LH, I have enjoyed and admired your posts lo these many years, but I think on this one, you're lway off base. Have you read anything I've posted on this and the other NH primary thread?

Even if you reversed the votes for Hillary and Obama, they would stil end up with the same number of delegates.

Here is an analysis of the polling problem. The link wont work, so I am posting the article here:

This just in: Pollsters were right

By SHAWNE K. WICKHAM
New Hampshire Sunday News Staff
Sunday, Jan. 13, 2008

After Hillary Clinton's surprise victory over fellow Democratic Sen. Barack Obama in Tuesday's New Hampshire Primary, everyone was asking: How did the polls get it so wrong?

They didn't, several pollsters told the New Hampshire Sunday News last week; events on the ground and last-minute deciders changed the outcome.

"We didn't have a polling problem," said Dick Bennett, president of American Research Group. "We ran out of time."

When ARG stopped polling at 9 p.m. on the eve of the primary, Clinton's numbers, which had dropped after Obama won the Iowa caucus on Jan. 3, were heading back up, Bennett said. "We had a three-point shift in favor of her that day, and it was growing that night when we stopped."

Pollsters note they weren't wrong about the rest of Tuesday's results -- including Obama's support. All the final polls showed Obama with between 35 and 40 percent of the vote -- within the margin of error for the 37 percent he ultimately tallied.

And the polls were correct on the Republican side, predicting the victory of Sen. John McCain and the order of finish among the rest of the field.
"Perfect storm"

So it was only Clinton's numbers that changed dramatically.

And by late last week, there was a growing consensus that a "perfect storm" of factors contributed to Clinton's late surge:

    * A rare display of emotion at a Portsmouth coffee shop on Monday showed a softer side of the candidate.

    * Clinton's deft handling of a Saturday night debate question about her "likability" -- and the perception among some that rivals Obama and former Sen. John Edwards were "ganging up" on her during that debate.

    * Springlike weather that likely contributed to a record turnout, particularly among women, who made up 57 percent of voters in the Democratic primary -- and who went for Clinton over Obama 46 to 34 percent.

    * Clinton campaigned hard in the final days, spending hours answering voters' questions and visiting polling places.

    * A barrage of late attacks on Clinton may have backfired -- like the one by two men from a Boston radio station who chanted "Iron My Shirt" during her appearance in Salem last Monday.

    * Some independent Obama supporters who saw his big lead in the polls may have felt free to vote for another candidate -- like Republican winner McCain.

    * And, finally, voter resistance to the pundits' predictions.

"If you add all of those little factors together, you could probably come up with the difference between the polls and the final numbers," University of New Hampshire pollster Andy Smith said.

And, Bennett suggested, "Have Hillary Clinton buy you a lottery ticket. Because she was lucky this all came together ..."
Obama's softer support

Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, said another overlooked factor was that polling consistently showed Clinton's support was more solid than Obama's or Edwards'.

According to Rasmussen, exit polls indicated that of the 39 percent of Democratic voters who went for Clinton, more than a third made up their minds in the three days before voting. He believes many of those late deciders may have been swayed to support Obama immediately after he won the Iowa caucus, but then went back to Clinton.

On Sunday evening, the UNH Survey Center found 21 percent of those they surveyed were still trying to make up their minds. "So what we were getting was a classic example of a time when a late shift, which we've seen in New Hampshire before, can have an impact," noted Smith.

The only demographic change was among women, Smith said. "Sunday night, Obama was leading among women 38 to 34, and according to the exit polls, he lost among women 46 to 34."
Rallying around Clinton

Here's why Bennett thinks that occurred: "All you had to do was turn on the cable news networks and all they ran after the debate was (WMUR reporter Scott) Spradling's question, and all they ran after Monday was her tearing up, her emotional response. I think women said enough is enough."

Linda Fowler, professor of government at Dartmouth College, said she felt that herself. "I was not a Hillary supporter but I almost changed my vote just to prove (her detractors) wrong," she said.

"I think there was a lot of sense among women that the press was piling on Clinton, that they were writing her political obituary."

In hindsight, Fowler said, "I think the New Hampshire case was just an example of why one has to treat polls gingerly, or be more attuned to the undecideds." With lots of undecided voters, she said, "Small, trivial, late-breaking events have a disproportionate influence."

Smith also noted Clinton's get-out-the-vote organization was the "best I've ever seen."

"Campaigns do matter," he said. "They were able to shape the message as well as have the organization to deliver a new message and get those people to the polls."
Compressed news cycle

Paul Manuel, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, contends the real problem is how polls are reported in a world of 24/7 news.

"You have to feed the monster, and so they'll take a poll result and distort what it's telling us," he said.

But a poll is a meant to be a snapshot of a moment in time, not a prediction, he said.

"In the end, what the polls told us, I think, was accurate. Hillary Clinton could have lost -- and would have lost if the election were held the day the (last) poll was taken."

He believes Obama lost on the very last day of the campaign after Clinton successfully took his message of change and used it to emphasize her own experience.

Some national pundits have suggested the inaccurate polling may have been caused by the so-called "Bradley effect," a reticence by white voters to tell pollsters they won't vote for a black candidate. But those interviewed here don't believe that's what happened; they noted all the surveys accurately predicted Obama's percentage of the vote.
Lessons learned

So what will pollsters do differently coming out of New Hampshire?

Bennett said ARG will "add more questions about the likelihood of switching votes and how firm they are."

Rasmussen said it was how the final polls were reported that went wrong. "On Tuesday morning, as we wrote about the final polls, we should have put more emphasis on the solid base of support for Clinton and more emphasis on the fact that the trend was moving back in her direction. So we'll try and be a little more cautious on that."

And Scott Keeter, director of survey research for the Pew Research Center, said survey organizations may add questions going into the South Carolina primary to try to tease out a possible race factor.

Despite all the criticism last week about voter surveys, Smith said the campaigns, the media and the public all want them.

"It would be like going to a baseball game and not knowing what the score is -- even though you know the score in the fifth inning is not what matters; it's the score at the end of the game."