from his civil service position, converting that position into a contracted job and giving it to the cronies of the Clintons. What happened then was the administration put Mr Dale, and his extended family, through hell on earth for a couple of years, and eventually had to drop their case due to absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing. So I'm not too keen on Ms. Clinton's honesty because of that. Now Ms. Clinton claims to be concerned about the healthcare situation in this nation. But it seems to me that that's a bit of crocodile tears; as the stress of the Travelgate investigation probably caused Mrs. Blanche Dale, wife of Billy, to suffer a stroke from which she never fully recovered.

What this means is that Hillary is the penultimate politician. As I see it, as long as she's going where you want her to, you have a wonderfully aggressive fighter working for you. But the minute you are no longer of use to her, or you get in her way, you'll find you're riding a tiger that's likely to turn and devour you. At least Obama doesn't have a track record of kneecapping his opponents.

[nuckelhedd]

You make me sick...

You wrote "I evaluated all the candidates several times over the past couple of months and arrived at the conclusion that Ron Paul would be the best person in the White House for the nation. Unfortunately, at this time he is not really electable; and there are several Republicans running that are not suitable to run this country. That being the case, I voted for McCain as being the second most suitable Republican in an effort to shut out the undesireables." What a crock of bull you pissant! You as much as admit you knew who was best and then went ahead and voted the other way. Pay attention to what I am about to say... Not voting for the candidate who would do the best job is tantamount to dereliction of duty in as much as thoughts like the one you put forth are infectious and wrong. Where do you suppose you got the idea that a vote for the little guy was wasted> Thin you came up with it on your own? Nope. You sucked up all the fatalism you ever heard and did what you were told. Don't argue you have no grounds. You didn't do what you wanted to and as such you have given up your right to speak of freedom sir. Get out of my home state now as you don't deserve the freedom you say you hold dear. It's spineless fools such as yourself that keep this country from taking back our Government. I sir have fought for the freedoms you say you hold dear in three wars and I can't believe you would willy nilly blow any chance you have at making your voice heard. As for Obama , he is the product of a militant muslim upbringing by both his biological father and his step-father and won't salute the american flag or say the pledge of allegiance. Don't take my word for it look it up at Snopes.com

In the future , if you get one, vote your mind. The rest of us don't need you to "help" us make sure the right person gets into office. Awfully arrogant of you to assume the rest of us are incapable of voting for ourselves. As if your vote for Mc Cain (the sell out) is supposed to endear you to us as selfless. It only proves to me that you are spineless.

RON PAUL in 08
Live Free Or Die

Remember it on election day

[scdecade]

What's important to you?

You wrote you "arrived at the conclusion that Ron Paul would be the best person in the White House for the nation." Then you wrote "I voted for McCain as being the second most suitable Republican." What is your criteria for voting republican? McCain wants US troops in Iraq for 100 years! This from a man who rotted in a prison cell in Vietnam for no good reason... Anyway, if you're voting republican because you want to keep your money I sympathize with you but please, please, please for this election only (if need be) give some consideration for our 18 years kids fighting and dying in Iraq. What price tag do you put on their lives?

[CPotts13]

More on the candidates online

http://mashable.com/2008/01/09/ron-paul-still-tops-the-charts-on-the-internet/

[sabot96]

Polls

The scientific polls are done over the phone with a random sample. This type of polling should favor the older voters because they are the ones that still use phones. Many of the younger voters, like my self, are cell phone only. There is no explanation for the huge variations in the polls for Paul and Obama other than voter fraud.