The trouble I have with stories like this has nothing to do with accuracy or the media at all:

But I'm not focusing on the accuracy of horse-race predictions here, but instead, on the fact that the traveling press corps endlessly imposes its own narrative on the election, thereby completely excluding from all coverage plainly credible candidates they dislike (such as Edwards) while breathlessly touting the prospects of the candidates of whom they are enamored. Their predictions (i.e., preferences and love affairs) so plainly drive their press coverage -- the candidates they love are lauded as likely winners while the ones they hate are ignored or depicted as collapsing -- which in turn influences the election in the direction they want, making their predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies.

My problem is that this is accurate yet Democrats often have so much trouble figuring out how it works.

If the Media love unfettered access, and the Media love to predict who will win and the Media are able to anoint the next president, then why aren't we better at working them?

I could, and did, say in the past that Hillary Clinton would be a great president but that, since the media dislike her, would be a poor general election candidate. Obama, by contrast, is loved by the media.

And there you have it: if Democrats were smart, we'd always choose the media savvy pol to run against the crusty, whiny GOP idiot. Instead of whining, why don't we recognize media bias and use to elect progressive, intelligent, hard-working officials!

Is that too much to ask?

New Hampshire is tonight, but the narrative has already been written.

So all eyes are on NH. As predicted, the bounce favors Obama greatly. I think this Post article pointed out something a little more odd:

"Republicans tend to go with the early front-runners whereas Democratic front-runners, barring vice presidents like [Walter] Mondale and [Al] Gore, tend to fall by the wayside" in nomination races, said Berggren, who published his findings about the patterns in Democratic and Republican primaries in Presidential Studies Quarterly. "Since 1952 to 2004, with the exception of 1964, Republicans have had a Nixon, a Dole or a Bush on their national ticket."

Seriously? 3 Families always on the ticket? That's just bizarre. Really bizarre.

And yes, if you notice I'm quiet, it's because I don't want anything to change. Obama is looking better and better every day, in words and action. In the last debate, both Edwards and Obama made the choice clear: either you're voting for the status quo, or for change. (How that change manifests itself is interesting, as detailed in this Wapo piece.

For more fun, check out what the markets are saying.

I was, thankfully, wrong.

Obama's victory came after the longest, costliest and most intensely fought campaign in the history of the Iowa caucuses. The year-long competition produced a huge turnout that temporarily swamped some precincts and reflected the energy and enthusiasm among Democratic voters determined to recapture the White House in November.

Party officials said turnout exceeded 239,000, far above the 124,000 who participated four years ago and eclipsing even the campaigns' most optimistic forecasts.

With momentum, New Hampshire is the last state that matters, in my opinion.

Is tonight. 4 years ago I was...well, the caucus hadn't taken place yet. Let's look back

The real story should be why we placed third when our own internal polling had us ahead. Our ones were soft is the simplest explanation. (Ones are people rated as "strong Dean supporters" when identified...Fives are strongly for someone else and threes are neutral.) We had a strategy to get tons of people who hadn't participated in the caucuses to show up and vote for us. Well, tons of people did show up. Attendance was one of the highest ever. Those newbies just didn't vote for us...they voted for Kerry or Edwards. Another factor was that Kucinich supporters went for Edwards, after the two campaigns worked out a strategy beforehand. Now I feel the same way about Kucinich people as I did about Nader people last year. But finally, and more importantly, our ads were awful. We had an army of people on the ground, but voters weren't being convinced by us because ads had already told them that Dr. Dean was going to "privatize social security" (someone actually told me this! an Iowa voter!) and raise taxes and end democracy as we know it. And our rebuttal ads had the good doctor in front of a white screen talking calmly. It was very lame.

I'll predict right now that it'll be Edwards/Obama/Hilary. We'll see though...the softness of support seems lower than in previous years, but both Obama and Hilary are trying the Dean approach of "getting out new voters" which just doesn't work, in Iowa. Let's recap, Elftor style. Yeah

If any dc residents want to meet up and watch the fireworks, buzz me.

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