Election Obsession 08 Continues

Last night’s primary has everyone scratching their heads over how they could have been SO wrong in their forecasts about the Democrat results in New Hampshire. Now it’s all about how Hillary Clinton managed to get the women voters back in her corner, partly (or mainly, as some reporters seem to be suggesting), with her display of emotion on Monday. I realize that this is how people vote—they vote based on how a candidate makes them feel, whether it seems there is a real person behind the lingo and the promises, and whether they feel that they can trust that person. But it still seems like such a fickle reason to get on board the Clinton train. I hope the women of New Hampshire, who were 2/3 of the Clinton vote, had bigger and better reasons to cast their votes this way. I choose to believe that they did.

At any rate, this is not necessarily a bad thing for Obama, although it certainly adds a level of complexity to the race that went missing for a few days. Between Iowa and New Hampshire, Republicans had basically shifted all of their attention from Clinton to Obama, and now that Clinton has shown she’s still very much in this race, the Rep. group will have to split their criticism once again between the two Dem. candidates. And Obama is solid when he’s on the defense, anyway.

One note on the Republican primary side, boy was John McCain’s speech surprisingly bad. He seemed stiff and uncomfortable and I don’t think he did himself any favors. But I’m sure he can bounce back easily by crying tomorrow or hugging puppies.