01.10.08
The New Hampshire Backfire
The polls all told us that Senator Obama was going to walk away with a victory in NH and leave Clinton in the dust. We were prepared for an Obama win and wondering where Clinton would go from there since she seemed to be cracking from the stress of the campaign trail…
But then something bizarre and unexpected happened. The polls turned out to be wrong and Clinton took the top slot in the New Hampshire primary elections (insert requisite gasp here).
But how can this be? Aren’t the polls golden (or at least bulletproof)?
It would seem that perhaps the “bleeding heart” effect has the power to beat out the “sheep herding” effect.
Let me explain. The polls tend to lead people. It’s a sad fact, but when people are constantly inundated by media polls, the polls start to influence people. After all, why put your time and energy into somebody who isn’t going to win anyway? Isn’t it better to jump on the “sure thing?” Isn’t it better to be part of the winning team?
From a psychological standpoint, people tend to be sheep. They are easily led by the might of the media. When the TV speaks, it is gospel. After all, they wouldn’t be on TV if they didn’t know best, right?
This is why polls seems to have a cascading effect. They can declare somebody as “finished” and scare people away from them and into the winning camps. Of course, this is dangerous since declaring anything based on the polls - especially early on in the process - is ridiculous. Yet, if you tell people the same thing over and over again, they will start to concede.
This is why the New Hampshire primary results threw people. The voting public went against the polls. They threw “inevitability” out right on it’s face.
Why?
As an amateur psychologist and a semi-objective observer (I dislike them both equally), it is easy to see what could have happened here. Setting aside all conspiracy theories, voter fraud theories and silly rhetoric; the most logical assumption is that the bleeding heart effect overrode the sheep instinct. It’s a classic liberal trick (hence the “bleeding hearts” nickname), and Clinton took advantage of it two-fold in New Hampshire.
First off, there was the weeping incident where Clinton put forth efforts to shun her bitter husk of an exterior and show the people that she is, in fact, a human being. Not just a human being, but a woman with real feelings and emotions.
Anybody who thinks that this wasn’t a very carefully planned, plotted and executed maneuver by the Clinton campaign needs to rethink their opinion on politics. A Clinton does not make a move before scrutinizing it first and determining how that sort of maneuvering will gain them. A momentary show of weakness and emotion is nothing more than a ploy designed to exploit the emotions of the voting crowds.
Second, she drew a massive amount of heckling and criticism from her opposition from the weeping incident. Again, this was calculated and anticipated by the Clinton campaign - but to the casual observer it looked as if “poor Hillary” was getting beat down for showing some emotion - and being a woman - under the stress of the campaign trail. This not only made Clinton look more human, it also demonized her opponents.
Oops.
I don’t want to tread on too many people’s toes here, but the truth of the matter is that a great number of people who stray to the left of the political spectrum are guided by their heart strings more so than their brains. When they see one of their own in a fragile state and being “bullied” by others, they will rush to support that poor soul in much greater numbers.
In short, Obama et al. fell prey to the antics of their supporters (and in Edwards’ case, his own antics) and Clinton came out on top. And I would reckon that the only people who weren’t surprised by the disparity between the polls and the actual results were the Clintons and their handlers.
There’s a lesson to be learned here, and that is simply that sheep can be swayed in a number of ways. The media, while frighteningly powerful, can still make the wrong calls. In this case, the extremely rapid effect of the bleeding heart was not anticipated by the media nor reflected in their polls.
Remember, the political game is afoot, and anybody who thinks that the media polls are calling the shots needs to guess again. There are no declared winners or losers yet - despite what the polls may tell us. The tides can change with the smallest and seemingly insignificant of actions. The key is to catch on to what they’re doing before you get led astray.
underdog said,
January 10, 2008 at 11:11 am
Question…
IF the % totals would have came out as POLLED instead of the raw vote count…
Would there have been any difference? - both got 9 delegates.
Are we betting on horses or collecting delegates?
All of this % based phsyco horse race meaningless talking head babbling on about who won or lost is irrelevant unless you actually think that the media can talk you in to how you will finally cast your ballot.
Democracy in the raw sense is a fantasy anyway… get over it and be happy.
Jamelle said,
January 10, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I don’t think explanation for Tuesday’s result is particularly complicated. Obama did as well as expected, it’s Senator Clinton who betrayed expectations, and I think her victory was driven by the upsurge in support by women, and by the 18% of the electorate who was undecided and threw their lot with Senator Clinton.
underdog said,
January 10, 2008 at 12:10 pm
i agree
alaskancamel said,
January 10, 2008 at 1:13 pm
not to beat a dead horse….but I did notice that our local paper mentioned Fred Thompson many times, but never once mentioned Ron Paul who beat him by quite a margin and fell just shy of Rudy (who had quite a bit of press coverage as well).
I know he cant win, but I have finally decided he still has my vote. Just waiting for Feb 5.
wickle said,
January 10, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Arclightzero is probably right about the psychology of liberals in that sense. There also might be another effect from the polls, which was that independents who were torn between McCain and Obama (which begs the question … how can you be torn between those two?) thought Obama had it in the bag, and therefore went toward McCain.
To underdog, I’m not sure how many people think about the delegates. I think that most people look at it as a win/lose thing, rather than the fact that a huge win is better than a close win.
mpinkeyes said,
January 10, 2008 at 6:43 pm
“Clinton took the top slot in the New Hampshire primary elections (insert requisite gasp here).”
Nobody has gasped louder than I have.
You make a great point about liberal thinking with their heart. They want to do what makes them feel good, whether the results end up being good or not doesn’t matter as ling as they tried they can feel good. Perhaps you are right, and when liberal women saw Hillary as being bullied they came to her rescue.
Underdog makes a good point about winning and losing. Romney is now being written off for not winning in Iowa or New Hampshire, yet he is the Republican delegate leader.
arclightzero said,
January 10, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Sadly, I think the media has more sway with the voters than it should. As I said, people are sheep these days. Not everybody, no, but there are plenty out there who are addicted to the media and hang on every word they say. I am just uncertain as to how much influence (by the numbers) they actually have over the election process.
arclightzero said,
January 10, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Camel, I sympathize and honestly, I can’t figure out why Ron Paul has been so shunned. Personally, I like the guy but since I am a hawk when it comes to foreign policy, I strongly disagree with him there and that is why I can’t support him.
I also think that he might be getting shunned as the result of his rabid supporters who are constantly out there making asses of themselves. I’m just speculating though, because really I don’t know how it is that he can take higher numbers and still be blown off.
arclightzero said,
January 10, 2008 at 7:54 pm
and as a side note, I will always encourage people to vote their conscious. Voting any other way is just an insult to the right to vote and makes a mockery of the whole process. I guess that’s why the media’s influence bothers me so much…
So by all means, vote for Ron Paul. I would never discourage you if you believe that he is the right choice.
mcdizzell said,
January 10, 2008 at 8:25 pm
to be honest i’m still shocked that people voted for hillary over obama in NH. I mean i know what happened and I know why, she criedl; oh boo hoo. That was what surprised me of all and this may bring up another problem, that people are too swayed by emotion and looking like jerks. I mean i thought women were overall wiser and more thought out of who they should vote for and why. (Maybe we should take their vote away again, haha just kidding.)
My point is that I looked at Hillary crying as a negative at least from my stand point. arclightzero, you were right on how it was a carefully executed plan for her to cry because it definately garnered her a good portion of the votes. And I feel that my president should not cry. Not to say they should not have emotions or not be a human being, but i want my president to be stronger than that. because if the election is a popularity contest for a lot of people, then why don’t they vote for someone who has a stronger character. I think our president should be strong and stoic and NOT CRY AND BUCKLE UNDER THE PRESSURE HILLARY. (even though she knew what she was doing) I’m just mad that those people fell for it.
I mean our president cannot and should not buckle under pressure or atleast continue reading the book to chirldren in a classroom in florida when buildings are hit by planes. oooooh
I don’t know, just my opinion.
And alaskancamel, yeah go ron paul, true underdog of this whole thing.
alaskancamel said,
January 11, 2008 at 10:02 am
Arc,
I couldnt agree with you more. I went to a rally the other day here for Ron Paul. A good 10% of his supporters had half a brain. The rest made me want to hide. They were misquoting him and chanting all sorts of drival. Oh well, cant win em all.
Lily said,
January 11, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Very nicely written, with excellent factuals. Far and away a pleasure to read amidst the jumble of sleepy rhetoric and copycat prose. Thank you.
mpinkeyes said,
January 11, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Ryan, I agree with you about Ron Paul. I love his domestic policies with regards to the constitution. And I would have considered voting for him if it wasn’t for his asinine foreign policy ideas and his blame America first attitude.
viciemonkey said,
January 12, 2008 at 7:25 am
You forget one other “sympathy garnering” example. The men who shouted “Iron my shirt!” I believe that those men were plants. No one would say that today. Even her opponents would realize that all that the comment would do is drive people over to her side in greater numbers (which it did). On another note…whatever happened to the man who stormed into her campaign headquarters? Already forgotten. I have said this before, but by hook or by crook, she will do anything to win. She is no lady.
femdeminova said,
January 12, 2008 at 7:55 am
mcdizzell,
Why do you consider showing a bit of emotion, regardless if it was planned and calculated or not, buckling under pressure? And had that been John McCain and not a woman, would you feel the same way? Judging from your “joke” about taking women’s voting rights away because they sympatized with or voted for Hillary in the NH primary, I highly doubt it. Hillary is getting all of these negative comments for showing emotion because she is a woman and that is absurd! She is a strong, competent qualified candidate who cares passionately about our country!
arclightzero said,
January 12, 2008 at 8:30 am
McDizzell, I agree with you whole-heartedly. It may sound cold and definitely not politically correct, but I’m glad you said it. You’re right! Crying and breaking down - whether real or contrived - is not a quality we need in a President. Crying over a massive tragedy is one thing. Showing real emotion over an emotional topic (like Bush tearing up at the Holocaust Museum the other day) is fine… But if the campaign is supposedly taking this much out of Clinton, and she is breaking down like this… Is that the kind of leader that the greatest nation on earth needs? Our enemies (and probably our friends our friends too) would split their sides from laughing!
arclightzero said,
January 12, 2008 at 8:30 am
Lilly, thank you so much! Very kind words. Thank you for stopping by.
arclightzero said,
January 12, 2008 at 8:33 am
Steve, the other thing about Ron Paul that turned me off so completely - and Camel said it too - is that his supporters really went off the deep end. Somehow they never learned that that you cannot hope for your candidate to win when you’re helping to sink the ship. “Normal” people are going to be scared away, thinking that only a nut would attract other nuts…
arclightzero said,
January 12, 2008 at 8:39 am
Vicie, you’re probably right. Clinton is known for her plants already. What could it be a better follow-up to the weeping incident than planting some people to make fun of her for being a woman?
It’s a perfect plan, and it seemed to have worked. The women in NH who were swayed by this ought to know that they are tossing aside everything that women have been working towards for the past decades. I mean, we can talk about emotions and women all day long, but would this be the way Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meir would have acted? Hell no!
arclightzero said,
January 12, 2008 at 8:44 am
femdeminova, Clinton is only as strong and qualified as the Clinton campaign wants us to believe. we have no idea what her actual strengths or qualifications actually are. She is so well hidden behind the fabricated facade that has been created that it’s hard to tell who or what she even is any longer.
Nobody - man or woman - should show signs of stress under pressure like this. If she [supposedly] can’t handle the “stress” of the campaign trail, how would she handle an actual stressful situation where she has to make decisions where people’s lives are at stake? How would she have handled 9/11? Could she handle managing a war where her people are dying?
If yes, then her little fake weeping incident is utterly despicable because it was nothing but a lie to woo bleeding heart supporters.
If no, and her weeping was actually her showing signs of weakness under stress, then she has no business sitting behind the big desk.
A.M. said,
January 13, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Thank you for a very compelling observation about what you’ve coined as the “bleeding heart effect.” I would push that concept further however. Given that the source of the bleed is from the heart, “fight or flight” response becomes the instinctual act. If one’s survival is (or perceived to be) threatened, fear overwhelms the brain’s response biologically. It’s instinctual. Women (who rallied for Clinton in N.H.) defended “one of their own” from attack. This tactic — based-in Darwinism — is also used in military operations.
arclightzero said,
January 14, 2008 at 9:11 am
Thank you for stopping by and giving your two cents!
I am impressed that you took this observation to this level, but you are very right in your analysis of the biological aspect of this regarding the “fight or flight” response. In essence, that is what I meant by the “bleeding heart effect.” There are people who are definitely governed by their heart in a biological sense when challenges like this are invoked. While people like to think that they are above the control of these basic biological urges (and to be fair, many are), there are a large number of people who are. We usually refer to them as people who think with their heart rather than their heads.
Is that a bad thing? No, of course not. If everybody were cold and objective, the world would be a pretty frightening (but curiously efficient) place to live. There should be a happy medium though, and I think that is what many people strive for - that being a heart that is tempered by the head. But it takes work, and there are many people out there who just aren’t willing or capable of putting forth the effort.
alaskancamel said,
January 18, 2008 at 2:24 am
Arc,
Just to clarify my statement about some nut job followers of RP. I think those same nut jobs are in every campaign. I am still in his camp, but I believe that I understand his points and where he is coming from. These guys had no clue. They were doing more harm than good by going off on tangents that have nothing to do with Pauls platform. I have decided I am still going to vote for him and I am still going to encourage others to do so, but it will be on real topics with facts to back them up, not over zealous wackjobs who are doing more harm than good.
Like I said, I think you see those people on every campaign. I just have never been that up close and personal with them.