Interesting. I'm not sure I fully agree, but your comments are indeed thought-provoking.

My article was written mainly to show how the mainstream media all got it wrong, and I magnanimously included myself in with the pack, to show this wasn't some personal vendetta, but more of a mea culpa.

Ultimately, the pollsters were the ones who got it wrong, or got it inaccurate at the very least. We all just followed their lead.

My main point was that you truly can't trust any of us to "call" the race in your state in advance. None of us has the resources of a professional pollster, and sometimes all the "undecideds" decide something unexpected, so even the pros can't be trusted either.

But you do raise a good point about bloggers. Now, in my mind, the only credible bloggers would have been (1) New Hampshire-based bloggers, or (2) bloggers actually on the ground in NH. Anyone else (including me) are relying on others' reports of what the situation is like on the ground, so we're all secondary sources. But primary sources close to the action could have conceivably ferreted out the true situation.

Did any of them do so? The blogosphere is so huge that I can't keep track of it all myself, so I ask you -- did anyone get it right at all? Or did even the home team bloggers get it wrong?

-CW

That the polls got it wrong is perhaps no story at all. That Clinton won is even not really a story. The fact that the blogs got it wrong IS THE STORY that comes out of the NH primary.

"Citizen journalism" has been touted to the high heavens as "THE corrective" for bad, biased or agenda-driven "professional journalism". The implication, if not the explicit declaration, has been that the "social we" can be counted on to "get it right". The citizen journalist has been crowned as the final court of appeal as the source of "truth" whenever facts reported in the commercial press are in any doubt.

The meltdown of the blogosphere in the New Hampshire primary calls all of this into serious question, both generally and particularly in reference to the political blogosphere, and the latter is the more interesting question.

It seems very clear now that the blogosphere must be different in some very critical way(s) from the electorate, because regardless of how the "Clinton Comeback" occurred, or why, the phenomenon at the polls should have been reflected in the blogosphere if the nexus between blogs and the electorate had been truly robust.

I am utterly disinterested in how or why the professional pollsters got it wrong. It's not the first time, and won't be the last. What interests me is how the blogs - if, in fact, blogs are one "voice of the people" - got it wrong when the same people spoke with a different voice - their votes. How, if we are truly talking about the SAME SOURCE, could the messages have been different?

I think there may be another facet to it. Many people are dumping their "land line" phones entirely and just relying on their cell phones. And while I'm not 100% sure about it, I think these numbers are off-limits for pollsters. This trend (if I'm right) may also contribute to skewing the polls.

Mjolnir -

Ah, you speak of the "Masshole Effect." Heh heh. OK, I apologize, I just couldn't resist! You raise a good point. I think the college kids are back in school, but maybe not for all schools. Interestingly, this contributed to Obama's win in Iowa due to their strange rules. Iowa college students were not back on campus yet, and Obama encouraged them to go to the caucuses in their home regions. Because the rural counties proportionally count for more in Iowa, this may have helped boost Obama's Iowa numbers. But that's just rampant speculation on my part, I have no data to back it up with.

Thanks to both of you for writing!

-CW

I too am hoping at this will keep voter turnout high.

...Stan