A rueful I-told-you-so post

TNR's Michael Crowley makes two excellent points. First:

With about 95 percent counted around midnight [Tuesday] night, Hillary was leading by 10 points. But now, with 99.44 percent counted, the Pennsylvania Secretary of State shows her winning 54.6 to 45.4. That's only 9.2 points--less than her 10.3 margin in Ohio, and less than the 10.5 bar that all-powerful CW-arbiter Mark Halperin had set for her.   

Yet no one cares. The storyline is clearly that Hillary had a decisive victory which keeps her campaign alive.

Why isn't the reality of single digits a bigger problem for her? One reason is that the final margin often matters less than the presumed margin when people like Russert go to bed.

That's absolutely true, and is something that I anticipated on Monday: "I maintain that a double-digit win is necessary for Clinton to really claim an unalloyed 'victory' ... Though, the state of the race at around 10:00 or 11:00 PM Eastern time probably matters at least as much as the actual final numbers, since the media usually decides its transitory 'winners' and 'losers' before bedtime on the East Coast."

And, speaking of things that make me say I told you so:

Another reason--one an Obama aide was just grumbling to me about--is the weird havoc exit polls play with the media's primary-night storylines. Yesterday's early exit polls had suggested a nail-biter that suggested Hillary might be finished. Yet, much like Super Tuesday, Hillary made a "comeback" over the course of the night, as her vote margin gradually widened. Why, it was almost as though Obama had Hillary on the ropes and she fought him off with pure grit and determination. Impressive! She's back!

If I were a Machiavellian Obama operative, next time I might consider leaking some phony exits showing misleading strength for Hillary.

As I said repeatedly before this completely predictable occurrence happened, there's absolutely no excuse for the media to be fooled by that exit poll nonsense anymore, because Obama always does better in the leaked exit polls than he does in the final results. ALWAYS!! It's happened over and over and over again: New Hampshire, Super Tuesday, Texas & Ohio, and now Pennsylvania. Will these idiots never learn?

Apparently not, because this was the #2 post on Real Clear Politics from 6:00 PM till 10:00 PM Tuesday night...

[O]n Super Tuesday, ... Clinton was able to initially spin a "victory" out of her lukewarm performance, largely because the media was expecting Obama to win some "big states" based on those early, favorable numbers. Likewise on March 4, Hillary was able to claim "success" for her Texas and Ohio "firewall," even though she really needed much larger margins to make meaningful delegate progress, in part because the leaked exit polls again conned the punditry into expecting better showings by Obama, possibly including a win in one or both states.

It'll be a travesty and a farce if that happens again. Hillary Clinton needs to win big -- like, double digits big -- and make significant delegate gains in order to claim any kind of a meaningful victory in Pennsylvania tonight. That basic fact will not change one iota if Drudge and The Corner and Talking Points Memo and the Huffington Post (and, er, the Irish Trojan) publish initial, meaningless numbers this afternoon that show a "OMG A DEAD HEAT IN PENNSYLVANIA!!1!" and then Hillary "pulls away" and wins by 6 or 8 points or whatever. ...

If Hillary, yet again, does substantially better than the exit polls suggest, nobody should be surprised, and still less should she get favorable, "expectations"-based spin as a result. Obama's early "lead," in that event, will have been (again) a complete chimera. So please, for heaven's sake, let's not get all excited if history repeats itself again.

...and yet history did indeed repeat itself. Now watch: in two weeks, the leaked exits will show Obama up 25 in North Carolina and 10 in Indiana, the Clinton campaign post-mortems will begin, and then Hillary will be the "comeback kid" yet again when she "only" loses NC by 15, and ekes out a 1-point victory in the Hoosier State. ARGH.

Comments

[dcl]

Hillary is really annoying...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBGyuYKlxIg

blah...

[Angrier and Angrier]

The media play this stupid game all of the time. The worst part is they are so f-ing patronizing in their tone. I think Russert and the old bald dude on CNN are the worst. They talk to viewers like they are a bunch of f-ing 'tards who have never read a newspaper or seen an election before.

[Alasdair]

Brendan - you ask if the media will ever learn ... "Will these idiots never learn?
" ...

I sorta ask the same question - except I ask it about the electorate and the consumers of the media ...

[Patriot Paul]

I don't need a flag pin to show my patriotism. I can wear a USMC T-shirt in a pickup basketball game.

[copndor]

Good. That way you can take that flag pin and shove it up your ass.

[Patriot Paul]

Uh, oh . . . someone got hit where there candidate lives . . . (which country is that again????).

Score !

[Self-Conscious Self-hating Rich Rich-hating Liberal (or Patriot Paul)]

I wish Obama wasn't such a pandering weak bafoon. He seemed so different pre-super tuesday. Can we have Iowabama back ???

Pander to Ayers
Pander to women
I'd Pander to the Right
If I understood freedom.

I don't need a flag pin
to show I'm true blue
But when military votes matter
I'll do what needs do.

[Jim]

The interesting thing to watch for in these upcoming races... to my knowledge, Hillary has never made significant inroads against Obama in the run up to a race. The polls generally stabilize a bit in the week leading up to a race, but whatever the polling is at when the focus shifts to said race generally shifts 10 points towards Obama.

So, in that sense, if she can eek out a 1 point win in Indiana it will be impressive. That means she held him to a pretty small gain, essentially within the margin of error for the early polls.

I, however, will stick with history and expect a small win for Obama in Indiana, and 15 points in NC.